sabiji

Too bad, I'm afraid I know that blade...

It is always advisable to check the Japanese website to see which exhibition is currently on display. This is because when exhibitions change, the museum is always closed for about a week.

I'm not Hoshi, but consider this your homework assignment. Of course, everything depends on the availability of signed and dated works for comparison. And since these are often scarce, it is sometimes impossible and remains in the realm of theory and speculation. Collect all Norinaga Setsumei and Oshigata from past Juyo sessions for study purposes. In the future, take every opportunity that arises to study Norinaga's signed or attributed works with your own eyes. Then, over time, you will go from being someone who asks questions to someone who is asked questions.

That's good! The translations of Setsumei and Tanobe-Sensei Oshigata make things a lot clearer. Incidentally, Tanobe-Sensei does not embellish anything, and I think this Sayagaki makes that clear. As Ray already wrote, the Sayagaki was written considerably before the Juyo Shinsa. The Sayagaki is rather discreet and contains a cautious recommendation to examine the blade more closely so that one will find characteristics of Norinaga in particular. This could be seen as a very diplomatic hint to potential Juyo judges. Writing a sayagaki full of praise (to put it exaggeratedly) makes more sense after passing the Juyo session. Before that, it could be rather counterproductive. As for the setsumei, I agree with Hoshi's comments. You seem to have a very good sword. Study and enjoy it!

Overrated, underrated, significance in relation to other Yamato schools, popularity—these are all market-related questions. As someone interested in Yamato swords and a potential buyer who already owns such a sword, I would be interested to know how my blade ranks in the context of Shikkake in general, and for Shikkake Norinaga in particular. What characteristics lead to an immediate Norinaga attribution, and how does the craftsmanship of my blade compare to other works attributed to Norinaga? And would this particular blade fully meet my expectations and requirements as a Shikkake work, or would it be advisable to wait for a more suitable sword? Passing a 2023 Juyo session for a 64 cm Mumei O-Suriage Shikkake seems to speak for its importance. What does the Setsumei explicitly say? Unfortunately, the PDF for the Sayagaki is no longer available, and Tanobe-Sensei doesn't seem to have written much either. Is there any information available about Tanobe-Sensei's comments in connection with the creation of the Sayagaki? That can sometimes be very interesting and insightful.

Just like the normal design, only the other way round. It must have significantly more curvature when unhardened.

Interesting! I can't promise whether it's a similar situation. But I had a Josun-length tanto, wide and strong and unfortunately unsigned, which was ubu-ba along the entire length of the blade. The edge was certainly 1 millimeter thick. I'm still not sure whether the piece was still Shinshinto or much younger. Since I could not really assign the dagger stylistically to a school of late Shinshinto, I never got rid of the suspicion that it is a work of the early Showa period. The hada is a very dense ko-itame, and the hada is a suguha with ko-choji, ashi and ko-ashi in nioi-deki. The tanto was mounted in a very simple shirasaya and I am sure that the dagger was never sharp, but was deliberately left blunt or ubu-ba. Why? I do not know. But a very experienced friend said that the material thickness on the cutting edge would be an advantage if it was hardened again (at the customer's request?).

You would be doing an injustice to the poor Shinto blades in general. Masahide, Suketaka, Tsunahide, Masashige initially simply followed the trend of demand in the Osaka Shinto style of Tsuda Sukehiro or Terukane. Blades with wide Yakiba and Nie-Deki high-temperature hardening are simply more brittle. Swordsmiths already knew this back then, they weren't stupid either. Take, for example, such Ara-Nie monsters from Mizuta Kunishige or Tameie. They made up for it with material. A mizuta that is not strong and broad across the average is not a good mizuta ;-). Incidentally, mizuta blades were extremely popular with the Ako-Ronin. Or take a look at Satsuma. Masayuki and Motohira were contemporaries of Masahide. Did they follow Masahide's nioi-deki depression? Satsuma, of all people, with her jigen-ryu, which is based on powerful blows? The result is powerful blades with pronounced hamaguri-niku. It's a tactic to promote a product by badmouthing others. That is marketing. In the end, Kiyomaro proved with similar tests and a good portion of bad boy image that (his) Nie-Deki Soshu-Utsushi can withstand more than some Nioi-Deki blades from Masahide students.

The connection between Shintogo Kunimitsu and the Awataguchi school is one theory. The other theory is Kunimitsu's descent from the Taema school. I have to admit that I like the latter better. When I had the honor of holding a Kantei of THE Yukimitsu (Tokubetsu Juyo) in my hands in Berlin in May, Taema inevitably came to mind. However, the blade was a chikei monster, covered all over with needle-sharp chikei, which in turn brought the blade in the direction of soshu. I found it interesting in retrospect that in Junji Homma-sensei's remarks in 1970 about this very blade, Taema also came to mind, at least as far as Sugata and Hamon were concerned.

