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Aoe Suketsugu助次

Suketsugu of the Ko-Aoe school in Bitchū worked in the early Kamakura period and is transmitted as the son of Toshitsugu, one of the representative smiths of the Aoe group in its old phase. The name then ran through several generations to the end of Kamakura, a later bearer leaving a Shōwa-era date and the long signature reading Bitchū-no-kuni Masu-no-Higashi-no-shō Aoe Suketsugu saku. Against that descent, the published sources fix the surviving works of this signature manner as the earliest of the name: by the *Meikan* there were three Suketsugu active in the Kamakura period, and of the works extant 「現存するものの中では最も時代の古いもの」 is what the judges call this hand. He works the quiet Ko-Aoe suguha, his tachi slender to standard in build with a high *koshizori*, *funbari* standing and a *ko-kissaki* or *chū-kissaki*; a *kodachi* and a *ken* survive in his hand, and one *ō-suriage mumei katana* is attributed to him. His characteristic hand is a *chū-* or *hoso-suguha*, very shallowly undulating in *notare*, broken by a little *ko-gunome* with *ko-chōji* and *ko-midare* mixed in. *Ko-ashi*, *saka-ashi* and *yō* enter, *ko-nie* adheres well and the *nioiguchi* draws tight, with fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* playing and *kuichigaiba* or *hotsure* at the edge here and there. The *bōshi* runs straight and turns in a small *ko-maru*, at times lightly brushed with *hakikake* or tending faintly to point. The suguha base is the constant of his work, and what distinguishes him within the school is the degree to which that base is interrupted by *ko-gunome*, a little *ko-chōji* and *ko-midare* mixing with it. The *Aoe* slant, the *saka-ashi* and *saka*-tending elements that mark his fellows, is the muted side of him: where *saka* enters at all, it rides quietly on the *ko-gunome*. His is the calmest and least slanting of the named Ko-Aoe suguha. The forging is a *ko-itame* mixing *mokume*, here and there running into *masame* and standing a little overall, with *ji-nie* attached and fine *chikei* entering. *Jifu* mixes into it and clear *sumihada* shows, the steel taking on the crepe-silk *chirimen-hada* the school is known for, the color tending slightly dark, and a faint, sometimes *dan*-like *utsuri* rising. The published sources generalize this base for the whole group and for him in turn: the smiths of this Ko-Aoe generation worked a forging in which *mokume* stands out and the *hada* tends to rise into 「いわゆる縮緬状の肌合」, with *jifu* often mixing in, over which they tempered either a calm suguha or a suguha broken by small *midare*, the *nie* generally well attached, the whole conveying, against the Bizen work of the same period, a quieter and more subdued flavor. *Horimono*, where present, are *bō-hi* run *kaki-nagashi* or carried through *kaki-tōshi*. The signature is the school's own and the point the judges name. On the *haura*, the worn-inward face of the *nakago*, below the *mekugi-ana* and near the tang tip, he cuts a bold, large two-character *mei* with a thick chisel, the strokes deeply struck, paired with the steep *ō-sujikai* filing. The published sources read the date off the cutting: 「助次は同名数代あるが、この銘振のものが古い」, the bolder cursive forms being the earlier, while later hands keep the thick chisel but square the calligraphy toward *kaisho*. Within his work the judges set two registers. The rule is the quiet suguha above, the calm composition that 「同派の典型的且つ代表的な太刀」 displays. Against it stands a single flamboyant outlier: a Tokubetsu-Jūyō tachi on which, 「同派の常と相違して焼幅広く」, the temper hardens wide with *chōji*, *gunome* and *togariba*, *tobiyaki* and *hotsure* entering, the *bōshi* running wet and brushing into a flame. For this manner the judges point to 「国宝に指定されている島津家伝来の康次の太刀」, the Yasutsugu tachi handed down in the Shimazu house and designated a kokuhō, and call the blade a precious work showing one stylistic mode within Ko-Aoe. What the published sources note plainly is that the individuality of the man himself is slight, the manner of the school standing forward more than the hand: even a representative tachi is praised yet marked as 「助次の個性に乏しい憾がある」. The same restraint they read as a virtue, calling the work old and elegant, the quiet suguha showing well over a dignified stance, the *ji* and *ha* healthy and rich in quiet flavor. He sits at the early-Kamakura core of Ko-Aoe, named together with Moritsugu, Tametsugu, Tsuguie, Tsugutada, Sadatsugu, Yasutsugu, Kanetsugu, Tsunetsugu and his father Toshitsugu, most of them sharing the character *tsugu* as the family element. His quiet ko-gunome-broken suguha stands just upstream of the school's later turn toward the nioi-based suguha and slanting chōji-midare of its Nanbokuchō masters such as Naotsugu and Yoshitsugu. The judges name the school's tang evidence as the proof of the place: that the Ko-Aoe smiths cut the *mei* on the *haura* and file in steep *ō-sujikai* is a point of difference from Ko-Bizen and the like, and on his tang it is kept sharp and plain. Fujishiro grades him *Jō-saku*. The weight of designation behind his name is substantial for so quiet a Ko-Aoe hand: four of his blades reach the Tokubetsu-Jūyō tier and a further nine the Jūyō, thirteen in the Tokubetsu-Jūyō and Jūyō tiers together, with two more on the prewar Jūyō-Bijutsuhin roll. Almost all are signed tachi; the surviving *ken* in his hand the published sources call 「古青江助次の現存稀な剣の作例は貴重であり、資料的価値も頗る高い」, the school's old steel showing fine *masame* near the edge with *ji-nie* thickly attached, *kuichigaiba* and *yubashiri* giving the *ji* and *ha* conspicuous activity. The recorded provenance is thin but real. One *kodachi* on the Jūyō-Bijutsuhin roll passed through Sugiyama Shigemaru, who held it with a Jūyō-Bunkazai Moritsugu tachi and *daishō* mountings before presenting it to Amiya, and was recorded with Ogura Yōkichi of Tokyo; the *ō-suriage mumei* attribution was recorded with Maeda Toshinari. Current whereabouts are partial: of those on record his blades are held by the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Hayashibara Museum of Art and Itsukushima Jinja, with the rest in private hands. A signed Ko-Aoe Suketsugu is not wholly beyond reach, since his blades trade within the Jūyō and Tokubetsu-Jūyō tiers; but most designated work is held rather than offered, and an example of the calmest old Aoe suguha comes to a private collector only rarely, and with patience.

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