Especially for Brian ...

[docliss]

Dear Brian

 

Reading of your ‘huge love of kinko katakiri-bori’, I thought that you might quite like the attached kozuka. Inscribed on the reverse GIONEN ROKUSU ROKUSAI (Aged 66 years old) SOMIN with kao, it is ex the Gardiner and Peak collections. There are, needless to say, some doubts as to its attribution!

 

John L.

[Brian]

You know, it is a really lovely kozuka. But is it just me that finds katakiri bori so much more effective when it is depicting nature..grasses and bamboo and things flowing in the wind etc?

Just finding this out about my own taste now..when I compare the tsuba with this one. Demons and dragons and shishi etc etc....all pale in comparisson when seeing this medium used to depict nature equally skillfully. At least to my taste it does.

I find it particularly effective when depicting bamboo. Something that seems so simple and yet is so complex when looked at closely, with convex and concave surfaces and leaves that are subtly suggested with a few deft strokes.

 

Might as well make this educational beyond personal tastes...does anyone know when in the history of kodogu katakiri bori began to become widely used? You don't see it much on early works..so was this technique popularized during the Edo period, or earlier? I am thinking that its use was closely inspired by artworks such as paintings and woodblock prints and Chinese landscape depictions..or is that incorrect?

 

Brian

[docliss]

Dear Brian

 

On p. 383 of Nihon Tō Kōza, Vol. VI, it states, in relation to ‘kogai and other items’, that ‘ …katakiri bori … is a method which was completed around the time of Yokoya Somin … ’ Many other works credit this artist with the introduction of the katakiri style of carving – a style that was followed by many of the members and students of the Yokoya family. His dates of 1670-1733 would seem to support your Middle Edo suggestion.

 

John L.

[John A Stuart]

Here is a tsuba that has a good rendition of bamboo in katakiribori. The reason I post is the mei Masayuki has the combination of kanji 晶幸. I can find no reference to this smith. Has anyone info on him? John

[docliss]

The mei is not very clear in your photograph and, just as a thought, could it possibly be MASAYOSHI (see H 04909.0)?

 

Yours, John L.

[John A Stuart]

Hi John, Yes, my photography is shakey, too much coffee perhaps, but, the paper has the kanji as Masayuki. There are Masayuki's using these kanji, just not in this combination, re. Haines, Joly etc.. I was hoping another index had reference. John

[Ludolf Richter]

Hi John,there is no artist with these Kanji to be found in the "Bible" ,

the Kinko Jiten,and in my other Tsuba-books.It's probably a Go of a known artist whith other Go's hitherto recorded,e.g.with a different Masa-Kanji.I couldn't find the Kao in my database.Ludolf

[John A Stuart]

Thank you both for looking it up. There are a lot of Masayuki's who it may be by. John