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Decrease in the rating of swordsmiths for the younger generation


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Thank you - I understand now
I think Kirill meant that if the blade is a mumei and will show a high level of skill, it will be attributed to the best swordsmith of the school for the period whose characteristics the blade will exhibit.
But yes - you are right. A great blade with clear features of early Nambokucho will not be attributed to the founder of early Kamakura

The original intention of this post was the shodai vs. nidai and therefore it can be assumed that the blades of both were made in about the same period

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4 hours ago, Brano said:

I fully agree Kirill
from the beginning I was hoping to find a good koto mumei somewhere for an affordable price (and I'm probably not alone)
However, I quickly realized that it was almost impossible for the reasons you stated

 

Yes, to me its an additional motivator to collect later things - plenty of deals even for ubu signed swords, as long as one does not subscribe to a standard high class Japanese collector preferences (Kotetsu and Kiyomaro). Which ofcoarse has its dangers of the blades in question unlikely to be ever "officially" appreciated above certain level, but if one wants to have fun its definitely an opportunity. There are some stunning Oei period makers with poor ratings, since everything connected to Ashikaga was officially despised for the entirety of Edo period, and plenty of Edo swordsmiths who never made it aside from being someone's apprentice, even if this someone was saijosaku and known to sign the blades made by his students.

 

For Koto the deals are hard to find. Gets even harder with pre-Nambokucho with their distinctive sugata, where everything in Japan is papered.

Some people at the upper end are searching for "slam dank Juyo" among Hozon blades and then paper them at higher level. Something I never really appreciated since have little interest in blades whose main accomplishment is being ubu and Kamakura.

But there I would say still a few names where the deals are possible. For example, better works of Etchu Tametsugu will not go to Norishige, because Norishige is way too distinctive in his style. By the same token attributions to Norishige are seldom challenged or changed compared to most other smiths.

There are also cases where the work is so unusual, they can't attribute it to anyone famous and it gets some weird attribution to really not well known contemporary.

But its amazing how name-based Japanese sword collecting is. You get something attributed to a good name based on sugata and features, and its boring like hell with shingane throughout and its still sells in a day.

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2 hours ago, 16k said:

I don’t think they needed to be told. Confucianism dictated it.

Which reinforces my point.  As one of the several factors that could explain a decrease in quality workmanship over generations, this would certainly have to be in the mix.  I don't think a young man, who is becoming a swordsmith because it is expected of him, even if his talent is equal to his father, is going to have the passion for the craft that his father had.  This is bound to affect the quality of his work.  Of course, things like professional pride, fear of losing face, fear of shaming family, may still provide the impetus to do high quality work, but the single factor of one entering a field by compulsion, rather than love of the craft, is bound to affect his workmanship.

 

Not a big issue.  Just thought is would play into the OP's original question.

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1 hour ago, Brano said:

I did not know the term Dunnig-Kruger effect
I think we meet him not only on forums but often in real life (and as for "nihonto" I can say for myself - I know I don't know anything)

 

That's true, climate change and Covid are good examples.

 

Off topic ended.

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«  If its first class work it will be attributed to the founder), »

 

Not necessarily, it must tick all the smith kantei points. The best example is Soshu. How many unsigned top O suriage Soshu blades are kanteied to Masamune? I have seen  an hozon O suriage Kuniyuki which will never achieved Juyo. 

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Unfortunately I am not aware of who exactly are the experts pointing it down to a specific generation... NBTHK tends to do first generation versus later generations, or even just Muromachi versus pre-Muromachi. Their papers to specifically second or third generation are exceptionally rare and usually concern very specific smiths where such generations are very distinctive (Nosada) or blades that are fully signed. Must be NTHK then, but they also as a rule do not write the generation. They write specific time period; if asked in person they can qualify whether the attribution means most likely the later work of the second or the early one of the third generation, but they very seldom write it in the paper itself.

 

Regarding Masamune, what we have today is a long term reverbation from the times when thousands of blades were attributed to him.  After many back and forth movements the only blades papering to this name are apparently those that were in the past considered to be his work. The arguments that are being maid for such attributions can be traced through recent NBTHK journal issues. They tend to heavily emphasize quality rather than any specific kantei features. There is an opinion that Masamune is like Samonji, in a sense that hamon can be a tad nioi and nie activity is sort of shifted upwards towards the ji, and compared to Sa there is really lots of nie but it has to be noted that most of works accepted as those of Masamune do not fit this specific description.

Masamune is a great example where traditional+quality replaces the role of specific kantei features.

Otherwise, personal attributions to the founder are nearly always suggestive of higher quality than those to the school in general; those to the second generation tend to be less coveted than those of the first. There are exceptions, but these are the apparent rules.

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12 hours ago, Rivkin said:

 NBTHK tends to do first generation versus later generations, or even just Muromachi versus pre-Muromachi. 

 

 

 

 

Totally wrong and irrelevant because we are talking about mumei blades. Moreover, Bizen Kanemitsu is the son of Bizen Kagemitsu, so he is from another generation and the experts are able to indicate who he is (even if the work of the second one is similar to that of the first one).

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Oh so many things in this thread, where to begin. So much nuance is lost between strong statements. 

 

Attribution first and foremost reflects quality. Higher quality blades will move up and get attributed to the founder.

