Soshu Lineage

[Darcy]

Discuss.

 

 

[SwordGuyJoe]

Darcy,

Looks good. I am doing something similar for the Kasama lineage. So far I have about 500 smiths from current day back to Kanbun. Which program did you use? I like Visio because you can make a spreadsheet and upload it to an org chart.

[Bazza]

Looks like a cross-fertilisation matrix!!!!

 

BaZZa.

[Ken-Hawaii]

Yeah, Visio is a real time-saver, Joe, but if you don't like Microsoft, Inspiration works well, too (http://www.inspiration.com/Inspiration).

 

Great job, Darcy!

 

Ken

 

[Brian]

Fascinating....going to need some time to process.

Would you mind explaining the thinner lines as opposed to the thicker ones such as that linking Shintogo Kunihiro to Soshu Hiromitsu and Hasebe Kunishige?
Colour blind...so can't tell you what colours were used

[Jean]

Mind blowing Chart, Darcy

[Jesper]

Very interesting chart, indeed!

For those of you who do not fancy Microsoft, another software is Enterprise Architect by Spax Systems, an Australian company. 

You can downloade a 30 day free trial from their website.

http://www.sparxsystems.com/

 

 

Jesper

[Darcy]

I used Google Drawing for this. All of these applications go back to something called "Diagram!" which was an amazing app for the NeXT machine way, way, way back when. Probably one of the modern apps is the direct inheritor of what they did. Google Drawing is not so good at keeping things connected when you move them and, like all Google software, is a bit clunky. But hey, free. 

 

Brian, not sure why SVG is disabled, it's better for this kind of thing, but the board is complaining about it. Maybe because IE 2.0 compliance is turned on heh.

 

 

Anyway version 2.0 of the chart. Tried to outline the main thrust of influence in red. Double thick after Soshu becomes Soshu when Shintogo hybridizes Bizen with Yamashiro (80% Yamashiro) or does whatever else magic he does to start popping the chikei and the nie. 

 

This has a lot of my own interpretation in it, it's not copied from books and is subject to discussion and error and updating. We have problems with the books in that they copy old stories and old versions of books and all of those old books conflict. Over time the Juttetsu has a way of expanding as well as Masamune becomes more important people want to attach more smiths to him. I believe in the theory of names, we know smiths hand down one or two characters and those characters mean something. Masamune flat out being the wunderkid student of Shintogo Kunimitsu and son of Yukimitsu pulls his name out of the blue. He is more likely a late child or a grandchild of Saburo Kunimune and has gotten his Mune through this route. He ends up in the Soshu shop, a bit younger than Norishige, both younger than Yukimitsu.

 

I moved Yukimitsu up. Old stories have him as a son of Bungo Yukihira. Yukihira is famous for his horimono panels that exist in a panel above the machi. These same panels we start seeing in Soshu tanto but they do not come from Awataguchi. They are in Yukimitsu and in Masamune (the 'Fudo' meito by both smiths). These are sometimes thought to be carved by Daishinbo. There are a few items attributed to Daishinbo but not commonly. So if he learns to make these things it is maybe coming through Yukimitsu and originating in Yukihira. Sadamune's funky carvings are maybe learned in turn from Daishinbo. Yukimitsu's name coming half from Yukihira and have from Kunimitsu seems to point at an older smith learning from his father then moving to Sagami and joining in with Shintogo. He's always thought of as a bit older than Masamune and Norishige and is the only smith other than Kunihiro to make something exactly in Shintogo style. So he is probably older than Shintogo Kunihiro but not blood line so does not inherit the shop. The stories of him being the father of Masamune indicate that he's older but it's more likely a half generation rather than a full generation.

 

I perceive him as kind of a grand uncle, from Shintogo Kunimitsu's generation but maybe a touch younger. Has respect and casts some influence all over all of this his own direct students are limited because he is an outsider coming in.

 

Dotted lines are influence or some kind of heritage. Nobukuni is glossed over into Rai, where he comes from the Ryokai branch. Masamune and Norishige seem obsessed with Ko-Hoki work and copy and enhance it. Masamune only goes so far, Norishige goes to the edge and steps over into something very new. 

