At that time, before the emergence of photography technology, China's traditional hand-painted paintings were imported into Japan from the sea through woodcut printing, and gradually spread to the public. This is undoubtedly a very valuable learning opportunity for Japanese painters who could not easily see the original Chinese painting at that time. Therefore, in the18-19th century, the acceptance of China's painting spectrum in Japan directly affected the compilation and publication of Japanese painting books.
At first, after the paintings of Ming and Qing dynasties were bought by businessmen, most of them flowed into bookstores in Kyoto, Osaka and Edo. In order to meet more market demand, the bookstore called "Tangben House" among these bookstores began to re-carve and re-carve these books. In the first stage after Edo Japan accepted the Ming and Qing painting scores, almost all the original versions were re-engraved or translated or annotated without changing the original contents, so as to facilitate Japanese readers' understanding and appreciation. China's painting spectrum, copied from a new block made in Japan, is often called "harmonious block". Due to the spread of the skills of China woodcut artists living in Japan, and the quality of woodcut is not inferior to the original, it also provided technical support for Japanese painting artists to publish painting books in the Edo period.
The influence of painting spectrum in Ming and Qing dynasties on the publication of picture books by Edo painters is mainly reflected in two aspects: first, the reference of painting spectrum content; Second, the branch technology innovation from monochrome printing to color printing. Among them, there are at least two artists who are influenced by the painting contents of Ming and Qing Dynasties, namely, Orange Shouguo and Okaoka Chunbu. Tong Baozhi, a picture book compiled and published by Ju Shouguo, summarizes and refines the principles of landscape painting in Chinese works, and arranges the contents according to the teaching procedure of Biography of Mustard Garden from single practice to combination scene. The beginning of this book corresponds to the teaching viewpoint of Biography of Mustard Garden. At the end of the book are three paintings, namely, Jingshan Temple in the Snow, Sunset Scenery and Heavy Mountains in the Snow by China Yuan Dynasty painter Gao Ranhui, all of which are China scenery.
Ming and Qing dynasty painting spectrum directly influenced the publication of Japanese picture books in terms of content typesetting and printing techniques. Based on the painting spectrum of Ming and Qing Dynasties, Japanese picture books simplified and rearranged the contents, and gradually explored color overprint on the basis of block printing, thus giving painting publications higher appreciation value to meet the expanding market demand.
To sum up, Painting Spectrum of Ming and Qing Dynasties is a typical presentation of Japanese painting books published in Edo, which not only provides rich contents for book typesetting and formulates schema norms, but also plays an important role in theoretical art, poetry appreciation and aesthetic taste.