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About the maker

Hatakeda Morinaga守長

Morinaga of Hatakeda left a single firmly dated work, a tanto inscribed Bishu Osafune ju Morinaga on the omote and Shohei 12 (1357), fifth month, on the ura, and that date fixes him in the Nanbokucho generations of Bizen. The reference works compiled in the published record place him in the Hatakeda line of Osafune, recording him as the son of Morishige and, in one account, the grandson of the second-generation Moriie, the Hatakeda master who worked at the hamlet hard against Osafune village. Two generations are given under the name, the first set in the Shochu era of the 1320s and the second in Shohei, and the dated tanto is read as the second of them. He signs in full, Bishu Osafune ju Morinaga, and his signed work is scarce; of the nagamaki-naoshi tachi the published sources say plainly that among signed Morinaga such a piece is without parallel, 「守長の在銘のものは他に比類がない」. What the published record names first about him is not a Bizen trait at all. His is a vigorous, exuberant midare laden with nie, a temper the sources describe as one that at first glance does not look like Bizen work, 「一見備前物とは思われない盛んな乱」. The pattern is a notare-based midare carrying gunome, with only a little choji mixed in rather than the full clove the Osafune main line ran, and across it the nie gathers thickly, with sunagashi flowing frequently and kinsuji entering the ha. On one of the long blades coarse ara-nie collects and a faint yubashiri drifts above the habuchi; on the dated tanto the temper turns wet and breaks toward nijuba in places. The boshi carries the same restless energy, running into the temper as midare-komi, then sweeping into hakikake and stopping in yakizume, and on the tanto it thrusts up, points, and turns back long. It is this nie-covered, Soshu-toned midare, and not a clove-pattern, that the sources reach for when they place him. The jigane is the second half of the recognition. He forges an itame, often a large-pattern o-itame, that flows and tends to stand rather than closing into the dense ko-itame of the Osafune masters, and across the standing grain ji-nie adheres. The naginata-naoshi wakizashi adds a faint utsuri standing in the ji, the bright reflection of old Bizen surviving inside a hand that otherwise reads as Soshu, while the open, flowing jigane is the surface against which the heavy ha-nie and the streaming sunagashi are read. Where the Osafune choji-midare wants a tight, lustrous ji to throw up its midare-utsuri, Morinaga wants a more active steel, and the published sources mark both ji and ha as sound and the abundant, well-developed nie as the expression of the so-called Soden-Bizen style, 「所謂相伝備前の作風である」. His surviving record sorts itself by shape more than by period, since the few dated and datable pieces all fall within the Nanbokucho span. Most of what survives signed is nagamaki-naoshi, the long pole-arm blades shortened into tachi and wakizashi, shinogi-zukuri or shobu-zukuri with the kasane reduced, the sori shallow and the point run out to an o-kissaki, the long signature set toward the mune side of the tang near its end. So consistently do these appear that the published sources venture he may have been especially good at the nagamaki, 「長巻が得意であったのかも知れない」, and add that, since the surviving works are not numerous, his stylistic characteristics cannot be set out in full detail. Against that group stands the one ubu tanto of Shohei 12, hira-zukuri with mitsu-mune, its long signature crossing the central mekugi-ana and the date on the reverse, gomabashi carved on the omote, an accomplished piece whose date the sources value as good reference material. Where the published commentary reaches for a comparison it does not reach toward Osafune. The dated tanto is read as according at first glance with the work of smiths such as Chogi, 「一見長義などの作に通じ」, the Nanbokucho Bizen master whose own manner turned Soshu, and a separate entry, judging this connection from the work itself, sees a tie to the Chogi group. The earliest of the long blades carries the comparison further still: its hakikake-and-pointed boshi is held to bring it close to the group associated with Sa, the Chikuzen line at the heart of the Soshu-influenced Nanbokucho mainstream. What sets Morinaga apart is therefore stated in his own grounded traits rather than borrowed from a rival school. The standing, flowing itame, the nie that covers ji and ha together, the sunagashi and kinsuji running through a notare-and-gunome midare, and the hakikake boshi that ends in yakizume are the features by which the published record knows him, the Bizen thread surviving as a flavor of choji inside an otherwise Soshu-toned hand. Morinaga is a smith encountered chiefly through the designation record rather than through the market. Four of his works carry the Juyo Token rank across separate sessions, signed every one, among them the nagamaki-naoshi tachi the sources call without parallel and the dated Shohei tanto they prize as reference material; he holds no National Treasure or Important Cultural Property, and the standing of his name rests on that small body of fully signed Juyo blades. Recorded whereabouts are partial, but a Morinaga is held at the Shiogama shrine among the holdings tied to his name. For a private collector the picture follows from the scarcity the published sources themselves describe: with signed work so few, and that little concentrated in the upper designation tiers, a Morinaga is not a blade one expects to find offered, and a signed example coming to market is a rare event rather than a recurring opportunity. When one does appear it is most often a nagamaki-naoshi, the form he is held to have favored, carrying the long Bishu Osafune ju Morinaga signature and the nie-laden Soden-Bizen midare that the published record set down as the constant of his hand.

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