Les Chants de Maldoror (1868-69) by Comte de Lautréamont is one of my favorite books. I must have discovered it around the time I finished my university studies in art history, back in 2011, and from my mailbox history it seems I read it for the first time in 2012. Les Chants de Maldoror is written in poetic prose, largely from the perspective of its protagonist Maldoror, who could be interpreted as an alter ego of the author. Maldoror is often described by literary critics as inherently evil and cruel, which he may be, but I have always considered him to be a product of his environment, or rather a counterreaction to it: he observes the horrors that exist in the world and comes to terms with them by fighting fire with fire. A recurring theme in the book is that of Maldoror's struggle with God, a God that allows for such horrors to exist and must therefore be dethroned. Although Maldoror revels in his role as harbinger of the dark and the macabre, the book is also an ode to all the beauty that the world has to offer. It is riddled with wonderful observations and surprising metaphors from nature, worshipping of the arts and sciences, lots of black humor and surreal, dreamlike fantasies. It is no coincidence that Les Chants de Maldoror was rediscovered by the surrealists and championed for its associative and disruptive qualities. Many surrealist artists drew inspiration from Lautréamont's masterpiece and created drawings, paintings, film, photography and writing that refer to it. The mystery that surrounds the author, about whom little is known except that he died at the age of 24, leaving behind one single piece of literary genius (not taking into account his Poésies), no doubt contributed to his allure for the surrealists. It was through the book's influence on surrealism that it came under my attention during my art history studies. 

The first canto of the book was originally published anonymously in French in 1868. The complete work, consisting of six cantos, was printed a year later under Isidore Ducasse's pseudonym Le Comte de Lautréamont. Ducasse died in 1870, when the fate of his book was still hanging in the balance. The first run was cut short by the editor, Albert Lacroix, due to fear of legal repercussions, partly because of the work's blasphemous nature.
The first full English translation, The Lay of Maldoror, was done by John Rodker and saw the light of day in 1924. In my native language Dutch a translation appeared even earlier in 1917, titled De Zangen van Maldoror, done by psychiatrist Johan Stärcke (also the first Dutch translator of Freud) and published by C.A.J. van Dishoeck in Bussum. Over the years I have become somewhat of a collector, and I now own several copies of Les Chants de Maldoror in different languages, among which the rare Dutch edition by Stärcke.

​In 2014 I got carte blanche to make a series of drawings for an obscure student magazine from Amsterdam, titled Killer Magazine. The idea to create illustrations for Les Chants de Maldoror had been brewing in my mind for a while, and when this opportunity arose I took it. I reread the book and picked four scenes that resonated with me; the black and white artworks that came forth from it were drawn with fountain pen on A4 paper, and were printed for Killer Magazine as full page illustrations of the same size. They are titled: 

• Die kreten zijn gaan kruipen (English: 'These cries have begun to crawl')
• Ten prooi aan de waanzin (English: 'Prey to madness')
• Maldoror versus Hoop (English: 'Maldoror versus Hope') 
• Ongelukkige bal (English: 'Wretched ball')
  
  

Additionally, I was asked to draw a cover for the magazine. The cover illustration is titled Isidore Ducasse, and is based on what is believed to be the only photograph of the author that still exists. 

Below, I will explain each artwork and quote passages from Les Chants de Maldoror that they were inspired on. I will quote from the book in three languages: Dutch, English and French. My drawings were made after reading the Dutch translation of De Zangen van Maldoror by René Sanders, published in 2011 by Kelderuitgeverij, Utrecht. For that reason, the Dutch quotes I use are from that edition. For the English text, I quote from The Songs of Maldoror published in 2011 by Solar Books, translated by R.J. Dent, that features illustrations by Salvador Dalí. For the original French text, I use the edition from 1948 published by Éditions "La Boétie", for which René Magritte made a total of 77 illlustrations over the course of four years.

​Die kreten zijn gaan kruipen translates to 'These cries have begun to crawl'. It is a line that I took from the Dutch translation by René Sanders​ for Kelderuitgeverij. It also appears in the 1917 Dutch translation by Johan Stärcke, but is missing in its literal sense in the English and French versions of the text. The line comes from a passage in which Maldoror transforms into an octopus and torments God, whose screams of agony turn into serpents that crawl out of his mouth, and go on to plague humanity. 

