The Breakthrough of Typographic Printing | 17One explanation as to why typographic printing failed to establish itself to
the same extent as it did in Europe is rooted in the complexity of the writing
system. In particular, the task of typesetting the countless number of Chinese
characters was economically unprofitable, since labour costs for carving were
significantly lower. This, in turn, enabled the provision of low-priced books.
No less important was the power of typographic traditions. Although in the
1440s a simplified Korean alphabet evolved, it was not until the nineteenth
century that it was able to prevail over the well-established use of Chinese
characters, as scholars were reluctant lest it precipitate an alienation from
Neo-Confucianism. It has therefore been assumed that – had a successful sim-
plification of script taken place – letterpress printing would have developed a
similar dynamic to that in Europe (Sohn 1972: 227). This, however, may be
refuted by drawing a comparison with Japan, where a simplified Chinese script
did indeed exist, but no comparable printing tradition developed.
Aesthetic traditions also influenced the dissimilar developments. As callig-
raphy was highly valued in China, Korea and Japan, woodblock printing was
more suitable for their needs. To a large extent, luxurious books even contin-
ued to be handwritten for a considerable time. In Japan and Korea, the value
system created a rather distanced attitude, giving privilege to the art of fancy
lettering and the combination of image and writing (Giesecke 2007: 437).
Furthermore, the continued use of xylography entailed lower initial invest-
ment costs and also had a cost-cutting effect in regard to technical know-how,
thus providing wider access to printed texts. Consequently, minimum circu-
lation was not a primary concern, and printers had higher mobility (Brokaw
2005: 8, 15). Especially in China, the xylographic method enabled a virtually
unlimited number of reprints because of the large clientele, despite the wood-
blocks demanding much storage space. While in the West the capital-intensive
printing machines were only available to a few rich and central cities, such as
Lyon, Paris, Venice and Amsterdam, over in China an important advantage
of xylography was that it enabled the regional spread of the printing trade.
Scholars of Asian studies thus quite rightly condemn the deprecation of Asian
woodblock printing practices, which from a European perspective have often
appeared as nothing more than an underdeveloped intermediate stage on the
way to Western book printing (cf. Chow in Baron et al. 2007: 175).
In Asia, the zenith of the printing period did not immediately succeed
the groundbreaking inventions, but rather occurred with some delay. Since
political rulers exerted strong influence over the book production, changes
of dynasty were not without consequence. This was demonstrated by the
large expansion of the book market in Korea, in particular during the reign
of Sejong (1418–1450). Today, there remain 114 printed titles which can be
assigned to the method of movable type printing, with circulation ranging
between one hundred and three hundred copies, and 194 titles identified as