 

  • Beyond quality, this depends on the level of feature distinctiveness between generations. Osafune Mainline has highly distinctive differences between Mitsutada, Nagamitsu, Kagemitsu, and Kanemitsu. While there is slippage from student to master, it presumably resides mostly with early work of the student before he took the head of the school. All these masters are highly rated, and highly distinctive between each other. 
  • If we go to Soden Bizen: Chogi / Kencho. Big powerful blades by Kencho likely end up with Chogi, and slender Chogi work will go to Kencho. Here it's not about quality per se (There is a strong case to be made that Kencho is just as, if not more skilled than Chogi, especially in his hamon) - but due to a specific dimension, namely how the shape maps onto the archetype of Chogi. It could be further argued that due to the very small number of signed blade by Kencho - which all feature extreme Soshu features - that the Kencho attribution is somewhat of a construct and could map onto many of the Soden-Bizen smiths working during these times whose names may have been lost. 
  • Norishige/Soshu. Some the top Soshu works such as the mysterious but extremely skilled Hata Chogi (See attached image. Zaimei Tanto) made work of such beauty that, had they been mumei, they would be attributed to Norishige. Such as this tanto below, in this case even towards the upper tier of Norishige's work. Highly probable that the cream of the crop of Sanekage likewise ends up lumped with Norishige. These movements are due to the masterful execution of elements of Norishige's work. Such as the regular and brilliant matsukawa, the nie swirls jumping through the hamon which will let these blades of other smiths carry the master's name. Same story occuring with Tametsugu to Go. The process is somewhat poetic, I find. 
  • Masamune is a big topic. From the thousands of blades dubiously attributed to him in the late Edo period, we are now left with about 60 blades (~40 Katana). Out of these 60 blades, about a third have uncertainties cited clearly in the Setsumei. It's important to read the Zufu records carefully because the NBHTK - while beholden to some of the old attributions from the top Honami or the famous Meibutsu-sho - will express doubts when doubts are warranted. "Soshu Joko No Saku" "To Mei ga aru" "Nanbokucho top Soshu work" are all ways of expressing doubt, the Japanese way. And there are blades with no provenance at all that have been attributed to Masamune by the NBHTK. They do exist, and one of them recently passed Tokuju. Finally, the usage of "Den" for Masamune is different than for other smiths. All blades are "Den" by default - except those with Kinzogan mei by one of the top judges which are confirmed to be Masamune. A Masamune with a Kinzogan mei from a top judge which features "Den" is a rejection of the old attribution. So, to sum up, the NBHTK goes to great length to explain its reasoning in the Setsumei and is extremely conservative with its attributions to Masamune - a studious lecture of these volumes will provide much clarity. Let us contemplate for a moment that out of ~1600 or so Soshu Koto blades of Juyo or higher ranking ~30 have an attribution to Masamune with a supporting Setsumei (less than 2%). 

 

What I'm trying to convy here is that a case-by-case analysis is necessary to contextualize this (generally true) assertion. At the end, an attribution on a mumei blade reflects a probability field where multiple answers coexists, some better than others. The higher-level the blade, the more one of those answers tend to overtake the others (because the blade is highly distinctive in its masterfulness). Sometimes we are left floating between two or three guesses equally likely, this is where "Den" comes in (in most cases, again see above). This is why the NBHTK rarely slam dunks a Naoe Shizu or Yamato smith, because distinctiveness is lost, same with Sue-Bizen, Sue-most-things. Ko-Uda, Ko-Senjuin, Takeda, Bungo, Ko-provincial school and many more, all very difficult to pin-point. We must live with this uncertainty. 

 

We must also live with attributional constructs which act as convenient parking spots to lump blade via a process of elimination. The more we drift away from mainline masters, the more attributions should be read as a statement containing a list of eliminated candidates with high certainty. What I mean by this is that even something like "Den Ko-Uda" contains a lot of information about what it is not. 

 

It's no surprise finally that here in the west, we have the impression that founders or famous smiths are overrated compared to their students. Look at those beaters on AOI art - shadows of their former selves, disfigured by time. It's a minuscule market, and the blades that made the founders famous will be sold discreetly on the Japanese market. What we get here are the "value buys" and the "cheap for Rai" kind of deals. Survivorship bias at play. Hell if I was scrolling AOIart and YJP! I would think Shinto just owns, especially second and third-gen students. 

 

kantei.jpg

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Forgive me I haven't read all the posts in detail but the basic premise at the start was the view that quality of workmanship decreased as one progressed through a school, i.e. 4th generation wasn't as good as 1st or whatever.

In many cases this is true but it is by no means always the case. At the start I believe the original post mentioned nidai Hizen Masahiro, well in most of the texts I have read and the blades I have seen he was regarded as a better smith than his father. Shodai Masahiro was a great teacher but his son the better smith. Likewise second generation Kanesada more highly regarded than others, Sandai Tadayoshi, probably the best and so on. Its true that as manufacture progressed through the Muromachi demand meant quality suffered and therefore later smiths produced fewer great swords than their forefathers but this was due in part to available material and in part to time pressure. It doesn't necessarily mean the smiths were less skilled. Some extremely fine blades were produced by later generation smiths in many schools as always you need to judge the sword in front of you.

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I guess here is another generalization - Kambun period's smith were in general a step above their immideate predecessors. Quite an unusual phenomenon in Japanese history, but it was a short period of unparalleled economic prosperity and possibly it took smiths some time to get used to shinto steel.

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