Established ideas that need to change - 3: Pre-Edo period schools & Reliance on NBTHK papers

[GRC]

[Steve Waszak]

On 12/22/2024 at 10:37 AM, GRC said:

Hi Steve @Steve Waszak

Sorry, but both of those tsuba look to be clear examples (or attempts?) at the Nidai mei.

I honestly don't see how you're getting a meijin shodai read on the first one (the more rounded one)... it has an angled stroke on the left side of the "Yama", and the length of the mei as a whole is shorter vertically than the nakago-ana... both features are distinctly more "Nidai-esque", rather than "Shodai".

 

Hi Glen 

 

I think the poor quality of the photos I posted, especially of the first tsuba, kind of affect our reading of the mei.  The left "post" of the "Yama" ji on this tsuba actually is vertical; it is not angled inwards as we would see on a Nidai guard.  Below is another image of this tsuba (still awful photo quality, but I think you can see what I mean):

 

As for the degree of extension of the mei along the seppa-dai, there is actually a bit of a range here.  Some Meijin-Shodai mei are more compressed, while some Nidai mei can be more extended.  A few examples follow.  First, the Meijin-Shodai:

 

 

 

 

And here is an early Nidai:

 

 

On 12/22/2024 at 10:37 AM, GRC said:

Even the mei on the more oblong one is too "absent" for my liking on that tsuba... there is no good reason for parts of the "kichi" and "bei" kanji to be missing while the "Yama" is so crisp on this particular tsuba.

...which again makes me think these probably aren't what they claim to be.

 

Here, too, a different photo makes a difference, I think:  

 

 

On 12/22/2024 at 10:37 AM, GRC said:

Both of these sukashi tsuba are so far out of the realm of what would fit within the YKB aesthetic that they would certainly qualify as "extreme anomalies" if they were indeed produced by this YKB smith.

They certainly have a similar sukashi style to the group of tsuba I posted above, but these are clearly more "rugged", thicker rimmed, thicker bodied (I assume from shadow angles at the bottom of the 2nd one), and have a somewhat heat treated but mild "yakite" surface finish (but not one that meets the standards of other YKB works in my opinion).

I suppose there's an outside chance that these two tsuba could have been produced by the Nidai smith, but are so far out of even his broad range of works, that I'm more inclined to think these were some sort of "Kanayama/Owari/Ohno-esque" tsuba that were later given a yamakichibei mei in order to deceive.

 

The above pictured tsuba is a piece I used to own, so I am very familiar with the metal with this one.  It differs greatly from anything Ohno and significantly even from Owari sukashi, and is in keeping with Nidai iron I have seen on more than a dozen others of his works.  As for the possibility of this being a Kanayama guard with a later (convincingly-rendered mei), well, I suppose it's not impossible.  However, as I say, the mei is correct in a multitude of idiosyncratic details for the Nidai.  Additionally, I don't recall having seen a Kanayama tsuba in this shape (nor an Owari-sukashi, or, of course, an Ohno).  I am quite confident that this is indeed a Nidai Yamakichibei work, as both the metal and the mei conform tightly to his typical work in these areas.  Additionally, the sugata of this guard is actually something of an otafuku-gata form, one that not only did the Nidai employ famously, but also one that Kanayama, Ohno, and Owari-sukashi did not.  

 

I'm a little surprised by your skepticism here, too, given your arguments in this very thread pertaining to the idea that there are definite "schools" of tsubako whose work is rigidly unvarying and limited in style, form, and construction methods to those schools.  If it is actually the case -- and I certainly have long subscribed to this understanding myself -- that a given tsubako could make tsuba in a variety of styles and forms, whether he did so as the whim struck him, or because he was commissioned/ordered to do so by a patron or member of the Buke clan he served, would it be so surprising that these two Yamakichibei works would depart from their usual aesthetic of ita plate forms combined with ko-sukashi?  It certainly isn't to me.  In particular, if the various tsuba whose images you posted earlier (all attributed to different schools despite their obvious similarities, which is your point in posting them) presented with forms that were popular in the later Momoyama years, is it a major stretch to imagine that a Yamakichibei smith could be commissioned to create one, too?  No, it is not.  And again, when both the metal and the mei align clearly with each other and with other works by the Nidai, well, Occam's Razor once again appears.  Those hoofbeats we're hearing belong to a Clydesdale or an Appaloosa, not a Przewalski's. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Steve Waszak]

Here's one more interesting piece, relevant to this discussion.  It is a Meijin-Shodai work in the same sugata as that seen in the Meijin-Shodai tsuba I posted above, twelve lobes forming the shape.  This form is indeed a departure from his usual sugata, but he clearly did occasionally make such departures.  Unfortunately, the photo quality is very poor, but the shape is clear, which is the main information required here:

 

 

[MauroP]

Dear NMB fellows,
I'm very pleased to read the "Established ideas that need to change" threads. It's a comprehensive effort to line up all the main issues that perplex every western scholar.  Usually is said that it takes ten years time to master a specialized branch of knowledge. But that's not true for tōsōgu  studies;  why? Till now I was thinking it's just the lacking of relevant literature accessible in a language I can understand in a reasonably clear way. Now it seems to me that the "state of the art" in this field is much worse than I had perceived so far. Let me brefly focus on the main points emerging from this interesting thread and then discuss each separately:
1. school categorizations;
2. period of production;
3. consistency in assigning a categorization.

