The paper used was fuxie [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], carbon copy paper, which likely refers to
xylographic paper.
There were undoubtedly others who took books from Korea in a personal capacity: Nanpo Bunshi (1555-1620), one of the pioneers of Song-dynasty learning in Kagoshima, records that he bought some volumes of the Collected Commentaries on the Book of Changes (Zhouyi zhuanyi dachuan) from a man in Ichinoura (now in Fukuoka Prefecture in Kyushu) who had come back from Korea with "classics and histories." (15) The Collected Commentaries was a Ming compilation that already existed in typographic and
xylographic Korean editions, and various copies of these Korean editions found their way to Japan, as we will see.
This caption, the
xylographic "S" on the right of the image, and the iconography suggest a Brigittine origin: the woodcut's "emphasis on death, the open grave, and the salvation of the individual" link it to "actual daily practice at Syon." (15) According to Erler, the emphasis placed on these images' association with Syon suggests that they were "designed and produced in connection with Syon's famous pardons" and were sold to pilgrims as souvenirs.
Like Bruno Schulz, but coming from an entirely different direction, he created an Alphabet, 25 (leaving out W) cutout plywood characters, covered with fantastical, co-mingled
xylographic engravingsimages that range from a train car, to clock wheels, a Medusa head, and a melodramatic seance, some of them violent and horrifying.
