Go Players through the Ages

---

The Dutch Go Association (NGoB) asked me to make a series of black and white portraits for a beginners-book they are publishing this year. The portraits will be accompanied by short stories about the individuals. Some of them are fictional characters and some are real people. The pictures and stories take you through the ages of go players:

- 5th century BC: Li is described as a Chinese student aspiring to become a high functionary. To become one, he must master the four arts - calligraphy, painting, guqin and weiqi.
- 8th century AD: Zhou is a soldier who travels along the coasts of Japan and Korea on a Chinese trade ship. During his travels he plays go on deck with the other soldiers and the high priest.
- 13th century AD: Takashi is a Japanese samurai who learned to play go during his training to become a warrior. He is the strongest go player of the empire and is looking forward to the upcoming castle tournament. 
- End of the 19th century: Oskar is a German engineer who learns to play go from a Japanese professional player during his work time overseas. After returning to his homeland, he aims to spread go in Germany and writes the first Western book on the topic.
- Halfway through the 20th century: Kees is a student from Amsterdam who studies Japanese. During his time in Japan he learns the game from a Japanese student. Back home he starts a go club and aims to establish a national go association.
- 2015: Demis is the director of DeepMind and is the driving power behind the making of a computer program that should challenge the best go players on the planet. AlphaGo will eventually do exactly that and defeat the strongest human go player alive.