Ku K'ai Chi

An image attributed to the Chinese courtier and painter, Ku K'ai Chi [4-5th century A.D.] There is evidence to suggest that the Chinese were producing books around the 13th/14th century B.C., although no objects still exist. It is thanks to the Chinese that we have paper [invented by Ts'ai Lun A.d. 105] and moveable type, again there is evidence to suggest that the Chinese were using earthenware type characters at the turn of the first millenium A.D. Curiously the 'discovery' of moveable type was made in Europe, entirely independently, about 600 years later.

These books were being produced on blocks of wood. Early printmaking, the image being produced by 'rubbing', would come much later, around the 7th century A.D . The Chinese produced rolls/scrolls up to the 5th century but then opted to make concertina folded sheets [Like the Mayans, only much later]
So with the advent of printmaking [wood block books in the 7th century and books constructed with imagery and moving type in the 10th century] across China and Japan we have the beginning of book printing. Europeans tend to equate the beginnings of the printed book, the fusion of moveable type with imagery, with the Gutenburg press and it is true to say that this is the birth of mass printing but the original discovery was made by the Chinese.

These are significant moments in the history of Illustration. If we consider that the reproduction is the Illustration.