Well, I obviously made a mistake. I didn't want to start a fundamental discussion about the Mino tradition here. I just wanted to show that there are important reasons for the emergence of certain traditions (or renaissances), which need to be examined. It should have decisive (also distinguishing) characteristics, as well as a fundamental influence on a craft, so that specific characteristics and peculiarities are passed down through generations. In all traditions and renaissances, there are certain schools that have periods of prosperity, which often only maintain a certain level of quality for a few generations and then disappear into insignificance. This can be mirrored in a renaissance such as Shinto. And as others have already written here, it would make sense to divide Shinto into several phases, as each phase is subject to certain conditions and characteristics. Everyone can decide for themselves how they want to divide them up. It may be legitimate to date the beginning of Shinto in textbooks to around 1600. However, if you take a closer look, you cannot avoid including the Momoyama as the actual foundation of Shinto. And that brings us back to the topic. So when it comes to the transition from Koto to Shinto, we should look at the Momoyama period. The consolidation of Shinto is certainly from the Keicho via the Kanei to Meireki/Manji. If you are more fascinated by High Shinto, you should look at Kanbun to Enpo. And if you want to know why Shinto loses its power, you need to look at the period from Genroku and onwards. That's my opinion.

I don't see any tradition in Mino-Den that is qualitatively inferior to the other 4 traditions. Since Mino-Den has its roots in the Nanbokucho, but only really defined itself in the middle Muromachi, it is difficult to compare it with Yamashiro or Bizen. The emergence of the individual gokads is based on certain cultural, economic and political backgrounds and are products of their time. They are reflected in the stereotypical demands of the clientele, such as Yamashiro = court nobility, Bizen = warrior nobility, Yamato = the Buddhist monasteries' claim to worldly power. All three of these social pillars were also the largest landowners in the Kamakura period. (Although originally only the tenno owned land. But the tide was already turning in the middle of the Heian period to the disadvantage of the imperial court). But these shifts in power are the reason for the emergence of traditions such as Bizen and Yamato. The emergence of the Mino is a reaction to an impending conflict between Go-Daigo and the supporting warrior clans against the Kamakura Bakufu (Kemmu Restoration) and an immediately following “counter-revolution” by Ashikaga Takauji, which led to the Nanbokucho conflict. Who knows, if the Southern Court had gone somewhere else, and another province had proved to be more strategically ideal, there might have been an Ettchu-Den, or Echizen-Den. Shinto itself is a renaissance of existing gokaden, especially the soshu-den. The cultural epicenter of Kyoto is crucial for this, as is the fact that the soshu-den was particularly popular under Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Honami. This renaissance began in the Momoyama period. Renaissances of certain styles had already occurred before: Bungo Takada copied Bizen and Aoe, the Chikuzen Nobukuni Bizen, Kanabo, as a true Yamato blacksmith, worked more in the Bizen style, etc. However, during the Momoyama period, Kyoto was the benchmark in all areas of art and crafts, such as fashion, painting, ceramics, literature, tea ceremony, but also kodogu and swords. Some lords sent their swordsmiths directly to Kyoto (Horikawa, Mishina), while others were satisfied with their Smiths learning from the students of the Horikawa or Mishina masters. For others, it was enough that their swordsmiths at least drew inspiration and jumped on the stylistic bandwagon. What is truly typical of Shinto, the "standardization of characteristics" already mentioned here—the development of Shinto tokuden—only appears in the following generation of swordsmiths. A notable difference between shodai and nidai is often a much denser kitae. Kunisada and Kunisuke, for example, were a link in this effect. They are actually considered Horikawa students, but they were too young for that; they were more likely students of Horikawa Kunitomo. The hada of their blades soon no longer exhibited typical Horikawa characteristics. But the same applies to the following generations of Mishina smiths. The Momoyama-Periode-smith, Wakasa kami Ujifusa, often still displays an extremely Minoesque hada with plenty of nagare. His son, Hida Kami, already knits his hada much more tightly. And Sandai Bizen kami, with his ko-itame, is fully in line with the trend of the High Shinto period. From the Kanbun period onwards, one can find a dense ko-itame in Kyoto, Osaka, Edo, Owari, Echizen, and so on, as well as a hamon that is essentially based on Nie.

The position of the signature is interesting. I think the blade is much older. Since I am more closely involved with Mino-Den, I can at least say that this peculiarity of positioning Mei over the Nakago-Ana in Mino at Uchigatana is more common in the second half of the 15th century. I once owned a katate uchigatana with this feature and a date from the Bunmei era (1469-87).

This is far too complex a topic to be dealt with simply. The Koto-Shinto transition, however, is directly related to the artistic, cultural, and aesthetic "pressure wave" with Kyoto as its epicenter from the Tensho onward. Art was produced in many areas for a new elite interested in artistic and aesthetics. Utsushi of the Soshu-Den style was very popular for blades. Schools like the Horikawa and early Mishina set the tone for a swordsmithing renaissance, which soon spilled over into the wealthy trading city of Osaka. I believe that what would later be considered significant for the Shinto character was first developed here in Osaka. Everything else, of course, is also subject to the economic/social developments up to the Genroku period. But this differs fundamentally from the period around 1600. But that is again a very complex topic. Only the term "economic boom" during the Kanbun period makes me chuckle. What economy?

Without question, this blade has already lost some material, but it will also have been quite slender in its origin. The ryumon has a high shinogi, the motokasane specification only says something about the strength of the blade to a limited extent.

Looks like a Tobiyaki to me. You can see it on both sides. On one side like a stain, on the other like a tama.