BEAUTY of REDUCTION

Artists revolutionize woodblock print and provide a lifeline to their village, Hou Chenchen and Li Yingqing report in Pu'er, Yunnan province.

The group of artists, struggling to make ends meet, were faced with a conundrum. While their speciality, traditional woodblock printing, was highly satisfying spiritually, it exacted a heavy toll on them both physically and financially, as well as on their environment.

That's because the artistic technique requires a single wooden layer for each color that goes into these multicolored works.

It was in Pu'er, Yunnan province, in the 1980s, and the artists embarked on a quest to discover a technique that would vastly simplify their task: a single wooden board carrying different colors. Soon they would come up with a style of woodblock art that would revolutionize their art and solve their financial woes.