 

Dashed lines indicate partial schooling. The Go / Norishige / Tametsugu relationship is hard to understand other than that we know he is a son of Go and studied with Norishige, and Go is thought to have died young. Go needs to exist long enough to teach something to Tametsugu though because the style does follow. Go is supposed to have been a retainer and bushi which may explain his early death. The throwbacks then all the way to Ko-Hoki are done by choice rather than direct influence and these are dotted. I had to reduce whole trees of schools to one block when dealing with smiths who came from other traditions and schools and hybridized those with Soshu: Nagashige, Shizu, Samonji and Nobukuni. It's an argument with Shizu and Nobukuni about which of them made the most Soshu-like hybrids and so which of this branch represents the strongest thrust of Soshu. But since Sadamune is the one who inherits this branch of Soshu he got the red which is what lead it to Nobukuni.

 

The main branch traditionally is held to be all students of Masamune and I think it's not the case for a few reasons. First is that their work doesn't look a lot like Masamune. The fine forging and beautiful steel you see in Shintogo Kunimitsu and Yukimitsu through Masamune and Sadamune and Nobukuni. If you put them down the steel says they go together. Early Norishige before he took off in his own direction and Go Yoshihiro belong over here. 

 

Hiromitsu, Hasebe, Akihiro, Masahiro they all have a more course steel that is a lot less lively in ji hataraki. You can see this when you handle top works by all of them. In the place of the ji hataraki comes hitatsura. It may be that this change is related, that in order to explode the hamon all over the blade they had to do something different with the steel to make it able to take this hardening and also not break. It's still related but it just seems different. Not to mention that this whole style of fabrication is different from what went on in Sadamune, Nobukuni and in that side (that is, hitatsura becoming the major focus). This is the main branch of Soshu which is interesting because Masamune is not in it. It's the main branch just because the guys that were in this side of the tree are the ones that survived through the Muromachi. 

 

The other reason for them being grouped as students of Shintogo Kunihiro is the names. Both Kunihiro and Kunimitsu have signed works with Hasebe in their names. There is a theory that Hasebe Kunishige is a Yamato smith and his name comes from some temple over there yadayada. But this ignores that he is making Soshu swords and the Soshu masters directly above him very rarely used Hasebe. I think unless there is a strong argument that this is a huge coincidence then it makes me want to accept it. Their names all inherit from Kunihiro. 

 

Hasebe Kunishige's name is taking the family name from the Shintogo line and the first part of Kuni from Kunihiro. Hiromitsu is half Yukimitsu and half Kunihiro. 

 

There are works of Yukimitsu that are in hitatsura and he has all kinds of experimentations in shape and hamon, including a lot of yubashiri that is approaching hitatsura. Some of these are just convenient attributions to Yukimitsu. He is the default go-to guy when you can't place it easilly. Some of these may be works of Daishinbo. It is possible that the one midare work of Shintogo is actually a work of Yukimitsu, daisaku, or else is something that reflects influence backwards from Yukimitsu's work. This is all a big area for speculation. But great uncle Yukimitsu I could see planting the seed in Hiromitsu's head about how to make his own style separate from the other great stuff going on in the workshop. 

 

Shintogo Kunihiro never does anything particularly special, his work is like his father's though not as inspired and never branches out into anything else. He is good, but not great. He is faithful but not imaginative. This strictly Yamashiro-like construction in Soshu dies along with him. But the hand of Yukimitsu is seen in everything going on in the shop. To me then it feels more like Kunihiro is in position through being the son of the founder. Technically he is the head of the school and his work is good enough that he's just not shunted to the side. His students though take more inspiration from great uncle Yukimitsu and the goings on in the Masamune side. 