2nd canto, 15th strophe

Dutch:

Welnu, ditmaal neem ik mij voor de mens te verdedigen. Ik, de verachter van alle deugden, ik die de Schepper niet heeft kunnen vergeten sinds die roemrijke dag, toen ik de annalen van de hemel – waarin, door ik weet niet wat voor een schandalig geknoei, zijn macht en zijn eeuwigheid stonden vermeld – van hun voetstuk stootte en ik mijn vierhonderd zuignapjes vasthechtte onder zijn oksel en hem vreselijke kreten liet uitstoten... Deze veranderden in adders, zodra ze uit zijn mond kwamen en verborgen zich in het struikgewas, in bouwvallige muren, ze lagen dag en nacht op de loer. Die kreten zijn gaan kruipen. Ze hebben talloze ringen, een kleine afgeplatte kop, valse ogen gekregen, en hebben gezworen dat zij voor altijd de menselijke onschuld te grazen zullen nemen. Ook als deze in het dichte kreupelhout wandelt of langs heuvelruggen of door zandige duinen, dan veranderen zij zonder te aarzelen hun opzet. Als daar althans nog tijd voor is. Want meermalen bemerkt de mens dat het vergif met een bijna onmerkbare beet in de aderen van zijn been binnendringt, voordat hij tijd heeft gehad om om te keren en er vandoor te gaan. Op deze wijze weet de Schepper, die zelfs bij het gruwelijkste lijden een bewonderenswaardige koelbloedigheid aan de dag legt, uit de kringen van aardbewoners zelf nog schadelijke kiemen te halen.
​
English:

Ah well, this time I introduce myself as the defender of man; I, the scorner of all virtues; I, whom the creator has been unable to forget since the glorious day when I knocked from its pedestal the history of heaven, in which was recorded – by what infamous intrigue I do not know – his power and his eternity, and I applied my four hundred suction cups to the hollow of his armpit, making him utter such terrible screams... screams which changed into vipers as they left his mouth, and went into hiding in the undergrowth and under ruined walls, alert all day, alert all night. These cries, endowed with innumerable rings, small flat heads and dangerous eyes, crawl away and swear to block the path of human innocence, so when a man is walking through tangled maquis, or up a steep slope, or over sand dunes, he quickly changes his mind. But only if there is time to do so, because sometimes a man sees the poison entering the veins of his leg after an almost imperceptible bite before he has had time to turn back on the path and escape. Thus it is that the Creator, maintaining an admirable calmness, even in the face of the most atrocious suffering, knows how to extract harmful germs from the hearts of the earth's inhabitants.  
 
French:

Eh bien, je me présente pour défendre l'homme, cette fois; moi, le contempteur de toutes les vertus; moi, celui qui n'as pu oublier le Créateur, depuis le jour glorieux où, renversant de leur socle les annales du ciel, où, par je ne sais pas quel tripotage infâme, étaient consignées sa puissance et son éternité, j'appliquai mes quatre cents ventouses sur le dessous de son aisselle, et lui fis pousser des cris terribles... Ils se changèrent en vipères, en sortant par sa bouche, et allèrent se cacher dans les broussailles, les murailles en ruine, aux aguets le jour, aux aguets la nuit. Ces cris, devenus rampants, et doués d'anneaux innombrables, avec une tête petite et aplatie, des yeux perfides, ont juré d'être en arrêt devant l'innocence humaine; et, quand celle-ci se promène dans les enchevêtrements des maquis, ou au revers des talus ou sur les sables des dunes, elle ne tarde pas à changer d'idée. Si, cependant, il en est temps encore; car, des fois, l'homme aperçoit le poison s'introduire dans les veines de sa jambe, par une morsure imperceptible, avant qu'il ait eu le temps de rebrousser chemin et de gagner le large. C'est ainsi que le Créateur, conservant un sang-froid admirables, jusque dans les souffrances les plus atroces, sait retirer, de leur propre sein, des germes nuisibles aux habitants de la terre.

Ten prooi aan de waanzin translates to 'Prey to madness'. This illustration, depicting a dog that is barking wildly while frothing at the mouth, is inspired on a feverish passage in which Lautréamont uses a series of powerful metaphors to describe how madness and despair manifest themselves in the minds of humans and animals alike.

