This study investigates the blossoming of woodblock print illustration in late Tang, Song, Liao, and Xi Xia regimes during the late ninth to twelfth centuries. To date, studies of early Buddhist prints have primarily focused on the relationship between text and image, and less on how the images themselves were derived and transported across vast regions to be adapted and transformed by other artisans. This study explores the way in which multiple sources contributed to the stock of imagery used by print artisans, how they standardized visual motifs into modules, and how this distilled imagery was transferred geographically. The prints studied were produced in a number of important centers including Beijing, Dunhuang, Hangzhou, Kaifeng, and Yinchuan. Compared to wall paintings in caves, temples, and tombs, printed images were portable, mass-produced, and wide-spread, hence an efficient medium for spreading these materials across regions well beyond China. This study proposes that Buddhist printed images had multiple visual sources including other prints, painting, and bas-relief tiles, many of which were not Buddhist but secular. It also shows that Buddhist illustrated prints were not necessarily related to the accompanying texts; rather, they were composed of motifs adapted from an existing pictorial vocabulary and used in a modular fashion by print artisans. In conclusion, this exploration of media transfer and modular design evident in Buddhist prints sheds light on the active role played by print artisans. Though anonymous, they were decisive in standardizing a repertoire of popular motifs and assembling, selecting, and modifying these stock images to create original and coherent compositions.