Point 1: are tōsōgu studies a science? No (IMHO), it's a kind of religion! The "revelation" came out many years ago, but far later than the objects of its speculation, and resulted in a coherent "theology". Scientific approach is simply impossible: no contemporary documentation available (historic criteria), almost no circumstantial data available (archaeologic criteria). Stylistic analysis could be a (weak) basis, but we all know that in Japan the same models of tsuba have been produced for centuries, and many styles were present in the same period.
Point 2: in principle  it's possible date an iron specimen produced in a traditional way (using charcoal obtained from wood collected almost the same time the iron was produced). Actually the available technology is still immature: it's destructive, needs quite a lot of material from the specimen and is prone to pitfalls (if fossil fuel was used in the production, the result could predate the specimen by many centuries or even millennia).
Point 3: this is a goal that can reasonably be pursued. But is it so important? Personally I'm interested in theology (nihil humani a me alienum puto) and I appreciate a coherent preach, but what if I'm an atheist or a believer in another religion... It's no clue to teach Catholicism to the Pope (and kantei to NBTHK).

[GRC]

For the most part, categorizations of unsigned pieces and dates of production are indeed rife with theology Mauro @MauroP.

That's abundantly evident once you start gathering multiple papered examples to try to glean some sort of insight into possible kantei points for specific "schools".

 

Well, I was hoping people would actually give the twelve tsuba I posted an honest attempt... with no fear of judgement.

But it seems that everyone is either too busy at this point in time of the year (speaking of theology ) or just don't even have an idea where to begin trying to group together such seemingly disparate examples

 

I'll spare you all the angst of trying to figure it out.

It turns out ALL twelve of these tsuba were papered as Ko-Shoami, which is a purely fictitious attribution that really gained a foothold with Sasano's publications.

 

It seems to me like the only kantei points the NBTHK is using for this attribution are:

-must be unsigned (so there's no way to check)

-pre-Edo period or Edo period (it really doesn't seem to matter, even though the "ko" in Ko-shoami is supposed to mean "pre-Edo period") 

-steel plate (which can be solid or have just about any type of sukashi you can think of)

-and most importantly, it must be difficult to place in any of the other limited number of "schools" that have been pronounced and established over the last 100 years. 

 

...so pretty much any steel tsuba that you can't stick into an existing category. 

It's kind of like the "Island of Misfit Toys" (a seasonal reference for those of you who know it...)

 

Actually, "ko-shoami" is a very handy category to have for an organization that needs to label things for money.

It's like a "get out of jail for free" card for those troublesome tsuba 

[GRC]

[GRC]

 

[GRC]

By the way, I should point out that the "Shoami" attribution has been used as a dumping ground for unsigned Edo period tsuba for many years now.

So, it makes sense that "Ko-Shoami" would follow in its footsteps.  ...or does it precede it because it's "ko"? lol

 

Two other "garbage dumps" for unsigned pieces are "Ohno" and "Hoan".

 

And don't get me wrong, I'm not dumping on the tsuba themselves, not in the least!

I'm merely dumping on the existing system, with all its flaws... 

[GRC]

I'm also glad to see these threads are getting a lot of reads, and that there are more like-minded people out there 

 

As @MauroP pointed out, we are unlikely to have an impact on the NBTHK"s kantei points (whatever those may be on whatever shinsa day...), but at least by having these threads posted, we can help "shed some light" on those collectors who find themselves adrift in an ocean of dark and murky inconsistencies. 

[Shugyosha]

Hi Glen,

I don't think that anyone would argue that the shinsa system is perfect, but it is about as good as it is going to be unless it changes to a rolling system where there is no pressure to push items through the process on a given day and members of the panel can take their time to fully evaluate the items they see and judge accordingly but I doubt that will happen as the people involved probably have paying jobs to do.

 

I think the issue is that, at the moment, shinsa all takes place on one day with sometimes hundreds of items to evaluate and if tsuba presented are unsigned and don't fit precisely into one of the established "boxes" in terms of their attributes then what do the panel do? They presumably ascribe it to a group that is known (or thought) to work in a variety of styles and stick a finger in the air as regards whether it's Edo or pre-Edo period. The owner gets a paper verifying that he has a genuine antique tsuba so is either satisfied or goes elsewhere for a second opinion and picks the one he likes best if they differ.

 

The problem is, to state the obvious, there are a vast quantity of tsuba out there that lack distinct characteristics. If you have several million swords in existence, each one possessing at least one tsuba you can see the size of the task particularly where many of the swords were of low value and carried low value fittings, shiiremono and the like. These are just going to be knocked out by mass production and the designs will be from the design books that did the rounds in the Edo period hence similarity in motifs across different schools/ provinces.