1st canto, 8th strophe

Dutch:

Door de bladeren huilt de wind met smachtende tonen en zingt de uil zijn dodelijke klaagzang die bij hen die het horen, de haren te berge doet rijzen. Dan breken de razend geworden honden uit hun ketenen, ontsnappen van verafgelegen boerderijen. Her en der rennen ze ten prooi aan de waanzin door het landschap. Ineens staan ze stil, kijken waanzinnig angstig en met vuur schietende ogen, naar alle kanten om zich heen. Net als de olifanten die voordat ze in de woestijn sterven hun laatste blik op de hemel richten, waarbij ze wanhopig hun slurven optillen, hun oren laten hangen, hun ogen niet bewegen, bewegen ook de honden hun oren niet. Als ze hun koppen oprichten, zwellen hun vreselijke nekken, en beginnen zij om beurten te janken, net als een kind dat huilt van de honger, of als een kat die boven op een dak zijn buik openscheurt, of als een vrouw die op het punt staat te bevallen, of als een stervende man die in het ziekenhuis aan de pest lijdt, of als een jong meisje dat een prachtig lied zingt. 

English:

The wind moans, making languorous notes sound through the leaves, and the owl sings its solemn lament which makes the hair of those who hear it stand on end. Then dogs, driven wild, break their chains and escape from remote farms. They rove the countryside, prey to madness. Suddenly they stop and look around, their eyes blazing with savage unease. Just as elephants in the desert take a final look at the sky before they die, desperately raising their trunks and leaving their ears laid back, these dogs also lay their ears back, raise their heads, stretch their necks and start to bark in turn, like a child crying from hunger, or a cat with its guts ripped open on a roof, or a woman giving birth, or a plague-riddled patient dying in a hospital, or like a young girl singing a sublime aria...

French:

Le vent gémit à travers les feuilles ses notes langoureuses, et le hibou chante sa grave complainte, qui fait dresser les cheveux à ceux qui l'entendent. Alors, les chiens, rendus furieux, brisent leur chaînes, s'échappent des fermes lontaines; ils courent dans la campagne, çà et là, en proie à la folie. Tout à coup, ils s'arrêtent, regardent de tous les côtés avec une inquiétude farouche, l'œil en feu; et, de même que les éléphants, avant de mourir, jettent dans le désert un dernier regard au ciel, élevant désespérément leur trompe, laissant leur oreilles inertes, de même les chiens laissent leurs oreilles inertes, élèvent la tête, gonfient le cou terrible, et se mettent à aboyer, tour à tour, soit comme un enfant qui crie de faim, soit comme un chat blessé au ventre au-dessus d'un toit, soit comme une femme qui va enfenter, soit comme un moribond atteint de la peste à l'hôpital, soit comme une jeune fille qui chante un air sublime [...]
​

Maldoror versus Hoop is inspired on a passage from the third canto in which a mysterious spectator watches on as a violent encounter unfolds between Maldoror, who turns into a giant eagle, and the embodiment of Hope (as becomes apparent when the scene comes to a conclusion), appearing in the shape of a dragon with the upper body of a tiger and the lower half of a serpent. Their brutal fight takes place in the air, where they claw away at each other and cause horrific wounds. 

3rd canto, 3rd strophe

Dutch:

​'Hij is ver weg, ik zie zijn silhouet op een smal pad verdergaan. Waar gaat hij heen, met die zware passen? Hij weet het zelf niet... Toch weet ik zeker dat ik niet slaap, wie komt daar nu aan en gaat Maldoror tegemoet? Wat is hij groot, de draak.. groter dan een eik! Het is alsof zijn vaalwitte vleugels die stevig aan zijn lichaam zitten, stalen pezen hebben, zo gemakkelijk doorklieven ze de lucht. Zijn lichaam begint als het bovenlijf van een tijger en het eindigt in een lange slangenstaart. Ik ben niet gewend zulke dingen te zien. Maar wat staat daar op zijn voorhoofd? Ik zie dat er in beeldschrift een woord opgeschreven staat, dat ik niet kan ontcijferen.' Met een laatste vleugelslag is hij neegestreken naast degene, waarvan ik het stemgeluid herken. Hij zegt tegen hem: "Ik verwacht je, en jij mij ook. Het uur is gekomen; hier ben ik. Lees mijn naam op mijn voorhoofd, die in hiëroglyfen geschreven is."  Maar nauwelijks heeft de ander de vijand gezien of hij verandert zichzelf in een reusachtige arend. Hij bereidt zich voor op de strijd, terwijl hij tevreden klappert met zijn kromme snavel, waarmee hij wil zeggen: het achterste deel van de draak neem ik helemaal alleen voor mijn rekening.  