 

Together they come up with the hitatsura and they were the younger generation. Sadamune though in charge of the Masamune lineage ends up leaving Sagami. He teaches Nobukuni and Takagi Sadamune and his teachings continue on through these smiths outside of Kamakura. His quieter work may reflect a quieter disposition than the loud and flamboyant work of Hiromitsu as well. There is nothing exactly wrong I think in believing that the sword is a reflection of the maker to some degree. But this leaves no challenge in Kamakura for who would inherit the tradition and the main line of work and so we get it coming down from the Hiromasa, Hirotsugu, Tsuguhiro, Sukehiro, Masahiro smiths that all reflect both in work style and their names that Hiromitsu is a big figure in their past. We don't see the name of Masamune anymore as his work got spread through Mino and through his son to Takagi and Kanro Toshinaga and through Nobukuni who ends up at the head of a long lineage himself. Through Samonji with a long lineage and many master students. Through Nagashige which essentially kidnaps the Bizen tradition for a while. But his teachings in each case become hybridized with Yamato, Bizen and Yamashiro, becoming something quite new and different from each other, without any pure lineage descending from him. 

 

 

[paulb]

Hi Darcy

Thank you for your considerable efforts and for getting mind cells working.

I must admit when reading this I become increasingly frustrated realising that I can never be more than a beginner in this subject. I am in the wrong place lack the linguistic skills to read work written in Japanese and to communicate with sword scholars in Japan. So I must content myself with those works translated. Thankfully work by Markus Sesko has greatly enhanced this but there is a mass of material which will always remain unseen (by me).

 

I think the strong Yamashiro influence on Kunimitsu is apparent in his jigane. The one Yukimitsu tanto I have looked at in detail had almost identical jugane but a more flambouyant hamon. Certainly it is reaonable to see him as a contemporary nd associate of Kunimitsu.

I havent seen work of Kunihiro but believe that after him later Soshu work started to go seriously adrift.

Looking at your chart where does Rai Kunimitsu and Kunitsugu figure? Kunitsugu seems to show considerable Soshu influence (more than Kunimitsu and Ryokai) possibly more than Nobukuni shouldnt he be in the main Masamune influenced grouping?

Once again thanks for the efforts and getting my thought processes working on a wet and miserable Sunday.

Cheers

Paul

[Darcy]

Also the colors are meant to track the evolving styles, and tried (within limits) to make the colors associate. So the transformation of what I think is primarily Yamashiro Awataguchi into the first stage of Soshu shows a shift from yellow to orange. Yukimitsu, Kunimitsu and Kunihiro are the three representatives who work purely in this style. After them it evolves again, both with Masamune-Norishige hybridizing it with Ko-Hoki to produce something new, and then the concentration on Hitatsura in the inheritors below Kunihiro. You get styles then around Masamune which are related by color and then hybridize with other base traditions to make new things. Nobukuni mixes Yamashiro back in so it drifts back a bit towards his origins. 

 

Sue-Soshu should be orange, gotta fix that. 

 

There are things that space doesn't permit like Kanro Toshinaga and Takagi Sadamune and Motoshige. Motoshige I think is not related to Sadamune though the stories say so. 

 

Also there is a rare smith the NBTHK called "Soshu Kunitsuna" and also just as "later generation Kunitsuna." This smith is either inheriting from Awataguchi from the Inaba-Kokaji line which we do not often year about. There is not a whole lot of reason to understand why this guy is in Sagami. His name being a copy of Awataguchi Kunitsuna is odd and there may be two, there may indeed be offspring of Kunitsuna that carried on the name. But I think this other guy his work looks like Suketsuna and this one tanto has a strange koshibi that descends through the end of the nakago that I never really remembered seeing until I saw it on a jubi Shintogo Kunimitsu. 

 

If I had to plug him in I'd plug him in as a student of Suketsuna and he's getting the Kuni maybe either randomly or via Kunimitsu.

 

I just put the oshigata of two of their signed pieces (extremely rare for both) and the hamon matches very well in the sections above the signature. The signatures are different but looks like same chisel, same kind of size and close enough in style that it could be teacher-student. The other 'Kodai Kunitsuna' they passed through Juyo the mei is very fine and it's in suguba. Looks unrelated. 

 

But look yourself, by the current attributions these are two completely unrelated smiths, on the right is an offspring of Awataguchi and on the left is an offspring of Fukuoka Ichimonji. It should be sun-moon I would think. Not this very close, again, big coincidence?

 

[Darcy]

Looking at your chart where does Rai Kunimitsu and Kunitsugu figure? Kunitsugu seems to show considerable Soshu influence (more than Kunimitsu and Ryokai) possibly more than Nobukuni shouldnt he be in the main Masamune influenced grouping?