 

I guess, if someone had lots of free time, access to the necessary books and research articles and the linguistic ability pick through them, it might be possible to divine how the shinsa panels set their parameters but in the absence of that, when you see a tsuba papered to Shoami one just concludes that it is a genuine antique, but a John Doe effectively.

 

 

[GRC]

Hi John,

the situation is actually worse, given that there were far more tsuba made than there were swords (at least 6:1, which was the recorded average number of sets of fittings associated with each sword when swords were being registered).

 

I suppose I wish the NBTHK would just say "genuine tsuba, unknown maker".... but they certainly shouldn't be trying to shoehorn these tsuba into a fixed set of "schools" that are largely fictitious to begin with.

 

More honesty and transparency, and less reinforcement of constructs that have been misrepresented over time to become "factual".

 

With regard to having a better sense of kantei points by having "access to the books", I think that's a myth that also needs to be set aside.

I think the references cited in all these threads have pointed out how the books are also inconsistent, and different authors will give different attributions to the same type of tsuba, simply by virtue of the fact that many of the categories are merely theoretical constructs to begin with, so they don't have a reliably solid foundation to support their attributions.

 

I suppose I'd like to see a broader set of "groupings" of tsuba, that aren't as limited in scope as they currently are.

I'd like to see the unsigned tsuba grouped more closely by "type", using narrower margins, with perhaps statements like: "tsuba of group X but has similar features to group Y and some with Z..." etc. Maybe with an accumulation of enough examples of each of these "types" or "sub-types", then we might start to think about assigning a name or number to that group that is based on some of their features, rather than a supposition about the area they were produced. 

 

I think non-invasive analysis of steel composition will help group tsuba together by area of production (or at the very least , area from which their sand iron was sourced).

I think that will start to reveal how spread out or how localized certain tsuba styles were.

 

Beside requiring the complete destruction of a whole tsuba, Carbon dating simply cannot be used to date tsuba in any kind of reliable fashion, given that the steel will have carbon from the charcoal that used to produce it... which could have any number of different ages depending on the time period that the trees grew. The data could range by 100s of years, so would basically be as good as saying "it's an old tsuba". 

[OceanoNox]

26 minutes ago, GRC said:

I think non-invasive analysis of steel composition will help group tsuba together by area of production (or at the very least , area from which their sand iron was sourced).

Easiest and fastest is X-Ray Fluorescence, but it will only get the patina composition. But this is already a big thing, because the recipes for patina should vary according to various places.

[Jussi Ekholm]

There have been so many good posts it is great to read this thread.

 

NBTHK mumei attributions are bit problematic as as Glen said above they use specific groups etc. It is the same for swords and in my personal opinion they should not be taken as 100% only truth especially for lower end items. There are just thousands and thousands of unremarkable mumei items swords/fittings etc. and they will need to give some attribution for the item. It is just common Japanese style that they will make quite specific mumei attributions be it for swords or fittings. Identifying a mumei sword as a work of specific smith is just how Japanese appreciation seems to be in some cases. And for more unremarkable items you will get broad group attributions. Best works go to top tier smiths and lower works to lower tier.

 

I am focused on old swords so I am not that up to date on tsuba schools. However you fitting guys know much better. My question would be how many plausible categories (in current traditional tsuba appreciation) there even are for mumei Late Muromachi - Early Edo tsuba, 20-50-100+ possible categories? Then there are possibly hundreds of thousands of mumei tsuba that are fitting to that time frame, and need to be classified in some way.

 

I think Glens example with 12 tsuba is a perfect example of that. For me personally having a mumei attribution to X doesn't really give too much exciting information of the tsuba in question. Having the tsuba theme explained is much more interesting to me than majority of the "bulk" attributions.

[GRC]

just linking the recent Ono thread to this one because I think the discussion links nicely.

 

[Spartancrest]

I know next to nothing about NBTHK papers but I did stumble on this https://shibuiswords.com/ELkarahana.html  Papered by NBTHK as likely Hizen.

      

 

My problem is I have 25 other examples, some saying they are Asian export guards and only one with a signature which I would need to have translated. I can't see how this "Karahana" can be definitively papered as Hizen - Also the only translation I can get from AI is "Karahana" = Groan, Moan or Whine! - Which is apt as that is the reaction I had when I saw it!   [plus a chuckle at the ridiculous price being asked for a rather poor example of the type! ]

 

 

       六代目签直   "The sixth generation"  ???

 

 

[Shugyosha]

Hi Dale,

Kara = Chinese, so Chinese flower: https://jisho.org/search/唐 %23kanji

And, yes, 6th generation.

[Robert S]

And just to further add to the Shoami / ko-Shoami puzzle world, I have a shakudo tsuba (previously posted on here) which is signed "Shoami" - so not steel plate at all.  It may be gimei, but even so, it begs the question why someone would choose that mei for a shakudo tsuba.

[parfaitelumiere]

I remember having seen two exact menuki sets on ebay, not twice the same pair, some multiple listings sometimes exist fro the exact same item.
Here, damages were proving the both sets were two existing different sets of menuki.
Both sets had exact same construction and finish details, exact same soldering and tube on the back.
Both were probably done by the same maker a few years or less away from each other.

Both were papered, about 2000km away from each other...