[Who is Sharaku ?]Ⅸ syntactic device for harmonization in art

                                [ Daidozan Dohyoiri]                            

                                          top  MOA museum collection

                                          bottom  Takamizawa's Taisho Reprint

MOA museum in Japan has one of the last works by Sharaku.

I have seen the reproduction of this horizontally oblong picture several times without paying so much attention.

Acording to the commentary the sumo-wrestlers are watching the child sumo-wrestler in the ring.

As an illustrstion there are several mistakes: both sides of the ring are missing; the  poles are too narrow to hide the back of the sword-carriers.

 Recently I found  this Takamizawa's Taisho Reprint of [Daidozan Dohyoiri] online

and realized this is a masterpiece when it is seen as three pieces side by side.

Obviously the three pictures are not to be connected but to be put side by side like the reprint.

Three pannels look very harmonious in spite of separated pictures because they are made of the same circle-arcs, which the model can confirm us.

                            Shraku  [Daidozan]  left  circle-arc model

                            Sharaku  [Daidozan]  left  arc model

                            Sharaku  Daidozan]  center  circle-arc model

                            Sharaku  [Daidozan]  center  arc model

                            Sharaku  [Daidozan  right  circle-arc model

                            Sharaku  [Daidozan  right  arc model

Puting the three circle models together, we can check the relation on the basic structure level.

I have shown that Sharaku always used the largest circle and the second largest circle to make basic structure.

As we see no conection of the two circles(red brown and yellow)between the three panels it is obvious that each work was structured separately.

The use of unit arcs creates sense of harmony.

Great artists start using the grammar unconsciously.

Some of them eventually reach the level of syntax.

Modern art era was the age of syntax.

This century is the time of analyzing the digital images of the all masterpieces in art history.

Then, I hope, we can restart making unique artworks.

AI chess player beat the human champion.

The chess champion became less heroic.

But  the maker of the AI is the new champion.

[Who is Sharaku?] Ⅷ syntactic device can Identify who painted

Nine block copies of ”Sumo-e" by　Sharaku have been neglected.

They exist only as photographs because they are lost by the Great kanto Earthquake.

Besides some people think they are fakes.

As the digital images are available I try to identify them by the syntactic structure.

                               Sharaku  [Jinmaku]  sumou-e

In the circle-arc model the most slow curve( brown ) can be seen on the lower part.

                          Sharaku  [Jinmaku]  sumou-e  circle-arc model

To  see the pivots easier I made green circle-arc model.

                             Sharaku  [Jinmaku]  green circle-arc model

Then I made the three circles deeper green and thicker to see  four pivot points easier.

Next model is orange red circle-arc model

                  Sharaku  [Jinmaku]  orange red circle-arc model

On this model I noticed that the five different sized circles (purple, green , orange , red and red ocher) intersect at a point on the left.

Let me make models of another sumo-e[Raiden] to find the same device.

       Sharaku  [Raiden]                            

This is more ornamental.

                                    Sharaku  [Raiden] circle-arc model

The same circle is used to make the stripe pattern of the left person's kimono and the outline of the right person's kimono .

                           Sharaku  [Raiden]  blue circle-arc model

                          Sharaku  [Raiden]  a pivot with four circles

The four different circles (purple,green,orange and red brown) intersect at a point ( large black cross).

And the green circle has three pivots.

Here is  a whole body portrait by Sharaku which has a typical syntactic devices.

                    Sharaku  [Yamasita Kinsaku] detail  circle-arc model

There are three devices which can be found in the sumo-e.

a) The largest brown circle intersects at the point(blue cross)bwith the three smaller circles(pink,green and orange red).

b)The largest brown circles and pink circles make many pivots (Yellow crosses and light blue crosses).

c)The pink circle which I made brighter has six pivots.

The pivot device is  also used for [Osiokuri-hato-tusen-no-zu (Namiura first version)] by Sori(Hokusai), about which I wrote previous time.

    Sori( Hokusai)  [Namiura first version]

The four circles (yellow, green, red and light blue) intersect at the point(pivot) on the upper left.
This is the same technique seen in the two sumo-e.

This sumo-e series turned out to be very important experimental works to establish Sori's mature style.

 I assert that Hokusai under the name of Sharaku executed one hundred sixty works more or less.