sword picture

[b.hennick]

A friend came over and gave me some advice on sword photography.

The sugata shot was photoshopped to remove background and some dust. What I really want you to look at is the second photo.

We experimented with lighting and exposure. Using a macro lens set at f8 and 1/125 s and a good sword I got this picture. I also used Photoshop to remove some background and dust. This small section has the characteristic feature that one can use to identify this high level smith. The sugata of course is to help get the jidai.. :D

[Brian]

Barry,

 

Great photos, nice work

Just a quick glance while I am at work on a Monday morning, but looks like Gassan Ayasugi hada to me?

 

Brian

[Darcy]

Ayasugi hada the waves should stay synchronized. That is, troughs and valleys line up. In this case there is just a section of the hada where they line up, then they go counterpoint, and in some areas go flat or turn into burls.

 

So it is more organic than mechanical... hint hint.

[Brian]

Ah..I think I have it now.

Cheated slightly as there is a give-away, but I found it very interesting.

Not a feature I have seen much of in person, and hence did not recognise that pattern associated with the smith.

 

I won't give it away just yet..let others have a go.

I'll give another hint though: http://www.nihontocraft.com/nihonto_jigane_vari.html

 

If you can identify the pattern, you can probably find the smith.

 

Beautiful!

 

Brian

[Roland]

Great photography. Great blade. But I'm curious... I use a macro lens at f8 too. How did you set the light? Which and how much light sources did you use?

[Martin]

Could it be Matsukawa-Hada by Norishige?

 

cheers,

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

Could it be Matsukawa-Hada by Norishige?

 

cheers,

 

No, there is no masame in the matsukawa-hada, this one looks more like shinto yamato tegai or Ogasawara.

[Darcy]

Jacques, can you expand on your exact criticism in regards to the matsukawa hada? I personally fail to see a resemblance to Shinto work.

 

It may be a danger zone to approach with a preconceived notion that Matsukawa Hada must contain or must not contain certain elements. The effect of the nie and the broad strokes in which they are drawn, and the organic patterns that they follow are the most important factors I find when looking for matsukawa hada. Furthermore, Norishige was successful in intertwining the activities of hamon and jihada, the two move together throughout the picture and that confirms what is seen in the jihada in detecting the hand of Norishige. This is one of the key hallmarks of the smith that nobody else really quite established. It is really unquestionably Norishige work in my eye.

 

Through different periods he also pursued different forms, early on he was more influenced by ko-Bizen works and later on pushed more forward with his unique style. Because of his tremendous skill, long work period and what seems to be an endless drive to refine his style, it's difficult to put him in a small box in any way.

 

I have owned five Norishige, they show a full spectrum of work, but they also show one after another that each blade seems to be a technological advancement on one of the others in some way though the earliest was probably the best preserved and one of the most beautiful in its elegance.

[Jacques]

Darcy,

 

 

Sorry for my bad explanation :? when i said "this one looks more like shinto yamato tegai or Ogasawara" i wanted to talk about the picture that b.hennick had posted not about Norishige hada.

 

About gassan ayasugi hada, a nice photo :

 

[Darcy]

Hi Jacques,

 

That is what I am talking about... the sword is displaying very strong and vivid matsukawa hada, so I am curious about what you are looking at in the picture that makes you think it is not matsukawa hada?

[Darcy]

Here is my picture of ayasugi hada. This is the ideal and perfected form.

 

Gassan Sadakatsu

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

A photo is often better than a long speech,

 

 

Matsukawa hada is more strong and chikei are numerous and vigorous and no masame.

 

I've a Yamato tegai blade, look at it,

 

 

To my eyes it is more similar than Mastukawa hada (but i need perhaps new glasses :D ).

[Darcy]

The mistake here is that Norishige has a wide ranging style that evolved, and showed that the smith worked hard to push the boundaries. A work like the one you show is something that possibly another smith of similar great skill could match. But it is earlier work for him and it is wrong to assume that all his work looks like this. What you are mistaking for more "strong" chikei is just chikei done in a tighter jigane, and in this style they tend to appear black, in the later style they are bright and sparkling, appearing like crushed diamonds.

 

The style that shows the vibrant glowing chikei in o-itame is one that nobody could match. Norishige stands alone in making those. Many tried but they couldn't get it right.

 

So it is a trap, actually a trap for most of the good smiths, to use one sword to rule another out... one sword might rule another in but the converse doesn't work because of wide range of style.

 

My own guess on the Norishige that you put up would have been Go Yoshihiro, because with the tight jihada and the lack of the o-itame and large chikei I'd have turned away from Norishige. It is very clearly his work even outside the signature just goes into the early part of his career, and there is always some interchange between Go and Norishige.

 

Anyway back to the sword in question, consider this comparison:

 

 

On the left is a Tokubetsu Juyo Norishige that is one of, if not the best work of this smith that is not Kokuho.