Once again thanks for the efforts and getting my thought processes working on a wet and miserable Sunday.

Cheers

Paul

 

The chart is not big enough... but I think Rai Kunimitsu has nothing to do with Soshu den. Rai Kunitsugu I always had a lot of difficulty understanding why people wanted to include him in the Masamune mon as I couldn't see it in the work though it deviates a bit more from Rai. 

 

He made daimei for Rai Kunitoshi, this much can be seen if you look at every Rai Kunitoshi signature there is there are six distinct forms. 

 

1. Niji mei in his father's style, this is two characters and in the Kuni there is a cluster of three strokes in the upper left, with blank space below them.

 

2. Sanji mei, he adds RAI but otherwise the Kuni is copied over from the Niji days. This happens before the style changes to suguba.

 

3. Sanji mei and the three strokes migrate to fill the space on the left. So you can approximately date the work by looking at the Kuni. The strokes should all be angled slightly up.

 

4. Sanji mei but the signature is more calligraphic and the upstrokes are aggressive. These are daimei by Rai Kunimitsu

 

5. Sanji mei but the signature is more square looking overall and the upstrokes have now become purely horizontal. This is Rai Kuninaga's signature on a normal day for him so these are his daimei.

 

6. Sanji mei similar to Rai Kunimitsu but the strokes are now angled down. This is really deliberate, I'm not talking about little tweaks of the atari on these, it is a complete reorientation that each of these students does to make his mei distinct. These are Rai Kunitsugu. 

 

So he is there in the Rai workshop has his father is advancing into old age, working alongside everyone else. Rai Kunitoshi is 75 in 1315 and signs and dates a work at this time. This is the same time that Masamune and Norishige are studying under Shintogo Kunimitsu by the dated work of Norishige that is the same style as Shintogo and has 1314 and 1319 dates. Since Rai Kunitsugu is making daimei for Kunitoshi he has to be working in the Rai shop in 1315 -or- he has to be a lot older than we think. But his own dated work is 1327 so we know he's not older. He's old enough for making daimei for Kunitoshi in or around 1315 and independent in 1327. This makes him about the same age as Masamune.

 

The authors do write that there is Soshu style in his work but I just can't see it, it's either my limitations or a stretch but I am not alone in skepticism. 

 

There is a signed work in the Kozan Oshigata which says "Kamakura Junin Rai Kunimitsu." It's easy to laugh at some of these things but if the Honami recorded them it's because they thought it was correct. So presumably the work looked good and proper. Fujishiro does not believe in the traveling students at all. But here were are 700 years later making decisions about what these guys did do or didn't do and I think that first we have to look at the evidence and let the evidence tell us before we pull instinctive reasons out of our heads and then hammer them down. 

 

When Rai Kunitoshi dies it's clear who is the senior pupil there and it's Rai Kunimitsu. We know that Rai Kuninaga leaves. We know that Enju comes from Rai smiths leaving. Rai does have a bit of a diaspora and it wouldn't be that hard to believe that if your brother just inherited the shop after his father's death and you were junior under him, but now in your prime that you might seek out new opportunities elsewhere and try to set up your own forge and shop. 

 

Setting up side by side with your brother who just got crowned King of Rai when dad died is probably not so great for your brand. We can see that the Rai smiths did move on to other places. So, possibly Kamakura is where Kunitsugu packed up his forge and went to, selling the Rai brand locally. Maybe it didn't last all that long as we know the Soshu smiths also left. Sadamune apparently left. Hasebe Kunishige is connected to Yamashiro... he probably left. 

 

Everyone is trying to seek out a place that has materials and where there is demand for their swords. Entire schools move from Yamato to Etchu (Uda) and Mino (Mino-Senjuin) during this period as well following the ebb and flow of war. 

 

Fujishiro dismisses the traveling student but smiths and schools did move around and it's not that hard to understand there may be real economic forces at work just like there are today. 

 

So they called him Kamakura Rai and we want to scoff at this but we have Nakajima Rai for Rai Kuninaga who would have been in the exact same boat as Kunitsugu. He got on the road and re-established a successful school away from Kyoto. So, I believe it. And probably the Soshu-like stuff that people talk about is just some spillover from trying to flavor his work for the local crowd who were buying from the Shintogo shop. 

