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About the school

Ryokai School了戒派

The Ryokai school (了戒) took shape in the late-Kamakura capital of Kyoto, in Yamashiro Province, around the smith Ryokai, who worked through the era names Shoo, Einin, Kagen, Enkyo and Ocho at the turn of the fourteenth century. The old account makes him a son or a pupil of Rai Kunitoshi, and one version has him adopted into Kunitoshi's house; because his dated blades place him almost level with Kunitoshi, however, the NBTHK reads him more naturally as a contemporary (an *aitedeshi*, a fellow disciple) who formed his own line within the wider Rai circle. Whichever account one follows, his is the Rai Yamashiro hand softened by a degree, and from him the Ryokai name descended for several generations, his son Ryo Hisanobu (久信) following as the second master, with a Kyushu branch, the Chikushi Ryokai of Bungo and Buzen, forming by the Nanbokucho and Muromachi eras. What the members hold in common is a quiet manner read against, and just apart from, the Rai parent. Over a packed *itame* or *ko-itame* that flows toward *masame* and stands a little open, fine *ji-nie* clings and faint *chikei* enter, while a whitish *shirake-utsuri* rises in the *ji*; this paler, drier *utsuri*, against the clear *midare*- or *jifu-utsuri* of Rai proper, is the first thing that separates a Ryokai blade from its source. The temper is a calm *chu*- or *hoso-suguha*, mixing here a little *ko-choji*, *ko-gunome* or *ko-midare*, with *ko-ashi* and *yo* entering and sometimes a Kyoto reverse *ashi*; *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run within a tight *nioiguchi* that grows austere and, in places, clouds into *urumi*, the moist soft quality the published sources name again and again as a Ryokai point. The *boshi* closes *sugu* into a small *ko-maru*, often brushed with a touch of *hakikake*. The school stands so close to Rai Kunitoshi that the two are confused at sight; the attribution settles not on any single feature but on the softer *ji* and *ha*, the standing *masame*, the whitish *utsuri* and the clouding line, the judges noting that compared with Kunitoshi the activity within the temper runs lonelier and the *nioiguchi* one degree tighter. Against the sister Enju school the distinction is the *boshi*: where Enju turns a large deep *o-maru* and leaves the line bright, Ryokai closes a small *ko-maru* and clouds into *urumi*. The *masame* and the whitish cast carry the line a step toward Yamato and *Yamato-den*, and downstream toward Nobukuni and the Soshu-shaded work that followed. To *kantei* a Ryokai blade is to recognize the Rai air of *wa-zori* and refined steel, then to read the tells that part it from the parent: the *jihada* leaning to *masame* and standing where Rai stays smooth, the *shirake* in place of bright *utsuri*, and the tight, clouding *nioiguchi*. Among the members the founder, Ryokai, holds first standing, rated *Jo-saku* by Fujishiro and represented by slender *ubu tachi* and *tanto* signed with a boldly cut two-character mei, several carved with *bonji* and *suken*, alongside the bulk of his attributed record in *osuriage mumei* *katana* given to him on the hand; one such *tanto* the published sources call altogether elegant and a representative work, the signature itself of the archetypal type. Hisanobu, the second master, rated *Jo-jo saku*, carried the father's *suguha* on with little change, his rare signed *tachi* and *kodachi* prized as documentary evidence, one dated piece establishing through his given name that an earlier nationally designated *tachi* once read as the father's sole work is in fact a joint work of father and son; the remaining members and the later Kyushu generations continue the manner generically. Provenance follows the founder above all: blades passing through the Isahaya, Date and Maeda families, one preserving a tradition that it was a sword worn by Miyamoto Musashi, and the finest pieces held and studied in long-standing public and private collections including the Tokyo National Museum, the Sano Art Museum and Monobe Jinja. A signed *ubu* Ryokai blade in particular is among the scarcer things a collector of Kyoto Kamakura work will meet, coming to hand only with patience.

Choshuya

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