A Case Study of “ Phantom Genji Scrolls ” Painter School Identification by means of Deep Learning Technology: Reconstruction of Painter School Concept by AI Technology

”Phantom Genji Scrolls ”are one of the most debatable artifacts whose painter school is still unknown in the history of art. In this study, the authors have reached a conclusion that the Phantom Genji Scrolls would have been painted by the painters who studied Kyoto-Kano and Tosa painter schools but not Edo-Kano painter school.As a learning data set, more than 1500 face images are extracted from well-known the Tale of Genji pictures painted from Heian (12 Century) to Edo (17 Century) periods whose painter schools are all established in the history of art. The face images are written in typical old painting style so called“line-eye and hook nose (hikime-kagihana)” which often represents the characteristics of the painter schools.The authors not only identified the painter school of the Phantom Genji Scrolls but also discovered the inconsistency in Iwasa painter school by means of artifact-based painter school learning model. The t-SNE scatter plots clearly indicated that the 266 face images extracted from the Phantom Genji Scrolls were surrounded by the Kyoto- Kano painter school learning data sets. It should be also noted that the 266 face images were far from the learning data set of Ujinobu Kano, one of the typical Edo-Kano painter. Interestingly, the Phantom Genji Scrolls and Ujinobu Kano were intercepted by Mitsuyoshi Tosa, one of the typical Tosa painter in scatter plot. This suggests that the painters of the Phantom Genji Scrolls may have been affected by both Kyoto-Kano and Tosa painter schools, instead of Edo-Kano painter school.As for the Iwasa painter school, the authors came across strange behavior that the artifacts of Katsutomo Iwasa were identified as the Tosa painter school, even if the validation data of Katsutomo Iwasa were all included in the learning data set of Iwasa painter school, mostly constituted by Katsutomo Iwasa (244 face images). After careful observation and discussion, the authors have concluded that Matabei Iwasa and Kastutomo Iwasa may be too different to be categorized into the same Iwasa painter school with regards to face characteristics.