Go Online

Good Looking
February 10, 2003
By Roy Laird

Last time we were talking about downloadable files of books and articles on a wide range of go-related topics. If you clicked through some of those links, you may have discovered that go themes have appeared in Asian art for many centuries. Psst! Wanna see some really great stuff? Right this way: 

http://www.kiseido.com/printss/ukiyoedx.html will take you to a huge online display of the Pinckard collection, probably the most comprehensive collection of Go-related art in the world today. The site is pretty self-explanatory. Read the text on the home page, then click any of the eleven links on the left to view dozens of beautiful and fantastic images like "Raiko Tormented by the Ground Spider," "Severed Head on a Go Board" and "The Courtesans of Hell". Clicking through each link takes you to a description of the significance of that particular collection. You will find links along the left to the actual images. Note: no matter which image you select, you will be taken to the first picture in that collection. For instance, there are ten "Portraits of Beautiful Women," but no matter which one you select you will find yourself looking at "Wakakusa at the Go Board," the first of these images. Just scroll down this page to view the other images. Unlike the text and diagrams you downloaded and printed out from the links in our last column, you can't really take these with you. The image files look great online, but you will be disappointed if you try to print them out. Many of these images have appeared as covers of Go World magazine (the site is maintained by Kiseido, which publishes Go World.) 

Although you can't download and print this wonderful art, much of it is available -- for a price. Visit http://www.kiseido.com/printss/reproad1.htm to learn more about two dealers. If you want something truly wonderful on your wall, Gerstorfer is your man. he is not so much a dealer as an enthusiast who sells duplicates so he can buy more. He lived in Japan for years and collected everything he could find. At the Chicago Congress he had scores of authentic prints available, and some of the them were unbelievably fantastic! I'm still catching my breath from viewing an incredible print of "Apparition of the Spider Princess", priced at more than $1000 and a bargain at that. (If you want it, I'm afraid you're too late. I told my friend about it, and now I can visit it on his wall.) If you're working with more of a two-figure budget, Shotwell's digitally imaged prints are also very nice. I have "Scenes From the Noh Play 'Go' ", and no one yet has detected that it is a copy. Even if you're on a one-figure budget, you may be able to do very well. Every year, the Nihon Kiin publishes a calendar that includes six great prints on large (~11x17) high-quality paper. Unfortunately, for once I can't tell you where to find them online, but if you locate someone selling them, tell me, and I'll tell everyone. A smart businessman could scoop up the overstock every year, frame them and sell them off. Three of them hang over my couch, in cheap frames from K Mart, and they look like a million bucks.

And lastly: go art these days isn't what it once was, but China issued a series of stamps with a go theme in 1993. You can see the lot, about a dozen images, at http://www.goban.demon.co.uk/go/go_stamps.html. Some of these are available for a few bucks elsewhere on the Net (try "weiqi stamps'" in Google). So, there's something for every budget!

UPDATE: 3/31/2003
It appears that my research for a previous column, "Good Looking" failed to turn up interesting material on the Yutopian site. Go to http://www.yutopian.com/go/gallery/goarts.html for some fascinating images you won't see anywhere else, including photographs of ancient Go equipment -- and when they say ancient, they mean over 1000 years old!

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