The Three Dated Norishige Tanto

[Rivkin]

O Sa learned how to produce Yamashiro styled work, and with this jigane the leap to his interpretation of Soshu was not that great a distance. Chogi is interesting because he made quite a few honest imitations. "Copy" of Norishige with matsukawa and long kinsuji. Copy of Hiromitsu or someone else very similar in hitatsura. Its not just learning one new style, the breadth of his work is exceptional from something that might be Mitsutada inspired to anything Soshu. Still I like Kencho a bit more... At his best, far less restrained.

Much of Chogi's work is not something "taught". It bears image of someone purposefully playing with this or another interpretation and if Kiyomaro could do that by himself, Chogi did it with arguably greater resulting authenticity.

 

Personally I would not put Kanemitsu and Chogi in one sentence with Soshu. The distance between their understanding of Soshu is vast and their approach is rather different, though typical "Soden-Bizen" hamon can be reminscent. With Kanemitsu people will cite like notare as one of the evidences of Soshu influence... which is telling in itself, he never produced a "true Soshu" work, Chogi did.

 

Edited 17 hours ago by Rivkin