Japanese Prints and the World of Go

November 19, 2003 2:59 AM

Japanese Prints and the World of Go. Classic Japanese art meets classic Japanese boardgame.
'The purpose of this catalogue is twofold: to enlarge the understanding of print collectors who may be unaware of the long historical and legendary background of a game that has for centuries engaged the interest of many artists in Japan; and to enrich the experience of go players by presenting works that reveal some of the large body of traditions and associations connected with the game in Japan's cultural life. Although artists were inspired by the game of go to work the theme in several media--wood, ivory, metal, textiles, and clay, and while the motif appears on numerous scroll and screen paintings--it is in woodblock prints (ukiyo-e) that its image is most frequently found.'
'. . . there is a text that likens the world to a go-board. For those who see with their minds, it is the centre of the universe.'
Warning: Each sub-link in the article opens a new window.
posted by plep (10 comments total)

Wow, very cool. Thanks Plep. This makes me want to grab my go board and go up to the grad student pub and drag one of the 1 or 2 other people I know who can actually play the game.
posted by Space Coyote at 3:37 AM on November 19, 2003

"The Ancient Japanese considered the Go board to be a microcosm of the Universe. Although when it is empty it appears to be simple and ordered, in fact, the possibilities of gameplay are endless. They say that no two go games have ever been alike. Just like snowflakes. So the Go board actually represents an extremely complex and chaotic universe." - Sol Robeson in the movie PI

Great game with which I have never really gotten to grips.

More about the game here
posted by kenaman at 3:41 AM on November 19, 2003

Hey Plep, good to see someone post this... quite a surprise, actually as it is a link I was visiting a bit over the summer when I was playing more. I use a full size jpg of print 11-2 as my desktop.
posted by thrakintosh at 3:49 AM on November 19, 2003

This makes me want to grab my go board

It also makes me want to grab their web designer by the throat for such a messy navigation system. But I agree, it's superb material; I especially like Raiko and the Ground Spider.
posted by raygirvan at 4:17 AM on November 19, 2003

(Called baduk in Korea, if anyone cares.) Does anyone know of any decent English-language tutorial software?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:51 AM on November 19, 2003

Very wonderful, plep; there's some pretty seriously freaky stuff in there. Here's a great modern Go work, called "Playing Weiqi with the Ancients". And a very nice big gallery of Go art from the The Internet Go Server.
posted by taz at 4:57 AM on November 19, 2003

[thanks taz]

kenaman :-
Browsing this site I was somewhat reminded of the game of chess between Death and the knight in 'The Seventh Seal', another microcosm of sorts.
posted by plep at 5:29 AM on November 19, 2003

Does anyone know of any decent English-language tutorial software?

If you want to learn Go, I'd suggest The Interactive Way to Go. If you want to play Go on a windows machine, I personally use The Many Faces of Go.
posted by gd779 at 6:41 AM on November 19, 2003

Sensei's Library is a wiki with lots of tutorial and reference information about go. Good stuff.
posted by kewms at 7:16 AM on November 19, 2003

I personally use The Many Faces of Go.

Yep, their free 9x9 game is a really good place to start.
posted by callmejay at 12:19 PM on November 19, 2003