baba-prague
Rosanne said:Good Point kilts Knave! I looked again as Thinbuddha suggested and they do look 'meant to be'. On saying that could they be on the woodblock itself? Like imperfections in the carving that were going to be something else like a halo on the Star. I do not think every woodblock was carved by a master. Also even when you are very careful with a stamp process- unintentional things happen and then get copied. Woodblock printing was perfected in the east for many hundreds of years before the skill came West.~Rosanne
No, woodblocks don't deteriorate in this way (they tend to split more than anything) - and a fault would not be so intentional looking.
I think we're just seeing a decorative way of filling in the "ground" to make the illustration look richer. If you look at this page of Lubok (much later, but interesting as these are also cheaply produced woodcuts and have some things in common with woodblocked cards) you'll see that the ground is often filled in by small elements. I don't for a moment think they're significant symbolically - it's more a case of style. Hit the "religious lubok" button on the left and scroll down to see what I'm referring to:
http://www.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/Lubok/lubok.html
Of course, these are not mere dots, but then again, cards were smaller items and the detailing was more crude even than much Lubok.