Đông Hồ Prints vs Lubok
ドンホー版画 / ルボーク
Both sit in Popular Prints, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. Both are read here as style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Đông Hồ Prints
The woodblock prints of Vietnam's Đông Hồ village: printed with natural pigments on dó paper coated with ground seashell, New Year pictures like 'The Rat's Wedding' carrying village philosophy in satire and auspice.
Lubok
Russia's popular print: thick outlines, flat hand-coloring, image and text sharing the sheet, circulating sacred stories and satire cheaply. The avant-garde rediscovered it in the 20th century as Russia's native form.
| Đông Hồ Prints | Lubok | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 17th century– | 17th–19th century |
| Family | Popular Prints | Popular Prints |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Shell-powder paper that glimmers / A limited natural palette / Satire through animals / Renewed each New Year | Thick outlines / Flat hand-coloring / Image and text together / Satire and story |
| Best used for | New Year promotions told in the village voice of auspice and satire · Animal fables that raise a laugh instead of preaching a lesson | Picture books and packaging where a told story shares the sheet with words · Editorial illustration carrying satire in a deliberately plain voice |
| Type | A short inscription cut into the block and left in the margin | Hand-written text poured around the picture and framed as one unit |
| Composition | Set the main animal large at center and align the rest in a row | Drop perspective, range the figures across, fill the rest with words |
| Material | Dó paper coated with shell powder, natural pigments printed color by color | Thick woodcut outlines with red, yellow and green washed past the line |
| Caution | Reusing the satire as cute animal artwork drains the village philosophy out of it and leaves a souvenir motif. | Tidying the outline and keeping the color inside it removes the misregistration and rough hand that carried the warmth of a popular print. |