Kono Haruaki (春明, also read Shunmei), common name Kono Bunzo, was born in in Tenmei 7 (1787) and at fifteen entered the workshop of Yanagawa Naoharu, of the Yokoya line. He first signed Haruto and changed his name to Haruaki in the Bunka era. Around Bunsei 4 or 5 he was appointed Hokkyo, and soon after he rose to Hogen, the rank that appears in nearly every signature on record. The published sources count him one of the representative metalwork artists of the age of Goto Ichijo, and record that "he was called Haruaki of the East against Ichijo of the West". He trained many pupils and died in Echigo in Ansei 4 (1857).
His hand rests on the pictorial carving of the Yanagawa school, yet the published sources hold that "his ideal seems to have lain with the Goto house". Taking his teacher Naoharu together with Yokoya Somin and the Goto house as the sources of his method, he went on to a domain of his own. His is of the quality called "the wet black of a crow's feather", and on it he sets brilliant gold and a wide range of coloured metals in a realistic, elegant picture, his iro-e outstanding. In the details, the sources note, "the weighty chisel manner of the Goto school can be recognised".
His techniques range widely. He works , polished and ishime, iron, and solid gold, in high relief, and , with inlay, katakiri-bori and the fine hairline of shigure rain. A of chrysanthemums made at fifty-six is called "more minutely and richly worked than usual". A of a kappa reaching for a cucumber, made in Tenpo 14 at fifty-seven, shows gold surihegashi and a tiny frog inlaid in on the reverse, with shigure and katakiri-bori water. On a in solid gold a crowd of tortoises is carved so that each face and each shell differs.
His subjects run from the Goto canon to the playful. A dragon is made with the Goto house in mind in both subject and technique, and its rare signature Hogen Haruaki belongs to a few works of his prime in the Bunsei era. Beside it stand the warrior Yoshiie reading an ambush from the broken line of geese, the guardian Nio in red copper with gold and silver, the immortals Gama and Tekkai, a horned owl at night, Okame under the moon, Fukurokuju, and a of the poet whose accompanying blade carries his verse on winter rain. The sources find in his work a light, witty taste, and of a of the Tanabata festival they write that it is "finished as a work brimming with the feeling that only Haruaki commands".
He was a restless traveller, and his signatures document it. In the Bunsei years he travelled through Tohoku and northern Kanto, making pieces on commission for wealthy patrons and farming families and leaving several fine works in Sendai. The Tanabata of Bunsei 11 is signed as made at Kamegasaki in the Shonai region, and in his late Kaei and Ansei years he went to Echigo, adding inscriptions that record his travels. He also used the art name Jippo-o, the old man of the ten directions, on and a . A spring landscape with swallows and dandelions, made when he was past sixty, is described as fresh and lively despite his age.
For the collector Haruaki is a leading bakumatsu master with a substantial designated record: eighteen works at the level, among them , , , a and two complete mountings fitted with his work, one with each fitting dated and signed Hogen. Two came down through the Ryushido collection. He has no higher designations. Signed pieces of his appear from time to time, and a fine dated work in his richly coloured high relief is a rewarding find for a collector of late metalwork.