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About the maker

Suishinshi Masahide Naotane直胤

Taikei Naotane was the foremost pupil of Suishinshi Masahide and, after his teacher, the central figure of the shinshintO. Born in An'ei in Yamagata of Dewa, his common name Shoji Minobei and his gO Daikei, he went up to Edo while still young, entered Masahide's school, and like his teacher served Lord Akimoto, becoming with Hosokawa Masayoshi one of the outstanding talents of the Suishinshi line. A blade he made at twenty-three is signed Shoji Naotane and dated Kansei 13, so the published sources place his entry to the school a few years earlier and his independence around the start of the Bunka era; he took the title Chikuzen Daijo about Bunsei 4, changed it to Mino no Suke when he went up to Kyoto in Kaei 1, and died at seventy-nine in Ansei 4 after a working career of some fifty years. Where Masahide was the theorist of the revival-sword movement, Naotane was its practitioner, and the published sources judge that he came to surpass his teacher in skill, recording of one Soshu-den katana that 「その技術が師を凌ぐと評せられた」 (“his technique came to be appraised as surpassing his teacher”). His characteristic hand is the Bizen-den, the manner the published sources call his forte, and they state plainly that 「丁子乱れの巧みさは新々刀第一の定評がある」 (“the finesse of his choji-midare carries the established reputation of being the foremost among shinshinto”). Over a tightly forged ko-itame, at times nashiji-like, he tempers a choji-midare into which he mixes angular kaku-gunome, togariba and gunome, the ashi long and entering so far that they run through toward the edge. The whole shows the reverse slant of the old Osafune line, the choji and the saka-ashi leaning back, the nioiguchi nioi-dominant with ko-nie and bright and clear. The shape evokes a Kamakura tachi, koshizori or rather high in curvature with a chU-kissaki, and the published sources read the angular peaks and the reverse tendency as a conscious aim at the late-Kamakura Osafune masters Kagemitsu and Kanemitsu. The jigane is the constant beneath this temper. It is a well-packed ko-itame with ji-nie, and on his finest Bizen-den blades a midare-utsuri rises distinctly near the koshi-moto, in the best pieces connecting upward into the yakigashira of the temper. ShinshintO blades carry no genuine kotO utsuri, so the deliberate revival of a midare-utsuri is itself the tell that he was reaching back to old Bizen, and the published sources single it out as evidence of his Osafune model. Yet they are equally clear about what marks the work as shinshintO rather than kotO: on a Bizen-den katana judged after Kanemitsu and Kagemitsu they note that it is 「純然たる匂出来ではな」 (“not a pure nioi-deki”), nie appearing throughout the line, and they call this 「古作と新々刀との相達」, the very difference between the old works and the new. The bOshi runs midare-komi, becoming pointed and turning back with hakikake, or sugu to a ko-maru. Naotane worked the several kotO traditions, and his record divides into clear registers. His prized second manner is the Soshu-den, rarer than the Bizen and modeled on Masamune, Sadamune and Shizu. Over a flowing itame mixed with O-mokume, and in the strongest examples a distinctive whorled uzumaki-hada that the published sources name a point of interest in his Soden work, he sets a notare mixed with gunome, the ji-nie thick and chikei entering, the nie gathering coarse and uneven, sunagashi and nie-suji running in stripes and the kinsuji long. One judge calls a Soshu wakizashi bold and faintly rustic, finding that 「野趣が感ぜら」 (“a rustic taste is felt”) in its uneven nie and frequent hakikake. A third, minor register survives in the calmer Yamato manner and in suguha: one Tenpo katana the sources call relatively uncommon for him, a suguha-tone in shallow notare with ko-gunome, and the Sanada daisho whose long sword is an all-masame Yamato-den forging to which Soshu notare and gunome are added, two traditions crossed in one blade. Being entirely a signed and frequently dated smith, the kantei question with Naotane is never his attribution but his standing. What sets him apart is what the judges themselves name. His bright midare-utsuri, his reverse-leaning choji with its angular kaku-gunome and saka-ashi, and his deliberate Osafune revival distinguish his Bizen-den from the general run of shinshintO smiths, who carry no utsuri and no such reverse slant; his Soshu-den is told instead by the whorled uzumaki-hada and the coarse, striped nie activity. He stands directly downstream of Masahide and ahead of his own pupils: the carving on his blades is often by the Suishinshi-line carver Honjo Yoshitane, and his senior disciple Sawahara Shigetane and others carry the Daikei manner forward into the late shinshintO. The published sources rank his best work at the head of his oeuvre, calling one Bizen-den katana the piece that should be 「彼の備前伝の作中の筆頭に置くべきものである」 (“placed foremost among his Bizen-den works”) and another, with a waka cut into its tang, a masterpiece among his masterpieces, while one Tenpo Soshu-den katana is held to be the right wing of his oeuvre, surpassing even Masahide's own Soshu work. For the collector Naotane is the great signed name of the shinshintO revival. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku, and the Toko Taikan values his work near the upper part of its scale. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties on the record; his designations run instead through the prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin and the modern Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, with some forty designated works on record, all signed and dated across the Bunka to Kaei years. His blades are documented in distinguished hands attested by their own inscriptions and provenance: the Sanada daisho transmitted in the Sanada family, a companion tachi made by command for the Chancellor of the Realm and held in the Imperial collection, a katana commissioned by Watanabe Shu of the Tsu domain, and one made of carefully chosen iron for Ota Masayasu, a figure in iron production, that the published sources call 「会心の一口」, a blade of his full satisfaction. Among the prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin pieces are works held by Ide Keishiro, Suto Sojiro and Suzuki Seisuke. Because none of his work is locked away as designated cultural property and his output was large, a signed Naotane is more findable than a great kotO name, yet his finest Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo blades are held far more often than they are traded; one comes to a private collector only from time to time, and a documented masterpiece in his Bizen-den, the manner the published sources crown the finest of all the shinshintO, remains a landmark when it appears.

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