Printing Press Art

The invention of the printing press depended on the invention and refinement of paper in China. The Chinese have known the secrets of creating paper for centuries before, some would say even before the Egyptians. Several centuries before, China had developed a kind of "rag" paper, a cheap cloth-srap and plant-fiber substitute for cumbersome bark and bamboo strips which were a popular medium for writing at that time. Also long before Gutenberg invented the press, the Chinese had begun using ink, block printing and movable clay type technologies, all of which are combined together in the Gutenberg printing press.

The printing press works as follows: Each letter was carved into the end of a steel punch, which was then hammered into a small piece of copper called a blank. The copper impression was inserted into a mold and a molten alloy made of lead, antimony and bismuth was poured in. The alloy cooled quickly and the resulting reverse image of the letter attached to a lead base could be handled in minutes. The width of the lead base varied according to the letter's size, therefore the base of an "i" would not be nearly as wide as the base of a "w". The resulting alloy blocks were put together either by hand or by a linotype machine (see linotype). The resulting line of type was inserted into a frame. When all of the rows of type were in the frame the printer could put them in the press, ink them and print as many copies as required. Obviously type-setting was a slow process so very often this process was only used for books or newspapers for which there was a strong demand.

If the printing press wasn't invented then the cultural and industrial revolutions wouldn't have taken place. The introduction of the printing press also changed the way the church operated. For the first time many people could read the bible by theirself, in their native language. This meant a dramatic downturn in the numbers of people that went to church. Also people began to question the authority of the church, as there was nothing in the bible about having to pay the church taxes, which was common at that time.Also the spread of words and other people's idea began to spread a lot faster after the invention of the printing press. Also more people could read the availability of books and documents. It marked Western culture's first viable method of disseminating ideas and information from a single source to a large and far-ranging audience.