 

Mind you this is like 80% conjecture and I don't want to give the impression I am reading from books on all of this, I'm not. But I just don't like to dismiss traditions out of hand, like if he's been called Kamakura Rai they don't pull that out of their butts. They didn't have to. It may be wrong, but it is the kind of wrong where you throw a dart at the dartboard and miss the bullseye. But you still hit the board. This Kamakura Rai stuff I think was legit and in later years that got bent into saying, well if he was in Kamakura it means he must have been a student of Masamune and so you get him added to the Juttetsu. And that is not in the work.

 

Kanemitsu and Chogi, it's not in the work either. They have Soshu influence but they are not making Soshu swords. Those are hybrid swords. Kinju's work shows Soshu influence but it's not like Masamune. Shizu and Go and Norishige and Masamune, these swords you can mix one up for the other in the zone where they all overlap. That shows a strong relationship. Naotsuna's work is about as close as Chogi's work and they usually discount him on time period. But this also neglects that there seems to be three generations.

 

This happens even today where someone takes a dated work and goes "ah-ha this date proves something." Well it proves that some guy who used that name, generation unknown, dated that blade. Naotsuna is old enough that it could be true but I think it's the same as Chogi and Kanemitsu, his work fits more with those than it does with Shizu-Go-Masamune-Norishige. Nagashige's work is more like Masamune than it is like Osafune *except* he clearly has some work which shows he knew the exact tradition handed down by Kagemitsu. So Nagashige has got a clear left hand and clear right hand. One is traditional Osafune and one is Soshu. 

 

Kanemitsu has clear works in the same boat: they are Kagemitsu style on the one hand and then a hybrid of Soshu with Bizen on the other. They are distinctly different with no doubts, but the difference is that Nagashige's "other" is Soshu and Kanemitsu's "other" is Soden-Bizen. Nagashige also comes before him in time. Chogi comes after both of them and there is no "other" for him. His style is just Chogi style which is an evolution on Soden-Bizen. This points to him being younger than the both of them and taught probably by Nagashige. He never learns Kagemitsu style.

 

There is no point. Kanemitsu and Nagashige learn it because it was what was necessary to sell a sword at the time they were learning. At the time Chogi comes along it is out of touch with market reality. 

 

This has turned into a ramble on the Juttetsu, but the one not covered so much here is Samonji who is another that has a clear left and a clear right hand side. There are those BEFORE some teaching incident and those AFTER. And when he learned he learned to make them first like Shintogo-Yukimitsu and then like Masamune. The works show clearly he was a talented guy who worked in the backroads country style of his pappy. Went to the big city and submitted himself and they taught him, you need to learn to do this first, so he worked from first principles. Learning Yamashiro type of technique. Now that you know how to do this, like our teacher taught us, now try this, and now he's making blades that look quite like Masamune. Then he returns home with this technology and knowledge and proceeds to economically take over his home province with a large school and many master smiths that learn his techniques and send them down through the ages. 

 

The time period coincides with the twilight years of Masamune, where Samonji converts his style. 

 

I don't think it was done, by himself, out on an island, without knowing what material the Soshu smiths were using and how they were treating it. I don't think he just pulls it out of his butt through trial and error because there are too many variables. And if it was THAT EASY TO DO then in the Shinto period when everyone was pulling their hair out trying to replicate Soshu and Go and Masamune and Norishige and failing admirably but miserably, they would have been able to do it. Hankei, Kotetsu, Kunihiro, Myoju, Tadayoshi, Yasutsugu, these are all guys of gigantic skill. *They* were hunting in the dark. *They* didn't know the materials or the treatment. They had the final product only to look at. In the case of Yasutsugu he was actually doing tempering work right on the genuine articles after they were burned. In spite of the fact that he could work directly ON a Soshu masterpiece he was completely unable to come up with a from-scratch reproduction of these things. 

 

Nobody could. 

 

And they were not dumbasses. They had the time, the economic inclination, they had daimyo providing them examples and asking them to replicate it. But they couldn't figure out the process or the material.

 

Hence: there is no way Samonji could have done it either. 