English:

He is far away; I see his silhouette following a narrow path. Where is he going with that heavy step? He himself does not know... However, I am convinced that I am not asleep: what is it approaching and going to meet Maldoror? How huge the dragon is... bigger than an oak! You could say that its whitish wings, joined firmly to its body, have nerves of steel, for they part the air with ease. Its body starts with a tiger's head and ends in a snake's long tail. I am not accustomed to seeing such things. What is that on its brow? I see written there in a symbolic language, a word that I cannot decipher. With a final wing-beat it moves close to him whose tone of voice I know well. It says: 'I have been waiting for you, as you have waited for me. The hour is come. Here I am. Read on my brow my name written in hieroglyphic signs.' But no sooner had Maldoror seen the enemy coming than he changed into a great eagle, and prepared for combat, contentedly clacking his curved beak, by which he means to solely undertake to devour the dragon's hindquarters.

French:

Il est loin; je vois sa silhouette cheminer sur un étroit sentier. Où s'en va-t-il, de ce pas pesant? Il ne le sait lui-même... Cependant, je suis persuadé que je ne dors pas : que'est-ce qui s'approche, et va à la rencontre de Maldoror? Comme il est grand, le dragon... plus qu'un chêne! On dirait que ses ailes blanchâtres, nouées par de fortes attaches, ont des nerfs d'acier, tant elles fendent l'air avec aisance. Son corps commence par un buste de tigre, et se termine par une longue queue de serpent. Je n'étais pas habitué à voir ces choses. Qu'a-t-il sur le front? J'y vois écrit, dans un langage symbolique, un mot que je ne puis déchiffrer. D'un dernier coup d'aile, il s'est transporté auprès de celui dont je connais le timbre de voix. Il lui a dit : « Je t'attendais, et toi aussi. L'heure est arrivée; me voilà. Lis, sur mon front, mon nom écrit en signes hiéroglyphiques. » Mais lui, à peine a-t-il vu venir l'ennemi, s'est changé en aigle immense, et se prépare au combat, en faisant claquer de contentement son bec recourbé, voulant dire par là qu'il se charge, à lui seul, de manger la partie postérieure du dragon.

Ongelukkige bal​ (English: 'Wretched ball') illustrates a dreamlike passage from the 5th canto in which a viewer, described by Maldoror as having the head of a pelican and the body of a man, watches as a dung beetle rolls the remains of a deceased woman over hills and paths. In the sky, another aerial battle unfolds between two birds. In the upper left I have incorporated a recurring detail from Dalí's paintings: an adult figure holding the hand of a child, supposedly depicting a young Dalí with his father.

​5th canto, 2nd strophe
​
Dutch:

Zodra de mestkever aan de voet van het heuveltje was gekomen, strekte de man zijn arm uit naar het westen (waar net een luchtgevecht begonnen was tussen een lammergier en een Virginische oehoe), wiste een grote traan van zijn snavel, waarin een kleurenstelsel schitterde als in een diamant en zei tegen de mestkever: 'Heb je die ongelukkige bal nog niet lang genoeg laten rollen? Je wraaklust is zeker nog niet gestild, en nu zijn de beenderen van die vrouw – waarvan je de armen en benen je op een zodanige wijze met parelsnoeren had vastgebonden, dat er een vormloos veelvlak ontstond, waardoor je haar met je poten dwars door dalen en over wegen, over doornen en stenen kon voortslepen (laat mij dichterbij komen om te zien of zij het nog is!) – overdekt met wonden en zijn haar ledematen gepolijst door de mechanische wet van de roterende wrijving, zodat ze niet meer van elkaar te onderscheiden zijn in de compacte massa. Haar lichaam biedt, in plaats van oorspronleijke verhoudingen en natuurlijke rondingen, de eentonige aanblik van één homogeen geheel dat door de vermenging van de verschillende verbrijzelde bestanddelen maar al te zeer op een bol lijkt! Zij is lang geleden overleden. Laat de overblijfselen toch op deze plek liggen. Zorg liever dat je je woede, waardoor je verteerd wordt, niet tot onherstelbare proporties opblaast, dit is toch geen gerechtigheid, want het egoïsme dat onder het pantser van je voorhoofd verborgen ligt, tilt langzaam, als een spook, het geplooid gordijn dat het bedekt, omhoog.'

