MAK-Tsuba collection

[christianmalterre]

for all of you reading German....

here´s an interesting link(especially for beginners)relating the MAK collection of Tsuba.

 

http://othes.univie.ac.at/26971/

 

Tipp on pdf....

 

some nice stuff inside...

 

Christian

[kusunokimasahige]

Supertoll !! Danke !!!!

 

Which does not mean that this will be used as a handbook by me, see below.

 

KM

[Curran]

Bash me for being honest, but that is one of the worst museum collections I have ever seen.

So many pieces, so many mediocre examples- and with museum numbers written all up and down them.

Page after page of gimei. An NBTHK or NTHK nighmare.

Yet the recent German PhD candidate has written so extensively on them. Such significant effort on such a river of dross. I do not know whether to admire or feel sorry for her.

 

There are a few in there that aren't so average.

Also, there is a decent Higo or Kumagai one labeled #1551 somewhere around pages 350 to 360 that is a good ringer for one Marisuzk recently sold.

 

Still... over 400 pages? About 450? Page after page of tortured yet cataloged tsuba.

A good number of pages are tsuba, but this woman has worked and paid her dues. I hope she benefits from it.

Quite the Don Quixote.

[christianmalterre]

Good Curran

 

very nice you point this out!-for luck one realises why it is that important so to have an forum like this here!

(same thing with many of the auction houses jbw)

 

So what we learn?

Study study study and do take not all grant what is written!

 

Numerating inventar is an very common procedure so me do not complain about...

 

i think,she did the best she could in that possibility either-hers writing(letting away some attributions of course)is very nice done in mine eyes.

the text is much more important to read than just flipping images...

 

as i wrote,it gives an rather cost free info about schools and style and newbees can get online info for free,which is needed afterwards...

 

Christian

[Guido]

German PhD candidate

Austrian MA canditate . She focuses on iconography (i.e. identification, description, and interpretation of the content of images), so the quality of the tsuba isn't that important, and her explanation of the differnt tsuba "schools" is quite good. However, I agree that the examples are mostly just dreadful - being in a museum collection doesn't automatically make them worthwhile.

[Thierry BERNARD]

Hi Curran

 

as I do not speak German I can not say much about the description, but from the pictures (which are not so good) I can see some tsubas which are not so bad that you want describe them!

[ROKUJURO]

Gentlemen,

 

what might escape those who do not understand German is the bad quality of the text. An inexcusable number of mistakes, combined with faulty contents, that is another side of this paper. As an example she reports about early Japanese swords:

 

'.....Diese Schwerter waren aus gehämmertem Stahl oder aus Eisen gegossen, aber es war auch nicht unüblich, sie aus Stein herzustellen...which can be translated as:...These swords were made from hammered steel or cast iron, but it was not unusual to produce them from stone.......

 

Not much more to add from my side.

[kusunokimasahige]

What people should understand here, even though there are many faults within this thesis, is that it is a Ma thesis which means that the writings are effectively a test in scholarly writing and not a book or a really big research test.

 

It is not a PhD thesis. Furthermore the woman in question is trying her hand on a study subject which is not hers.

The thesis therefore should not be seen as a handbook of tsuba nor of tsuba styles and schools. It should be seen for what it is. A mediocre exercise in scholarly writing of which the contents cannot be peer reviewed properly because her peers are working in a totally different discipline.

 

KM

[ROKUJURO]

Henk-Jan,

 

if your view was correct, it would be the best thing not to publish a thesis, but keep it under the desk!

[Curran]

Thank you gents. I hate to go harsh on what is a substantial amount of work by someone. At my level of german comprehension, I welcomed her work- but felt saddened by such a brutal long effort over so many average tsuba. [~~~~ I agree with most everything others wrote subsequently. Was afraid to see what replies I might get this morning, as I ripped off that post late at night when dead tired and 2 drams of rum had muted the Inhibitor chip a bit.]

 

I fan read through it, understanding some parts and not others. I had thought it was a PhD thesis.

Guido: sorry about the German/Austrian thing. Austria, the land of Kangaroos.... [groan- old joke I saw on a tourist t-shirt in Vienna long ago].

 

19 years ago: one semester of Intensive German [4 college semesters shoved into one nose cram of a course] and a Swiss girlfriend at the time.

This most certainly does not equal much fluency in German. I'm surprised I remember any of it. But that Frau beat the stuff into us.

 

Is the author related to Markus in some way? Being Austrian and quoting Markus' works many times, plus probably being of comparative age- would look further into that if I were CIA or NSA and that curious.

[Markus]

She is not related to me Curran. :D And I didn´t know about her thesis until about an hour ago.

[Curran]

Markus,

 

Far be it from me to play matchmaker.

Same nationality, similar interests, etc...

 

But then nothing like meeting a native girl to help the language learning.

Had things gone just so slightly differently, I'd be in Basil now.

Not a guarantee though, as near a decade married and my Korean is still rather basic.

[Jean]

19 years ago: one semester of Intensive German [4 college semesters shoved into one nose cram of a course] and a Swiss girlfriend at the time.

 

Hi Curran, before Grace has a look at this post, of how many languages/idioma do you have notions you have Korean, Italian, Swiss, American and... Makes me think of sailors, a girlfriend in each Harbour :D

[kaigunair]

It does appear to be a lot of effort for many low quality items, but I do see there are some decent kinko examples, just not much high end stuff (maybe 1506?). What I can't believe is the extent of the bad angle of the lighting and the huge shadow its casting. All that work photo'ing for such poor results. That, and the fact that it is b&w makes the machibori kinko work harder to appreciate.

 

I also see some nice early brass tsuba (1531?). But no tetsu jumped out at me (although that is where I am most lacking).

 

A commendable effort overall , but just fixing the lighting would have at least made this a much more useful reference catalog....

[Curran]

....Spanish and Dutch (Friisian at that... crazy language) That is it.

Hey... it was the university years and I did work in the language labs. Pretty international co-eds showed up at my window 18 hours a week. Why be a sailor taking long trips? Why not get paid to work in a place where they all come to you?

 

Never dated Japanese girl. Best one I knew was dating a classmate I respected the heck out of, so no go. Now she's an MD-PhD in San Fran.

Afraid my Spanish co-worker suffered from Yellow Fever, so all those girls were his. Given that he was a tall well groomed handsome guy, it was shooting fish in a barrel for him.

Were it not the insistence of a friend that I go on a blind date... would never have met Grace. Then had to keep my co-worker in check. For the record, Grace's roommate was a tall attractive redhead from France. But she was Tilda Swanson sort of freaky femme fatale. The Odd Couple of female roommates.

__________________________________________________________________________

 

Edit: Junichi: from memory, I think she was using catalog photos taken in 1923?

[John A Stuart]

Don't knock the sailor method Curran. Quick get-aways and no way to be gotten ahold of except by radio-telephone in extremis and a few thousand miles of buffer zone, can prove its value. John

[christianmalterre]

No further comment about Friisian´s please Curran!

(otherwise i´ll manage mine .8.8 into the your´s direction!)

 

me do own Friesian Horses-and like Napoleon B.-we do know how to charge Cavalry best)...LOL!

 

NO COMMENT ABOUT FRIESIANS AGAIN!

(plus-the Girls there do work pretty well either )

 

Christian

[kusunokimasahige]

Ost Friesen or West Friesen or even Dutch Friesen.

 

I prefer the Chauci and Bructeri anyway

 

KM

[kaigunair]

Probably time for the admins to change the title to the "MAK-daddy" thread...

 

I would have thought that pics in 1923 would have been done by professional given the higher costs, but makes sense that each is professional off in the same way.