Beautiful christian tsuba

[svarsh]

I recently acquired a nice tsuba (see photo) and was lucky enough to find a lot of information about this kind of tsuba in Sosano Collection and also a big discussion at KTK #2 (2006). However, neither helped me to find out the school, place and time of my piece. Help from other members would be greatly appreciated.

And a more general question: can anyone recommend a comprehensive and clear manual how to identify those parameters: school, place and time for a particular item? All resources that I have seen show a tsuba, tell you that it is this and that, and assume that the reader will be able to generalize and distinguish the schools. But few pages down you see almost identical example that belongs to a different school! When I ask "what's the difference' the response is usually: can't you see (stupid - I read in the eyes). But I actually cannot. Anyone could lead me to a source that tells "if there is A, then it is Soten, if there is B, then it is Goto". Anyone applied the principles of medical diagnostics to tsuba identification?

Thanks in advance,

Sergei

[Curran]

Anyone applied the principles of medical diagnostics to tsuba identification?

Thanks in advance,

Sergei

 

While science can often be an Art, Art is rarely a science.

And when it comes to Japanese Art: and talk it out. Your answer may change tomorrow, and be changed again in a decade.

 

The KTK 2006 article is a good one. Usually there is more information published in Japanese somewhere, but in this particular instance I do not think you will find it.

Have you asked the author of the 2006 article? He is a list member here. Though not always 100% in agreement with him, I greatly respect his opinion in general. In this specific topic, I'd defer to him 1000% as the PhD student to my undergraduate Jr. Seminar level of understanding.

[sanjuro]

OK.... Stupid question time.

 

What makes this a christian tsuba. I see no christian motif here at all. (then again, I'm not religious so I dont see religious themes in everything). So theres a nebulous cross behind the whatever they are's, but the cross along with the swastika is the most common shape and symbol on the planet and predates christianity.

[Guido]

What makes this a christian tsuba. I see no christian motif here at all. (then again, I'm not religious so I dont see religious themes in everything).

The Japanese call them 時計透かし鍔 (Tokei-sukashi-Tsuba ["tokei" = watch]), Fred Geyer sees in them a Jesuit Christian symbol.

[seattle1]

Hello:

Fred Geyer has, in my opinion, actually moved the marker when it comes to defining such tsuba as Christian. His conributions as published in the KTK catalogues have at the very least led the Japanese to reconsider the usual interpretation of a clock gear or the like. I believe the issue is that attributions of tsuba go to schools and not motifs. Just as a category is not "choji" or "dragon" or "hawk", similarly there is no notation of "Christian" as a primary category, though a subsidiary observation might be entered on a paper. I believe that Fred would describe that tsuba as Christian. I would guess the majority of them during samurai times were made in Nagasaki, a major Christian enclave, or during Meiji times they would mostly be modifications to some other tsuba by adding, say, a cross, prior to shipment to London, Paris or Boston.

I hope to publish for the KTK catalogue this year a rather nice tsuba with silver nunome crosses, probably added after manufacture, but clearly a Christian worn tsuba carried sometime around the Shimabara revolt. I am quite sure a shinsa would call it Hizen or something else from Kyushu.

Happy 2014!

Arnold F.

[rkg]

Hi,

 

Mikawa to owari no tanko also talks about this design starting out as a christian symbol. Its actually a symbol associated with the Jesuits. I'll attach a couple of examples. First the modern version of the symbol, and the next one is a (bad) image of a book that was in Japan when the Jesuits were there, showing their symbol on the cover. Fred Geyer also has one or more vases from the period showing the symbol (I have the image, but haven't had time to try and get ahold of Fred to see if I can post it...) - its actually shown in the 2013 KTK catalog if you want to see it...

 

From the way you shot the piece I can't tell anything about the patina, so as a WAG, maybe edo owari? A number of schools made pieces with this symbol later on - I've owned ones from various regions in Owari, an akasaka piece, etc, and and I'm sure there were others...