English:

As soon as the beetle arrived at the bottom of the hill, the man raised his arm towards the west (in precisely this direction, a lamb-eating vulture and a Virginian eagle-owl were engaged in an aerial fight), wiped from his beak a long teardrop which presented a diamond-like colour-scheme, and said to the beetle: “Wretched ball! Have you not been rolling it for long enough? Your vengeance is not yet assuaged; and already this woman, whose arms and legs you tied up with pearl necklaces in such a manner as to make an amorphous polyhedron shape, so that you can drag her by the tarsal bones across valleys and paths, over brambles and stones (let me approach to see if it is still her!) has seen her bones gouged by wounds, her limbs polished by the mechanical law of rotary friction, melding into a coagulated unit, her body presenting, instead of primordial lineaments and natural curves, the monotonous appearance of a homogeneous whole which, through the confusion of its various crushed elements, resembles the mass of a sphere! She has been dead for a very long time; leave these remains to the earth, and take care that the rage which consumes you does not increase in irreparable proportions: it is no longer justice; because egotism, hidden in the teguments of your brow, like a phantom slowly raises the sheet which covers it.”

​French:

Dès que le scarabée fut arrivé au bas du tertre, l'homme leva son bras vers l'ouest (précisément, dans cette direction, un vautour des agneaux et un grand-duc de Virginie avaient engagé un combat dans les airs), essuya sur son bec une longue larme qui présentait un système de coloration diamantée, et dit au scarabée : « Malheureuse boule! ne l'as-tu pas fait rouler assez longtemps? Ta vengeance n'est pas assouvie; et, déjà, cette femme, dont tu avais attaché, avec des colliers de perles, les james et les bras, de manière à réaliser un polyèdre amorphe, afin de la traîner, avec tes tarses, à travers les vallées et les chemins, sur les ronces et les pierres (laisse-moi m'approcher pour voir si c'est encore elle!) a vus ses os se creuser de blessures, ses membres se polir par la loi mécanique du frottement rotatoire, se confondre dans l'unité de la coagulation, et son corps présenter, au lieu des linéaments primordiaux et des courbes naturelles, l'apparence monotone d'un seul tout homogène qui ne ressemble que trop, par la confusion de ses divers éléments broyés, à la masse d'un sphère! Il ya a longtemps qu'elle est morte; laisse ces dépouilles à la terre, et prends garde d'augmenter, dans irréparables proportions, la rage qui te consume : ce n'est plus de la justice : car, l'égoïsme, caché dans les téguments de ton front, soulève lentement, come un fantôme, la draperie qui le recouvre. »

In 2015 I created a series of 10 animal illustrations in black and white for BadukTV, a Korean television channel that broadcasts the game of go 24/7. The go boards depicted in the drawings were to have specific dimensions: 9x6, 13x13, 9x13, 9x9, 5x5, 13x13, 13x9 and 9x5. The plan for these drawings was to use them on promotional material for kids in Korea. BadukTV requested empty go boards, as they planned on adding go shapes themselves. 

I drew a turtle, a swordfish, a ring-tailed lemur, emperor penguins, a panda, an owl, a giraffe, an elephant, a butterfly and a raccoon-dog. Three of those were alterations of artworks I had already made in the past: the turtle, the swordfish and the raccoon-dog. The other seven drawings I made specifically for this project. See all 10 of them below.