 

O-itame (*), vibrant large chikei full of nie (*) in matsukawa hada (*) that intertwine with the hamon, making border between hamon and hataraki of the ji difficult to find if not blurred in many/most areas (*) -> all dominant traits of the smith.

 

The earlier work is based more on Ko-Bizen and you see exquisite forging and sedate hamon, this evolves over time to produce these works with the bright and shining matsukawa hada and I believe this is the finished style of Norishige. If you look at these in the right angle to the light they glow like they are lit within (I am not being poetic, they're embedded in the ji like ground diamond dust, and that's the best way to describe it I guess).

 

The Tegai work you linked, is this a yari or moroha-zukuri tanto?

 

It is a nice piece, but the scale is wrong (this sword is o-itame, and this yari I think it is, , and I fail to see any resemblance to the large patterns of nie that form the chikei in the pattern of matsukawa hada... the hada is very fine grained. The bit of activity shown in one spot in the hamon resembles some of this sword, but in taking postage stamps of koto blades hamon it is going to be very difficult to make progress if this is the basis for comparison :-).

[Jacques]

Darcy,

 

Thanks for the commentary i'll be less ignorant when i'll go to bed this evening.

 

Yes it's a yari (shinto yamato tegai mei Kawachi no kami Monju Kanesada)

 

other pictures:

 

 

For the pleasure, another Norishige, this one is kokuho :

 

[mike yeon]

Great photography Barry. I thought uda school or ko gassan but was pretty off.

 

Here's a picture of a blade that LOOKS like it has matsukawa hada and strong chikei. I do not believe that's the case with this blade though. Any thoughts on this?

 

mike

[Darcy]

In that kokuho tanto you can see in the bottom half the large patterns of nie that come together to form the matsukawa patterns. They look like large burls. The jpeg compression though is high and masks them somewhat, they look kind of ghostly as a result.

[Darcy]

These pictures of a Norishige illustrate the "diamond dust" I am talking about. You can see how they go extremely bright when the light hits them. It's marvellous.

 

That is visible in this particular style.

 

 

The sword is not very good for kantei because everyone gets it right at first glance :-).

[Darcy]

Mike, the sword you posted, look at the chikei with a magnifying glass or try to take a very close up picture. The chikei should be made up of individual nie like they've been painted by Monet. The high class work looks like that.

 

Sometimes it is possible with chemicals to make one of the steel layers react to something and the other not or less so, and it creates a great deal of contrast. It looks to me more like the one you are showing is a sword with a hada that stands out very clearly than a work of Norishige. The smith made his works in general to be very organic and they always have a natural feeling, and this is lacking in yours I think. You are on the right track though.

 

I don't claim to be the be-all Norishige knowledge repository, I am just lucky that I have had five on hand to photograph and looked at others in person, including the famous "#1" tanto.

[Brian]

Darcy,

 

Wow..that is stunning Must be amazing to see in person.

Still waiting for Barry to pop in and tell us more about the sword in the original pics...is it his, or on loan for the photos?

Very educational post. Once you get the hada, it is easy to get to the smith.

 

Brian

[mike yeon]

Darcy,

 

First off much thanks for sharing your knowledge and experiences with Norishige and his work. Informative as always.

 

The blade in the picture is shin-shinto. Which may explain some. The darker strands in the hada that look like chikei, flow along with the grain too uniformally so no, it's not true chikei.

 

I don't own the blade anymore but I was always curious as to what the hada was all about. I've seen this type of hada on a few shin-shinto pieces. Mostly utsushi mono. I always assumed it was a smith trying to emulate the works of the old masters but not quite getting there. Or I thought that it was a smith experimenting with mixing different steels.

 

In any case it's a far cry from the real thing as your pictures illustrate. Simply beautiful.

 

mike

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Hi Mike. Very nice. Likely you've sold it for something better...

 

Darcy, when you say "I'm lucky" you don't know how much... :D

[Guest reinhard]

Hi Mike,

The pictures you've posted remind me very much of the yakumo gitae of the Mito Rekko school. Since you don't own this sword anymore: Do you have a record of its signature?

Reinhard

[Darcy]

I have a lot of swords on hand right now for photography for the Soshu volume of the book series, which I am working on. This Norishige is one of them, it is mumei. The color photos I posted is a different Norishige. It is also mumei.

 

I just took these pictures to show what I mean by the glowing hada in the right light. If you see this sword during the day and don't observe carefully it might slip by your notice. It's past is one of just exactly that, it sat on the table top of a collector at a sword show. Probably a lot of guys reading this now may have picked it up and put it down. Out of polish, unpapered, for sale and people passed it over. Cary Condell bought it, as he knew what he was looking at, and after polish and when you settle down for sword viewing in proper light, it looks like this.

 

You just need the right angle and the right light, and it explodes into a light show.

 

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

he knew what he was looking at,

 

That's the hard part of the matter for me...