 

Best,

 

rkg

(Richard George)

[Baka Gaijin]

Good evening all,

 

The 32 point sunburst the Jesuits used as one of their emblems is known to have been cast on a bell that was hung in the Nanbanji (Nabanji) Church in Nagasaki between 1578 & 1587 when Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered the Church to be razed.

 

The Bell still exists and is now at the Shunkō-in Zen Buddhist Temple in Kyoto.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunk%C5%8D-in

 

 

Cheers

[Thierry BERNARD]

one of mine papered as owari 尾張

[Fred Geyer]

Thanks guys!! , just alot of reading and studing Japanese Jesuit paintings and period objects also getting help from major Japanese museums on there non displayed Jesuit items! You can put some of the tsuba to schools as Owari and Higo ect.

 

Can you send a few more photos of this tsuba the mimi and a photo of the inside were the rays come up I want to see the tips.

 

Fred Geyer

[Surfson]

This posting about a Dewa Gassan katana shows a tsuba of this style in the koshirae. Cheers, B

http://tosogucollection.com/2013/06/11/ ... hi-period/

[svarsh]

Thanks All,

I'll try to take a few better photographs, including the specifics that Fred Geyer requested. In the meantime, I am attaching the accompanying papers, that I cannot read because of my lack of knowledge of Japanese.

Sergei

[Thierry BERNARD]

Thanks All,

I'll try to take a few better photographs, including the specifics that Fred Geyer requested. In the meantime, I am attaching the accompanying papers, that I cannot read because of my lack of knowledge of Japanese.

Sergei

 

say ( for what i can read quickly ) :

 

numei 無銘

edo era 江戸 初期

[Guido]

Mikawa to owari no tanko also talks about this design starting out as a christian symbol.

The way I read it, this motif *may* have been influenced by gear-wheels of clocks and/or the Jesuit sunburst symbol - purely as an art motif, not as a "Christian Tsuba".

[Guido]

one of mine papered as owari 尾張

I think most do - or Ôno or Kanayama. The motif is described as "Tokei Sukashi" (using an alternative, older Kanji for "Kei"):

[Guido]

In the meantime, I am attaching the accompanying papers, that I cannot read because of my lack of knowledge of Japanese.

"Den Tokei" - that's kind of a weird attribution ...

[Curran]

"Den Tokei" - that's kind of a weird attribution ...

 

Better to call it an exceptionally _vague_ attribution.

[Thierry BERNARD]

one of mine papered as owari 尾張

I think most do - or Ôno or Kanayama. The motif is described as "Tokei Sukashi" (using an alternative, older Kanji for "Kei"):

 

owari! or am I wrong?

[rkg]

Guido,

 

You're right - I had to go dig up the book and re-read that description in the Ono sction and you are correct - he only posits a potential linkage. I guess you have to know what the meaning of "is" is :-/.

 

What was interesting about the Mikawa to Owari no Tanko comments though is that it shows this potential linkage isn't a new idea. The examples,etc. Fred Geyer has gathered together would seem to support this posited linkage to the Jesuit symbol, with it later on magically becoming a clock gear reference after Christianity was suppressed so you didn't risk getting offed for displaying that particular namban symbol. I personally believe that (most if not all of) the early tokei/harugama sukashi designs did not represent clock gear as they were very seldom if ever round/they often the flames at the ordinal (and semi ordinal? what are you supposed to call the ones every 45 degrees?) points that stuck up as connection points (and gears they came in contact with don't have varying length teeth), etc. Here's another early piece that shows this (the connection points are clearly longer "flames") - an ono:

 

http://www.rkgphotos.com/recent_stuff/oh_no2.jpg

 

And if you look at early IHS symbol examples, some were round, but others weren't, so...

 

Of course, like so much in the study of earlier pieces, there really seems to be little if any period information to conclusively categorize much of anything one way or another so my observations could well be full of it, so... YMMV

 

Best,

 

rkg

(Richard George)

 

Mikawa to owari no tanko also talks about this design starting out as a christian symbol.