Sadly, for reasons still unclear to me, BadukTV shelved the project and my drawings were never used in Korea. The good thing about the situation was that the rights for the drawings came back to me and I was free to use them any way I wanted. In the years that followed, I created many colour versions of the artworks, incorporating puns for names of go shapes, historic go matches and swirly backgrounds made with marbled paper: click here to see the results. Some of these colour versions made it to the covers of the Dutch Go Yearbook (see here) and over the years I sold many of them in the form of art prints, postcards and mugs in my Etsy shop.

A few of the black and white animals never made a reappearance: the owl, the giraffe and the panda were left and forgotten. Recently I rediscovered the panda and re-designed it (first picture of this post) when I was working on a 2024 go calendar (now 20 for sale: click here). 

The panda drawing incorporates a 5 by 5 go board that is filled with a go position I thought up: a double ko that can never be resolved by either player sets up a seki on the entire board. Seki (セキ) is the Japanese term for a local stalemate position of 'shared life': neither black nor white can take away liberties of the other's group(s), resulting in a truce.

The panda artwork is now for sale as cards and posters.
Click here for the postcard.
​Click here for the poster.

Bart Slijkhuis from go news website www.baduk.info recently interviewed Peter Brouwer and myself about our new go book Weird and Wonderful, Volume 1: Extraordinary Moves by Professional Go Players. Bart asks us about our discovery of the game of go, our videos for BadukMovies, the writing process of the book and our favorite chapters of this first volume in a series of three.
You can watch the interview by clicking here (redirects you to YouTube).

They say that all good things must come to an end. Unfortunately, not long after finishing the October issue of the European Go Journal, my work for the magazine abruptly came to a close after nine successful editions. If it were up to me, my designing and proofreading work for the Journal would have continued on for a long time, but it is what it is. 

The last three covers I created can be viewed above, and in more detail below, for which I used artworks of three different artists: Alizée Chabin (France), Aleksandra Khokhlova (Russia), and Gonca Mine Çelik (Turkey).

Alizée Chabin (Kalyptane) made two illustrations especially for the occasion, adorning the Journal's front and back. In the Art & Photography chapter of the August edition, she writes:

"The painting that I made for the front cover is titled “Feeling Cosmic”. We see a go board, standing on top of the cliffs of Saint-Georges-de-Didonne. The position on the board shows the final game of the Transatlantic Professional Go League between Ilya Shikshin 4p and Ryan Li 3p, reviewed in this issue. In the distance, the historic warship “L'Hermione” from the 17th century, whose home port is Rochefort, sails off. I took some liberties in the drawing: the landscape is missing the wooden fishing platforms on the seashore and the plants in the foreground don't actually bloom that way. The painting for the back cover is titled “Le Phare du Bout du Monde”, which translates to “The Lighthouse at the End of the World”. It shows the lighthouse off the coast of La Rochelle, which is a replica of the one in Patagonia (Argentina)." 
​

The September cover was special in the sense that it is the only one to date that has a front and back that blend into each other, since they are part of one and the same artwork. I stumbled upon this drawing on Aleksandra Khokhlova's Instagram, and she was kind enough to let the Journal use it. In the magazine, Aleksandra explains where the inspiration for this artwork came from: 

"This illustration depicts my impressions of a go tournament. Before making it, I took part in
the championship of Siberia that brought together around 50 go players with all kinds of
personalities: loud and silent, brave and careful, self-confident and modest. I wanted to capture
all of this, and so in the breaks between my games I drew sketches in my notebook. After the
tournament I colored them at home, and a new artwork was born.
To engage with this artwork, you can self-reflect with the question of “What kind of go player
am I?” Are you a brooding kangaroo, a happy ferret, a cocky bird, a doubting monkey, a beast
that watches, or a hare that sits with its back towards everyone?"
​

For the front cover of October, I used a drawing by professional illustrator Gonca Mine Çelik that I'd first spotted in a Turkish go magazine called Taslı Yol ("Stony Road") a few years ago. In the Journal, Gonca describes her artwork, titled "Emotions of Go":

"I struggle a lot during a game of go, and this drawing illustrates how much of a struggle the
game can be. Go is a real challenge to one’s character. It provides so many ups-and-downs,
and pushes you to your limits. One moment you can feel very happy, then very sad the next. To
handle that, you need to be strong mentally. I think every go player will recognize this sentiment
and might even be able to identify with my illustration."