 

Soshu is the end result of hundreds of years of fine tuning of the Yamashiro tradition AND the Bizen tradition AND master smiths coming together from various areas AND a handful of brilliant guys with just the right material on hand to make it come together. It needed that unbroken line of knowledge and technique plus the inspiration and genius and materials on the spot. 

 

For one guy to pick up a hammer and get a paid of sand and replicate all of that in his backyard from first principles is just too much. The Shinto smiths couldn't do it. The Shinshinto smiths working on what was handed to them started to understand it better. Modern day has the best chance to understand it: we have engineering and materials science, we have full exposure to the examples, we have historical knowledge and the internet. But they have problems figuring out the material and the techniques are still only guesswork and will never be known. All we can do is guess and make replicas. 

 

Since the end of the Nanbokucho, nobody could make those swords any more and nobody ever will. Everything will only be a replica because the materials will be simulated and the techniques will be simulated with a goal of making something that visibly passes a cosmetic test. You can make yourself a Ferrari in your garage given enough time and effort but it won't be a Ferrari, it will be a replica. 

 

But to make that replica Ferrari now you need to tap into a lot of known engineering and tools and the further back you go that much harder it is to just replicate something without the massive body of knowledge to tap into that we take for granted today.

[BIG]

Other thoughts....

 

http://www.nihontomessageboard.com/articles/Examining_the_Origin_of_Soshu-den_old.pdf

 

Best Regards

[Jean]

A totally side question Darcy, where do you place the Unrui school?

[Darcy]

Here is the argument for Nobukuni below. These are nothing like Ryokai or Rai. These are Soshu ko-wakizashi with horimono handed down through Sadamune. In the upper left is a later generation Nobukuni, interesting horimono are carried forward but the technique is being lost in the hamon or else the materials are gone. 

 

Upper middle is filled with all Soshu activities including hataraki appearing in the ji. The shape is identical to Hiromitsu or Sadamune. Even the nakago. It's signed. The other four are mumei. At the right you see more horimono pouring in from the Soshu influence. The hamon again is based on Sadamune, with ko-notare and fine workings. 

 

Bottom left now, have a look at the nakago. We see in the hamon again Soshu technique and filled with nie and violent activity, hataraki appearing in the ji again and yubashiri and uchinoke intertwining with the hamon. These are all things that we would see on some Yukimitsu or on some Norishige. He does not venture into the controlled expression of hitatsura that is found in the parallel group from Hiromitsu though. This is more like the Soshu style work that comes before Hiromitsu. So he is basically trying to retain something from this rather than copy what Hiromitsu/Akihiro took in their spin on Soshu den. 

 

Back to the nakago, this piece looked enough like Sadamune that someone removed the mei and put a kengkyo nakagojiri on it. But the hamon is too much for Sadamune. Can't comment on the jigane but the best work of Nobukuni is very beautiful and refined jigane. So it could pass in that department if made like that. But this hamon is over the top for Sadamune. 

 

Even so, the point is that someone used this to fake a Sadamune. You can't make a fake Sadamune out of a Rai Kunitsugu. 

 

Middle one the hamon is sedate but the horimono are a faithful interpretation handed down starting with Shintogo Kunimitsu and then found in Sadamune frequently. This got cut down unfortunately. Bottom right you have another one that was close enough that someone faked a Sadamune with it. 

 

When you look at kengkyo you have to use it as a signal that someone thought this could pass for Sadamune, Go Yoshihiro, or Masamune. If it is Soshu den, and modern day attributed to one of these related smiths, and with this nakago jiri, it means in the Edo period this blade *was* one of those other three.

 

Samonji with Kengkyo was not considered Samonji at some point in its life. Could be any of the three above. Nobukuni with this, someone thought it to be Sadamune. May have genuinely thought it to be Sadamune and "helped" it comply a little bit. Or removed a signature and altered the nakago on purpose to make it Sadamune for nefarious purposes or to give as a gift out of necessity. 

 

But again is the notare based hamon with various midareba departures on that bottom right blade and the interesting horimono that frequently accompany his work.

