fine nanako

[runagmc]

Brian commented about nanako on the "modern tsuba" post, and I started looking through some example I had. I wanted to see if Ford, or any of the other tsuba-shi on the forum, could comment on how difficult this would be and how long it would take.

[Ford Hallam]

Adam,

 

there is no really meaningful way to answer your question, I'm afraid.

 

If I gave you a time it would be in relation to how long it would take an expert to do and so you, as a non-expert, would still not know what that time really meant. Similarly how difficult it is can also only be understood by someone actually doing it. For me it would be exacting and demanding and require very careful attention but these are things I have trained to do. For you, as a non expert craftsman to achieve this effect and degree of precision is effectively impossible right now. 5 years of daily practice might change that though

To put it more succinctly;

The more skilled an artisan is the more efficiently he works. This means he works more quickly so how long something takes is meaningless in evaluating it. The more skilled he is the easier things are to do and he also makes it look easy.

 

regards,

 

Ford

[christianmalterre]

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sorry-this is an question which sufficiently did ben answered by Ford here already-i think...?

(but so to answer you on your´s "value" question here...

It will most probably have the same "financial Status" like an good(!)papered Koto blade(with Mei and Ubu)!

LOL!

 

Christian

[Toryu2020]

Each year on Children's Day the Yasukuni Jinja does a display of sword and armour and related arts. One time when I was fortunate to go, there was a Togi-shi, a horimono-shi and a tsuba-ko doing live demos among the exhibits. The tsubako was hard at work doing nanako on a shakudo tsuba. After some conversation with him he swapped out his plate and let us have a go.

 

Guiding the tip of the chisel with the tip of your left pinkie you struck a single straight hard blow to make a single perfect circle of nanako. The trick was moving the chisel down just so much and then punching another without really lifting the tip. Therefore you could not see your punches until you were 7 or 8 punches down the line, a great deal of it was "feel". The material was forgiving so you could correct a weak punch or a misaligned one but this more often than not started a cascade of correction that needed to be made. Not being a DIY guy myself I would never have had the patience to master it much less keep at it for five years! Like so many things Japanese; deceptively simple.

 

Of interest is the fact that he believed that nanako was done not by the master but by the women and children of a machi-bori household. It is tedious work that requires a precise hand that delivers the exact same punch for each and every dot, in lines that are dead straight. He posited that an artist thinking of the finished product would get too caught up in the work, trying to make it better than perfect, and this would show in the final product. A child or woman trained to do the work had nothing tied up in the success or failure of the piece and therefore could punch away for hours producing row upon row of "artless" perfect nanako.

 

While I like this idea very much I have always wondered about pieces like the one shown above where the nanako clearly "moves" around the overlayed pieces. Were their workers who produced nothing but nanako plate for the master to later work on? Was the secret to the Goto success generations of girls trained to sit around and punch nanako all day?

 

-t

[runagmc]

Ford, I have tried doing nanako, and that is what made me somewhat in awe of the time and skill that must go into doing a piece like the one I posted. I guess my questions weren't really answerable, since like you said, there are several factors that would come into play. I just wanted to hear the experts give some insite on the difficulty and time that it takes. On the tsuba I posted, the dots are so small and precise, I imagine it would be a serious undertaking even for a master of the craft.

 

Tom, thanks for your input. I hadn't heard the theory about women and children doing the work.

 

When you see really perfect nanako, it's an amazing thing. Like on this fuchi kashira, it's so perfect it's almost like an optical illusion.

[Brian]

Adam,

Wow..I will direct people here every time they post that mediocre stuff and ask if it is Goto. Good to see really good nanako, and then compare with average or sloppy work. That f/k is stunning!

Question for Ford: On an example like the tsuba that Adam posted, would the nanako be done after all the other detail was inlaid, working around the elements...or would the whole ground have been done and then the elements added after?

 

Brian

[Ford Hallam]

Brian,

 

I don't think that set that Adam posted is not actually Goto. Some of the very finest I've seen wasn't Goto either.

 

We know from various written accounts that it was fairly usual workshop practice to have a specialist in a number of areas of production. Nanako would have been one of those specialities. One account suggested that it too a specialist a day to produce a 1 inch square area of fine nanako. To be honest that seems a bit slow to my mind but perhaps this was given as a way to help non-specialists better appreciate how difficult and long it can take.

 

I think both approaches are viable, nanako prepared before or after the inlay was completed.

 

I think the notion of wives and children helping out is quite romantic and while we do know this was not uncommon I think it more likely that specialists were trained exclusively to perform these sorts of tasks. They might have been the offspring or wives of the master but once the child was no longer a child would they be sent away? or continue as a adult specialist. In any case, whatever the relationship might have been whoever did the work they would have had to have trainded for a considerable time to achieve the degree of precision required. I don't buy the idea that an artist would get too caught up in the process and over work it. Only someone who has not undergone a classical apprenticeship would think something like that.

 

I've got some images of fine nanako work here. They can be seen in greatly enlarged images too by clicking the enlarge button top right. These are the fittings from a classic kamishimo daisho koshirae I used to own.

[IanB]

Adam, The f / k set you illustrate sets my heart racing. The utter precision of the nanako and the brilliant way the artist has only implied the two kamon on the fuchi is fantastic. I marvel at fact that he has been able to execute the minute mitsutomoe kamon on the fan in gold. I would guess he cut out or punched in the depressions and then filled them with gold amalgam. What a tour de force! When I see work like this I am humbled and realise how ham-fisted I am.

Ian Bottomley

[Brian]

Just to clarify, when I wrote "...every time they post that mediocre stuff and ask if it is Goto" I wasn't calling the work above Goto..merely that people tend to come here..post something with lousy nanako, and ask if it is Goto. Very common question. Pointing out what is good nanako should easily answer that question.

 

Thanks for the examples Ford, lovely!

 

Brian