[Who is Sharaku?]Ⅱ Sequence of arcs in drawing makes unique artistic line

Each artist has his own unique drawing line which is due to different arc sequence of line.

                                          Toshusai Sharaku [Korazou]
In the prvious blog   I wrote that refined artworks like Ukiyo-e prints are very geometric: they are made of sequential arcs.
The scholar Umehara Takeshi has written about Sharaku's identity in the book [The tragidy of pseudonym].
He claims that Sharaku is Toyokuni.
He compared the portrait of Kabuki actor [korazou] by three artists, Sharaku, Toyokuni, Shunei.

                                        Korazou] by Sharaku, Toyokuni, Shunei
Umehara consideres  that Sharaku's and Toyokuni's parts ( the contour, eyeblows, eyes, nose, mouth and ears) are very much alike.
So I compare the three pictures each other on formal level.
As the role is defferent only the faces and the hands can be compared.
I enlarged the face part.
In each picture the outline from the chin to the ear is continuous.
Comparing the three outlines it is easily noticeable that Sharaku's line is very round.
I draw blue lines on the straight parts of each contour.

There are only four straight lines on Sharaku's outline.

Toyokuni used zigzag lines instead of a long arc.

Shunei tended to use straight lines and arcs almost evenly with able design skill.


As I found, this time,  better digital image of [Korazou] by Sharaku
I made again the circle model of the ears( though the other two are not good).

Amazingly the contour of the ear is based on three circles and a straight line.   
 The artist must have a geometric sprit.

Although Toyokuni's face line is as smooth as Sharaku's the outline of the ear is not sharp.
The chain of sevral straight lines can be made as a ideal model.

Shunei's ear is smooth.
The outline is based on nine circles.
What his work does not have is harmonious simplicity.


As the three pictures were drawn from the same angle, we can see each artist's formal difference comparatively.


We can easily distinguish the difference of melodies of Bach and Mozart.
But why they sound different can be explained with the help of  musical note.
So this time I use arc model.

Sharaku's neatly drawn line is smooth, and be seen as a sequence of arcs.
Sharaku's contour has eight arcs of the same circle, which is why Sharaku drawing is so harmonious.




"A", "S", "cl", "co", "C"; I use the first(and the second） letter of Arc, Straight line, clockwise , counterclockwise and Curve.
"clockwise and counterclockwise" means the turn of  arc in the circle when the direction(from the chin to the forehead) is given for explanation sake.
"Curve" means that the eyebrow is left undivided as too small to separate into arcs.
Starting from the lower part to the forehead the sequence is like this:

Toyokuni used four arcs of the same circle.
And he prefered to use zigzaged  lines to long arcs.

In the ARC sequence, the continuous S is noticeable.

Although Shunei was a very smart designer, he did not know the effectiveness of the use of arcs of the same circle.

Sharaku was not popular among the contemporary who wanted the idealised portraits of their favorite actors.
When, later, his okubi-e (portrait print showing the upper torso) were considered only as caricature, he became popular.
Many still consideres  the other types of his work minor and some even say that they are by the other painters.
Formaly every Sharaku work is interesting, which the models can confirm.


The method with the models is scientific because the hypthesis can be falsifiable by showing examples which does not match.
The problem [Who is sharaku?] can be restated as [Whose work can be well  modeled with arcs ?]

 (to be continued)