 

I ended up with a tanto once from Christie's that I thought was Nobukuni and had a gimei Yukimitsu on it. Everyone knew it was gimei so nobody would touch it. But gimei, I mean, this again means that someone a long time ago thought it was good enough to pass. That they could sell it and make money or else give it and not get their head cut off. So it should mean that it's close at least. People react like it's radioactive but knowing it to be gimei should open your eyes up and slow down and have a look at what it is. It was not necessarily made to con a sucker, if it is old enough (though it could be). But in this case Tanobe sensei when I showed him the blade said it was likely to pass as Soshu Sadamune and failing that would go to Shodai Nobukuni. 

 

Nobody even bid on it out of fear of the signature. It was acquired as a set with a daito and two high quality koshirae for less than the price of a Juyo Sadamune. Because everyone just thought gimei so it would be foolish to bid. But they I guess couldn't judge the work as Soshu and if you accept it as a high quality Soshu tanto, then no matter where you drop that it is going to hit a good target. While patting myself on the back I admit I blew it on the daito and thought it Koto when it was Shinto. 

 

Anyway: Nobukuni examples. And now I have to get real work done.

 

[paulb]

Hi Darcy

I really appreciate your in depth response. I need some time to digest it before coming back to you. theres a lot of information and ideas in there that I would like to understand better.

thanks again

Paul

[Darcy]

A totally side question Darcy, where do you place the Unrui school?

 

I'm usually talking about Soshu from personal experience with the blades, and Unrui I do not have any personal experience. They are similar to Aoe but I think not as good. I group them with Bizen as the NBTHK does this but the way they do it is pulled to the side of the main line. The talent level of the smiths is very high but doesn't compete with the main line. I have probably not seen enough through not actively looking at them to see their best work but they are not written about as competing with the very best. But well regarded. 

 

So: Bizen tradition, Yamashiro hybrid, maybe Aoe influenced. There are over 200 Juyo for the main three or four smiths here (the main three being Unji, Unsho and Unju) but only 8 are Tokubetsu Juyo. This is one way of statistically examining where the smiths lie in terms of relative skill levels, at least modern appreciation. They are hitting Tokuju but they are falling short compared to contemporaries This is a bit less than 4% of Juyo works passing at the top level. 

 

Comparing: Nagamitsu has 22 out of 167 works at Tokuju, so 13% of his output passes this high and though there are many more Ukai as a school than Nagamitsu (who is kind of a school to himself since many of these are made by Sanenaga, Kagemitsu, etc), it's about 13%. 

 

Kagemitsu's number is about 9%. So you can see, he is Sai-jo and Nagamitsu is Sai-jo but the passing rate for Nagamitsu blades is 50% higher than Kagemitsu. 

 

A Sai-jo level smith in what I have been looking at stats wise, Tokubetsu Juyo is roughly equating to the best 10% of their work. If the smith is exceeding this rate then it is an indication of the importance of the smith (in my opinion). The thing is though: Tokubetsu Juyo is a work in progress. And many of the smith's best works when they are a true grand-master have been pre-selected as Kokuho or another ranking like this that stops them from being counted in these stats. 

 

Awataguchi Kuniyoshi's Tokuju works are 15 out of 35 total works or 42% which is getting close to one out of every two. 

 

Yoshimitsu's is 4 out of 19, which is 21% and considerably higher than Nagamitsu (who really is one of the giants). Yoshimitsu's number is distorted by there being 8 Juyo Bunkazai and 4 Kokuho. This means that there are more blades ranked higher than Juyo for Yoshimitsu than there are ranked Juyo (15 "only Juyo" vs. 8+4+4 = 16) before you even try to count Jubis. When you factor in those as well Nagamitsu's ratio is affected. 

 

So these are guidelines rather than absolutes. That magic number is around 10%, and it shows Awataguchi school being held probably in the highest regard.

 

Masamune is for the record 52 that passed Juyo vs. 18 of those that went on to Tokuju, so a 35% passing rate. With Masamune though, you need to be careful of how they pass Juyo. Those with kinzogan mei will get "Masamune" slapped in the column we think is the attribution column, but this column just copies what is on the nakago if there is something on the nakago.

