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Ukai Unji雲次

From the end of the Kamakura period into the first years of Nanbokucho, the smiths of Ukan-no-sho in Bizen Province, a place name later written Ukai, all set the character Un, the cloud, at the head of their names, and the published sources know them as the Ukai school or the Unrui. Unji is the chronological anchor of the line. Tradition makes him the son of the first Unsho, and he alone left dated work: blades of the Showa, Bunpo and Kenmu eras survive, among them pieces dated Showa 4 (1315) and Kenmu 2 (1335), and the NBTHK repeats that "his period of activity is plain" (その活躍年代は明らかである). Since no dated blade of Unsho exists, the years of the whole school are fixed through these. Their make stands apart from the Osafune mainstream: within the Bizen tradition a Yamashiro cast intermingles with no small influence from neighboring Bitchu Aoe, and the published sources call the line "a distinctive presence among Bizen works" (備前物中異色の存在). Fujishiro grades Unji Jo-jo saku. The work leans away from Osafune at every point the published record names. His tachi are of standard width, the curvature tending to wa-zori, an even arch the papers read as Kyoto-like, the shinogi set somewhat high; ubu pieces keep funbari. Where the Osafune mainline of his generation tempers choji, Unji tempers suguha: a narrow to medium line with ko-gunome, ko-choji and ko-midare mingled, the ashi and yo entering thickly and slanting in reverse in the Aoe way. The papers state that kinship outright: "the tight suguha with saka-ashi entering passes to Bitchu work" (直刃締り逆足入る出来は備中物に通じ). The nioiguchi is now tight and nioi-led, now sinking subdued under ko-nie, and kinsuji, sunagashi and hotsure work along the edge. One paper gathers the recognition into a single sentence: "the points of this smith are shown in the uniquely dark utsuri, the boshi that turns back round, and the o-sujikai yasurime" (暗部の濃い独得の映りと丸く返る帽子と大筋違の鑢目に此工の見どころを示している). To these the published sources add the habit of the chisel: the reverse-slanted strokes (逆鏨) emphasized in the mei are the hand of the whole school, not of Unji alone. The jigane is itame mixed with mokume, knit to ko-itame on the finer blades, in places flowing toward the edge, with thick ji-nie, fine chikei, and a steel color that tends somewhat blackish. Across it stands a midare-utsuri, and characteristically the dark jifu the papers call peculiar to the Unrui mingles in the ji, and paper after paper describes "a black utsuri as if pressed in with a finger" (指で押した様な黒い映り). The utsuri is old-fashioned (古調な映り) and answers to the temper: of one strongly nie-laden tachi the record observes that "the nie of ji and ha is strong, and for that reason the utsuri of the ji hardly stands at all" (地刃の沸がつよく、ために地映りは殆んど立っていない). The NBTHK's own division of his work is twofold: "broadly the workmanship comes in two manners" (大別して作風は二様あって). In the first the ko-itame is well knit and the suguha nioiguchi tightens, the make that can be taken for Kyoto work or for Aoe; in the second the itame stands, a reverse-slanting midare mingles into the suguha, and the nie comes on strongly. On either jigane the archaic utsuri rises, "though it is the clearer in the former" (前者の方が鮮明である). The nie-laden manner carries hotsure and sunagashi and a swept boshi, and the same paper reads these as a borrowing from a third tradition: "a Yamato flavor is added" (大和風が加味されている). A register of form crosses both: nineteen of his hundred and thirty-seven papers are naginata or blades reworked from them, the mune of the point stoned away in the conversion so that the boshi runs off the end in yakitsume, the naginata-hi with its companion groove often remaining. From the unsigned naginata-naoshi works attributed to Unji and Unju (雲重), the papers conclude that "they were also skilled in the production of naginata" (彼らは薙刀の製作にも巧みであったことが窺われる). One fully intact signed naginata stands among his Juyo; signed tanto, by contrast, are rare. The discrimination from his father is drawn by the papers themselves. Judging a mumei katana, one Juyo paper decides: "compared with Unsho of the same school, hotsure and the like enter the edge and the nie is felt somewhat stronger" (同派の雲生に比し、刃縁にほつれ等が入り沸がやや強く感ぜられ), and the attribution falls to Unji. He is the school's nie hand: the flowing, at times masa-tinged hada belongs to him rather than to his father, his sunagashi and kinsuji run more freely, while the tightened nioiguchi is the more Unsho's. A court legend attaches to both: "Unsho and Unji are said to have gone up to the capital and served Emperor Go-Daigo, and among Bizen works theirs is the style closest to Kyoto work" (雲生・雲次は京に出て後醍醐天皇の御用を勤めたと伝え、備前物の中では最も京物に近い作風をみせている); another paper notes that "there is a tachi by Unji with a sixteen-petal chrysanthemum crest on the tang" (雲次には茎に十六葉の菊花紋のある太刀がある). The NBTHK attributes simply to Unji and lets the nengo divide the generations: one or two namesakes are recognized into Nanbokucho, and Honma writes that "the long-signed Unji I have examined seem in the main to be the first generation, but among the two-character signatures there are those in which the first and second generations are hard to tell apart" (二字銘には初、二代を区別し難いものがある). His designated record stands at one hundred and thirty-eight works: seven Important Cultural Properties, six Tokubetsu Juyo, one hundred and twelve Juyo and thirteen Juyo Bijutsuhin, with no National Treasure among them. Forty-seven are signed against eighty-eight unsigned, nearly all of them tachi, with either the long signature Bizen no kuni ju Unji (備前国住雲次), at times dated, or the two-character Unji (雲次); the tachi dated Showa 4 is itself an Important Cultural Property. The seven Important Cultural Properties are patrimony and do not trade. Of recorded whereabouts his blades rest at the Kyoto National Museum, Atsuta Jingu, Itsukushima Jinja and the Tokugawa Art Museum; the prewar certifications add the Tokugawa Reimeikai, the Nezu Museum and the Yomei Bunko, holder of the long-signed tachi from Konoe Fumimaro. The provenance roll runs through the Ikeda family of Bizen, the Maeda, Akimoto and Mitsui families and the Imperial Family, and one suriage tachi carries on its tang a later possession inscription, an owner's cutting and not a signature, made in Tenbun 3 (1534) for Takeda Mutsu no kami Minamoto no ason Nobutora, of which the record says "the inscription is precious also as a document" (銘文は資料的にも貴重である). With one hundred and eighteen blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, Unji is, among the Unrui, the name a collector is likeliest to meet; even so, designated pieces are held far more often than traded; an example reaches the market only from time to time, most often a mumei katana or a naginata-naoshi wakizashi, a signed tachi rarer still.

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