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About the maker

Ko-Uda Kunifusa國房

Uda Kunifusa is the first-generation master of the Etchū Uda school, and one of the very few Ko-Uda smiths whose name survives in signed work. The published sources record him as a son of the Uda founder Ko-Nyūdō Kunimitsu, who carried the craft from Uda District in Yamato north to Etchū in the late Kamakura period, and they hold by tradition that Kunifusa himself studied under Etchū Norishige, naming the smith called Gō alongside as a model. The school's whole record is overwhelmingly mumei, ō-suriage, and appraised only to the group, so a signed Kunifusa is already a document; an early signed Kunifusa is rarer still. The appraisers anchor his shodai identity on two tachi designated Important Art Objects, one held by Hie Shrine and one by the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures, and judge further blades to him by the close calligraphic match of the inscription, in which, as one Jūyō entry puts it, the kuni enclosure of the character 国 is collapsed almost like a lattice. The earliest dated example of the name is a piece of Kōō 1 (1389). His hand runs in two registers the Uda school never fused, and Kunifusa works both. The first is the Yamato root, seen most clearly in his tantō and wakizashi: hira-zukuri with mitsu-mune and a faint uchizori, several with a slightly elongated sun-nobi proportion, the kitae a well-packed itame or ko-itame with a flowing tendency. Over it he sets a chū-suguha mixed with ko-gunome and a shallow ko-notare, ashi entering, the nioi deep with ko-nie well adhered and at times somewhat coarse, and sunagashi and fine kinsuji running through. The bōshi runs straight into a ko-maru, often pointed in tendency with a deep turnback and hakikake. At the base he carves a devotional program of kurikara, su-ken, gomabashi and paired grooves, the kurikara on one tantō noted as unusual for the school. The published sources read these calmer signed pieces as his typical work, Ōei-dated or judged together with dated examples, sound in both ji and ha. The jihada is the constant beneath both manners. Itame mixed with mokume and a flowing grain that tends to stand carries a well-adhering ji-nie, with chikei entering, and where the forging tightens into ko-itame a shirake-utsuri stands clearly. That tightness is in fact his personal tell within the school. Discussing the difference between the two principal Uda names, the published commentary observes that 「国宗がやや肌立ったものが多いのに対し国房には地がねのつんだものが多い」, that Kunimune is more often seen with a standing grain, whereas Kunifusa is frequently seen in a tightly forged jigane. On one mumei tachi judged to him, the commentary names the excellence of that forging as the deciding point, 「地がねの鍛錬がすぐれているところに国房と鑑すべき」, the quality of the steel itself returning the verdict to his hand. The second register is the Sōshū-leaning manner, which the sources trace to his study under Norishige, and which shows in his bold Nanbokuchō tachi. These are wide in body with a thick kasane and a chū- or ō-kissaki, several keeping a high koshizori and funbari even where shortened, an imposing Nanbokuchō shape. Over a flowing itame with conspicuous chikei and ji-nie he tempers a notare or suguha base mixed with gunome, the nioi deep, the nie well adhered and at times coarse, with sunagashi running conspicuously and kinsuji entering, the bōshi midare-komi and turning back with hakikake. The published sources grant that such blades call the Sōshū tradition to mind through their prominent chikei and abundant nie, modeled on the earlier Etchū masters Norishige and Gō; the same entries caution that there are no purely Sōshū-construction works among them, and the verdict is held to Uda. The school's manner spans these poles, and the dating of any single Kunifusa blade is given as a span, late Nanbokuchō to early Muromachi, rather than to one hand, because the name continued through several generations. What returns even his most Sōshū-looking blade to the northern provinces is the jigane, the feature the appraisal turns on. The steel tends to a dark, kanairo tone and grows kasu-datsu, hazy and standing, in places, a texture the published sources name as 「北国物特有の肌合」, the character distinctive to works of the north; the nioiguchi tends to sink rather than to glow, and the ha-nie carries rounded, compact nie that the same commentary calls 「つぶらな沸を交えている点などには宇多派の特徴」, a mark of the Uda school. His shirake-utsuri and the Yamato character of his calmer blades set him apart from the plainer northern smiths, while this darkened, dry-standing steel and the rounded ha-nie set him apart from the bright clear steel of true Sōshū. He stands beside Kunimune as a representative hand of the school, the tighter-forging brother by the appraisers' own account, the shodai whose lattice-broken kuni character secures the attributions. For the collector Kunifusa is a rare early northern name rather than a market presence. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through fourteen Jūyō blades and three prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, seventeen designated works in all, with the shodai represented by the two Important Art Object tachi held at Hie Shrine and at the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures. Of recorded whereabouts, a Jūyō tachi passed through the Kajimura collection of Osaka and another Important Art Object descends from Kurokawa Fukusaburō into the Kurokawa Institute. The published commentary calls one shodai tantō 「数少ない初代国房の作として資料的にも貴重」, valuable as documentary material, being among the few first-generation works. Most designated Uda, in public and long-private hands alike, is held rather than traded; a signed Kunifusa of the early dated period reaches the market only seldom, and a shodai example with the lattice-broken kuni character is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, a document of how a Yamato craft took root in the north.

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