 

Roughly 30% of Masamune have a notation in the setsumei which indicates that the attribution to Masamune is doubtful but the work was certainly made by someone in the Soshu school with very high skill. People in the west don't understand this and may think they are being very smart in acquiring a Masamune at a very nice price. These blades, the candidates for making them are primarily Shizu and Yukimitsu. Those are of course very fine makers on their own but in the marketplace even their masterworks do not approach the price of a beat up Masamune. So the incorrect reading of the paper leads people to the wrong conclusion about what it is. This is not "Den" Masamune I am talking about because these papers will not say Den on the front. They are usually marked as "there is a gold filled signature to Masamune" on the oshigata. Rather than saying "gold  filled signature Masamune". The slight bit of wording change means some uncertainty.

 

This opens up a whole other area of difficult headache inducing things. 

 

An usigned blade with DEN in the attribution does not mean it's a school attribution or an uncertain attribution, it is the difference of saying "attributed to" vs "made by." That is, there is no other good answer to give, this is the best answer and this is our attribution. *Both* are attributions. One is said more forcefully because the blade without DEN fits the textbook better. The textbook is incomplete, this has to be understood with koto blades, because so few signatures exist. DEN causes a lot more confusion and worry than it really should. I've seen DEN appear on fully signed blades at Juyo level, and then removed at Tokuju. This being an example of the book being extended by the blade in question. We have to understand in this stuff that the book is alive and active, actually in the last 100 years finally people are getting a look at these blades that were always closely held. This is why the Juyo publications are so key, because they are categorizing the best of the best blades that are not already singled out for the government papers and such. So at times they will contradict or extend the book of knowledge. 

 

The friend to DEN "to mei ga aru" is used when the piece is signed somehow. We tend to look at signatures like handwriting because we know pens and we know fake signatures and so on. This is one way of knowing it's wrong, but getting the period of the signature is an essential part of this. If something in the signing habit is unusual, but analysis of where the signature lies on the surface three dimensionally and the state of the patina inside the signature can tell us its age. If the age of the signature relates to the age of the piece, but the strokes don't look 100% like what is in the book, you get these "research items" that get the to mei ga aru treatment. They are accepted, but they're noted as unusual examples. Previously some of these probably got erased out of hand by over zealous people and in this regard the book tended to reinforce itself by erasing anything that disagreed with it. To mei ga aru then on a mei (there is a signature of) is telling you that the period is right, the signature is not dismissed as gimei for how it departs from the standard, so it is acceptable but it's on the edge. Finding more like this helps confirm these examples. I own a Norishige that has this note and I found another in the Juyo which is identical to it. Norishige's signature is a bit of a mess so it's hard to know exactly what triggers them and when. It helps that on these items that the work is a slam dunk for the maker and then combined with the signature being the right period but slightly unusual allows it to be accepted as just that. Slightly unusual. 

 

This notation though turns around in a sharp direction when it comes to attributed blades. Because if someone puts in a kinzogan to Masamune, they are saying it is Masamune. And the NBTHK uses that language to say that they're not in agreement with the attribution. That it is debatable and weak, but it is in the correct zone. Note that the NBTHK believes the gap between Yukimitsu, Norishige, Go and Masamune to be much more subtle from a scholarly point of view than the popularity and desirability of the items are in the marketplace. That is, to make something Masamune causes the value to skyrocket to doubling and tripling the price vs. near equivalent quality work in Yukimitsu and Norishige. 

 

This fine parsing then on the back of the setsumei is necessary to know what they mean when they use this phrase and this is why I say about 30% of the Masamune that passed Juyo probably can't be fully used in this calculation. 

 

The difference in language is usually along the lines of "Soshu joko no saku" (a high level Soshu craftsman made this) vs. "Sagami no Kuni Masamune no saku" (obvious). Or "We accept the attribution to Masamune." vs. "the attribution to Masamune is questionable but it was certainly made by someone in the circle of Masamune."

 

I think the first one is a bit of a condemnation (Soshu joko no saku) because it seems to be ruling out Masamune in favor of just a talented Soshu smith and he is supposed to stand out. The last is more fudging language saying they see influential traits and Masamune might be OK but might not be. For the first kind it makes me feel like they would suspect Yukimitsu and for the second kind they would suspect Shizu.