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About the maker

Shinto Tadatsuna忠綱

Ikkanshi Tadatsuna is the second-generation Awataguchi Ōmi no Kami Tadatsuna, son of the shodai Ōmi no Kami Tadatsuna and one of the representative Osaka smiths of the Genroku years. The published sources record his common name as Mantayū, that he succeeded his father as the second to bear the title Ōmi no Kami, that he claimed descent from Awataguchi Kunitsuna and so prefixed Awataguchi to his signature, and that around Genroku 2 he began to style himself by the gō Ikkanshi. They place him among the leading Osaka makers of his day, one who is, in their words, "renowned for the brilliance of his ji and ha and the decorative beauty of his carving" (地刃の華麗と彫刻の装飾美を以て名高い). His early manner follows his father closely, and the heart of his record is the broad, signed and dated katana that doubles as a field for the carving on which his fame chiefly rests. His characteristic hand is read first in the temper. Over a tightly forged ko-itame he opens a straight suguha *yakidashi* at the base and then runs two related manners. The earlier and more inherited of them is a *chōji* with well-aligned *yakigashira* and long *ashi*, the very style in which the shodai excelled, the long *chōji-ashi* entering and the *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* cutting across them. The published sources call him "a master who surpassed his father" (父に優る名手で), and they locate the difference precisely: where the first generation's *chōji* is aligned and dignified, the nidai's is deeper in *nioi*, brighter in *nioiguchi* and firmer in *ko-nie*, talent they name *shutsuran*, the dye that outdoes the indigo. His mature and most personal manner is the *tōran-midare*, the surging-wave temper collectors know as *sudareba*. The published sources tie it to the Tsuda Sukehiro circle and call it on one wakizashi his "favoured Tsuda-style *tōran* temper" (得意の津田風の濤欄刃をやき). Over the tight ko-itame, the *ji-nie* applied thickly in minute particles and fine *chikei* entering, he builds a shallow *notare* base mixed with *gunome* and *chōji*-like elements that swells into the wave, the long *chōji-ashi* still entering, the *nioi* deep, *ko-nie* thickly adhered, *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* running frequently, the *nioiguchi* bright and clear. The *bōshi* is a shallow *notare-komi* to *ko-maru* with *hakikake*. A quieter *suguha* survives on a small number of blades, the calmest and rarest of his three faces, set over the same bright ko-itame. That *jigane* is the constant beneath all three manners. The forging is a *ko-itame* tightly and finely packed, the *ji-nie* gathering thickly and at its best falling in minute particles, with fine *chikei* threading the surface, the steel bright and clear. It is the well-made Osaka *jigane* rather than a rustic one, and it is the field his temper and his carving both sit upon. The reference texts list his oeuvre as the aligned *chōji* after the shodai, the *tōran*, and the occasional *suguha*, all opened from the long straight *yakidashi* that marks the Osaka start. What sets him apart, more than any single feature of *ji* or *ha*, is the carving. The published sources treasure his *tōshin horimono* as *Ikkanshi-bori*, recording that he "earned a high reputation for surpassing his teacher, and his blade carvings in particular are admired and treasured as Ikkanshi carving" (出藍の誉高く); "his blade carving is skillful and is treasured by the world as Ikkanshi-bori" (殊に刀身彫刻は巧みで一竿子彫として賞玩されている). He cut a relief *shin-no-kurikara* within the groove, the *ume-kurikara*, jewel-chasing dragons, and the *koi-no-takinobori*, a carp ascending a waterfall that the sources believe he was the first to attempt and which they note has "not been encountered on any of his blades other than this one" (同作中でも本刀以外には未見である). He worked closely with the Osaka carving master Fujita Tsūi, and he cut the added inscription *horimono dōsaku* to mark the carving as his own hand, a feature, the sources observe, not seen on the shodai at all and one that established a model within Shintō *horimono*. For the collector Ikkanshi Tadatsuna is a leading Osaka Shintō name whose work can still be sought, though the very best is held rather than traded. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. He has no National Treasures; his record runs instead through the Jūyō rank in number, with several pieces reaching Tokubetsu Jūyō and a long signed ōdachi raised to Important Cultural Property. The published sources call one of his Tokubetsu Jūyō katana a representative work from the period when he was at the height of his powers, excellent in both *ji* and *ha*, its *Ikkanshi-bori* exceptionally splendid. About fifty-two of his blades stand in the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers, with a recorded example held by the Kyoto National Museum and a documented blade once in the keeping of the Asai house. Because his work is signed and dated and survives in fair number, a Tadatsuna comes to light more readily than most Osaka masters of his rank, yet a dated katana carrying his own *Ikkanshi-bori* is a landmark when it appears, and the finest, with the carp and the *kurikara* cut by the smith himself, are documents of the carving craft at its Osaka height.

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