 
For the November edition, ​​I had already asked Ofer Zivony (Israel) to create a portrait of Stanislaw Frejlak 1p, the freshly promoted professional go player of the EGF. I also contacted Zoé Constans (France) for the December edition, and I had plans to use a wonderful illustration by Clémence Bécaud (France), sent in by her husband Hugo Maussion (who created the cover of the July edition). My hope is that you'll be able to see their artworks on the covers of future editions.

My art lives on inside the Journal for just a little longer. In the November edition, all subscribers that receive a physical copy will also receive a Christmas card with it, designed by yours truly. There are six variations of the card, making each one a limited edition collector's item (see below). 

So long, EGJ, and thanks for all the fish!

I've added a new category to my website: ORIGINALS (FOR SALE) under PORTFOLIO. Have a look by clicking here.
On this page I plan to regularly add the originals of my artwork, which are for sale. You will be able to purchase them by clicking on them, which will redirect you to my shop on Etsy. 

Yesterday I scanned and uploaded 6 of my drawings. I have over a hundred drawings made between 2006 and 2021 that I still need to scan, take proper photos of and put online. It's a big project, and it will take some time. 

If you are interested in buying an original from me rather than a print, keep an eye on my social media (Instagram and Facebook) and my Etsy shop: I will slowly start selling art that I've never  shown to the world wide web.  

Since February 2021 I've been working together with Artem Kachanovskyi 2p to create the European Go Journal, a monthly magazine about the game of go. The magazine includes news from recent European go events, notable news from the Asian continent where pro tournaments are more frequent, game commentaries, interviews, and recurring chapters like "Art & Photography", "World of Tesuji" by Alexandre Dinerchtein 3p and "Thirty-Six Stratagems" by Dai Junfu 8d.

My tasks for the journal are varied. I am the lead proofreader/editor, I adjust details of the layouting to improve looks, and I design the cover of each edition.
The creation of the covers is a lot of fun. I try to use different go-related artwork from as many different people as possible to showcase the diversity of the go community. This blog post looks back on the covers that I've made so far and gives a sneak peek into covers that are yet to come.

​So far six editions have been published, with artworks by the following people:
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• February 2021 features 'Hope' by Camille Lévêque (France), one of the illustrations she produced during Inktober 2020. It is inspired on a game between two professional players and hints at themes of renewal, creativity, and learning.​

Below a sneak peek of what is yet to come.
Currently Alizée Chabin (from France), who is also known online as Kalyptane, is working on a custom cover with a nautical theme - front and back - for the August 2021 edition. 
For the September and October issues, I found candidates in two amazing artists from Russia and Turkey. September will most likely have a cover made by Aleksandra Khokhlova, whose art I spotted on her Instagram account. The October issue will suitingly be adorned with autumn colors - I saw this illustration of a girl fighting off her mental demons in a Turkish go magazine called Tasli Yol (translates as "Stony Road"). That was a few years ago, and it was printed as a small picture. It is made by professional illustrator Gonca Mine Çelik and deserves to be in the spotlight.

On the 22nd of May I was invited by artist Joanna Klęczar to take part in an art share on social media, posting one of my artworks every day for a week. Normally I do not take part in challenges on Facebook, but this time I thought it would be a good excuse to look at my old folders/sketchbooks and share some art that I made in the past.
I have so many old works lying around, so choosing which to share was tough. It proved impossible, so in the end I randomly picked a drawing each day.
I took pictures and uploaded them on Facebook and Instagram. These are the results.

I am working on updating my website and including more of my work. A lot of it is not online yet and many old drawings remain to be scanned. Want to see more of my (old) work? Anything in particular? Let me know in the comments below.

This blog post is the second edition of Looking Back, in which I look back on artwork I have made in the past.
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Soon the 2018-2019 edition of the Dutch Go Association Yearbook will be published. Each year the Nederlandse Go Bond (NGoB) publishes such a booklet in which the most important seasonal go happenings of the Netherlands are recorded, along some major international go news. 
As is becoming tradition, my go art is on the cover! This time it is my raccoon dog who drums his belly, a pun on the Japanese name of a famous tesuji combination of two stones played on the first line, capturing the opponent's group of stones in a spectacular way. The green marbling pattern was created by hand in 2019, then scanned and cleaned up digitally.