The way I read it, this motif *may* have been influenced by gear-wheels of clocks and/or the Jesuit sunburst symbol - purely as an art motif, not as a "Christian Tsuba".

[svarsh]

That's the promised photographs of details.

[John A Stuart]

One could make the argument that this design represents the solar disc and thus Amaterasu. I have seen mirrors surrounded by the solar rays in Shinto art. Of course the definitive symbol is the octagonal mirror. If the sunburst emblem is attached to the mimi by 8 spokes, what do you think? 8? However there may have been usurpation of the symbol by Christian adherants where the sunburst is attached by four spokes to the mimi. This may be cruciform and a Christian symbol? Gear wheels seem so unlikely of being the inspiration for art, to me, but, the form has antecedants apart from that. John

[sanjuro]

I dont wish to stir up anything nasty here, and I'm just putting the thought out there as it were, but it would seem that in the case of many so called 'Christian' attributed tsuba, The motif is merely interpreted, supposed or speculated as christian rather than clearly identifiable as such. Are we as westerners and ostensibly christian, possibly seeing and interpreting within our own philosophy, that which we wish to see rather than that which is intentionally present??

[Fred Geyer]

Keith

 

All I ask is spend just 3 hours looking at Original pre 1605 Namban paintings, host jars, Bells, carvings, pottery, etc..... and see what they saw with short and long rays, then look at the old tsuba and tell me what you see????

 

Fred Geyer

[Curran]

From personal experience having lived, worked, studied, and traveled in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Chile - having already seen those same symbols in Japan when an exchange student- I can only agree with Fred.

 

Personally, my own beliefs are not such that I might feel biased on the matter. Hyper-Neutrality can be a very important thing.

Northern Irish / Southeastern Scots heritage families have this as a dangerous riptide current, and are very careful of it.

 

This design became very popular and some artist might indeed have seen it as a tokei theme. Gears and whatnot.

I feel the design did start somewhere with a religious christian theme. That is my 2 cents. Saw too many historical traces of it in Japan even in 1989.

[Guido]

owari! or am I wrong?

Yes, of course you're right, no one debated it - so, what's your point? :?

[Guido]

... seem to support this posited linkage to the Jesuit symbol, with it later on magically becoming a clock gear reference after Christianity was suppressed so you didn't risk getting offed for displaying that particular namban symbol.

Bugyō: Hey, your Tsuba is a hidden Christian symbol, you're under arrest!

Samurai: First of all, it's not hidden. Secondly, it just looked like a Jesuit symbol until the ban of Christianity, but that was yesterday. Now it looks much more like a clock wheel.

Bugyō (slaps his forehead): Damn, my bad - carry on!

Samurai: Gloria in excelsis Deo!

[Guido]

The motif is merely interpreted, supposed or speculated as christian rather than clearly identifiable as such.

Exactly my point. It's a very interesting theory, but until now we don't know for sure, one way or the other. I personally remain sceptic - call me the "Tsuba Agnostic" if you will. :D

[Pete Klein]

Sergei - I am curious about the patina. It seems to be almost bare metal. The inside of the sukashi looks to be the same as the plate surface. Is it the photo?

[svarsh]

Sergei - I am curious about the patina. It seems to be almost bare metal. The inside of the sukashi looks to be the same as the plate surface. Is it the photo?

 

Yes, it is the photo, if I understood your question correctly. What else could it be?

[cabowen]

It could be that someone cleaned it, at least that is what I think is being inferred...

[svarsh]

I dont wish to stir up anything nasty here, and I'm just putting the thought out there as it were, but it would seem that in the case of many so called 'Christian' attributed tsuba, The motif is merely interpreted, supposed or speculated as christian rather than clearly identifiable as such. Are we as westerners and ostensibly christian, possibly seeing and interpreting within our own philosophy, that which we wish to see rather than that which is intentionally present??

 

Disclaimer: I am not a westerner and not a Christian. I do not believe in god neither in that Jesus Christ was a god's son or a relative of any kind. My interpretation is not based on beliefs (never), but exclusively on data found in available resources (always).