The raccoon dog on the cover of the 2018-2019 Dutch Go Yearbook is the fourth in a series of covers I have made for the Nederlandse Go Bond that feature animals, go positions and paper marbling. Here are the previous three:

And a picture of what the three booklets look like next to each other:

The cover of the 2017-2018 NGoB Yearbook features my go butterfly, which originally was a logo that I created for the European Youth Go Championships (EYGC) of 2015 that took place in Zandvoort.
The patterns on the wings of the butterfly show several tesuji shapes, such as the crane's nest and a snapback.

The 2016-2017 edition, probably my personal favourite so far, incorporates my drawing The Tortoise Shell, a pun on the Japanese name for one of the strongest shapes in go called 亀の甲​ (the tortoise shell): a tortoise rocking the tortoise shell on his tortoise shell.

For the 2015-2016 yearbook I chose a design featuring Lee Sedol's famous move 78 that made AlphaGo go on tilt in game four of their best of five match in 2016. Lee Sedol lost the overall match to the computer program by 4 to 1 games, making AlphaGo the first computer to defeat a top level professional in the history of go. This wedging move by Sedol resulted in the only victory in the matchup for the Korean and became a symbolic victory of human capability.  


If you look closely, you might notice a difference in the look of the elephant cover with the following editions: the elephant is black and white, since most of my artwork was still black and white in those days, but also unlike the subsequent covers the marbled background is one shade of colour and blends together with the go board. The original was blue and white, but an editorial decision was made to change it to brown. The future editions were not altered, showing a small difference in style.

Technically the NGoB Yearbook series with my artwork on the cover started with the 2014-2015 edition, for which my drawing called Fighting Spirit was used. I don't really consider this volume as part of the series, however, because it stands out from the rest. It is completely black and white and as I had not yet discovered paper marbling, there is no exciting background. On top of that, the actual go drawing ended on the back side of the booklet instead of the front. See pictures below. I also include some examples of what each yearbook I illustrated looks like on the inside.  

My go art has also been published on two magazines of the German Go Association, called the Deutsche Go-Zeitung. The Raccoon Dog Drums His Belly and Fighting Spirit make their first appearances on the first DGoZ volume of 2015 and the second DGoZ ​volume of 2019.

Do you run or write a go editorial, magazine, bulletin, leaflet, website, book, you name it? And would you like to include my art? Please leave a comment!

Today I want to introduce a new part of my blog called Looking Back, which I will use every now and then to share artwork that I have created in the past. As the first post of Looking Back, I would like to share a series of 12 go artworks that I have made so far. 
This ongoing series features animals, paper marbling (known as suminagashi in Japan and ebru in Turkey) and the game of go (known as igo in Japan, baduk in Korea and weiqi in China). Several of these designs refer to the names of patterns and shapes in the game of go that often are derived from nature. For other artworks I took inspiration from famous go matches or gave my own twist to commissioned work.
I sell these designs as postcards and posters in various sizes. This project started little over a year ago, when I realised I want to offer my art in an affordable format. I did however want to be able to guarantee the best quality possible and that is why I decided to make the products myself at home. After taking a chance and purchasing a professional printer in December 2018 I soon found out that it is not easy to find the right paper. Not too thin and shiny for the postcards, not too thick and plain for the posters. After several frustrating weeks of failed tries I finally found the right materials and started offering my work online. Since then I have worked together with many go organisations as well as individual buyers. 

For those of you who are new to the game of go: go is a strategic board game in which black and white take turns, placing stones on a board, specifically on the intersections of the indicated lines. The goal of the game is to surround territory with your stones and whoever has surrounded most territory at the end of the match wins. The rules of go are simple, but the game never gets boring as there is an almost infinite amount of possibilities that makes every match you play a new challenge.
I have been hooked on go ever since I started playing in September 2004. The game, mind sport, art of go or whatever you want to call it has had a significant influence on my life. It gave me an outlet for my competitiveness, made me part of a community, influenced my drawings and even got me several jobs promoting the sport. You can read more about my go background in the GAME OF GO tab.

Do you like my go art and do want to support me? Check out my Etsy shop for posters and postcards.