Tsuba with Pavilion and Landscape Design: Choshu Hagi ju Masatomi saku

寸法

縦73.5ミリ　横72.0ミリ　切羽台厚4.6ミリ

Accessories

桐箱

Weight

重量116.0グラム

As written by the shop

Machine translation from the shop's Japanese · may contain errors · Show original

The Choshu han actively encouraged the production of tsuba as an export item to other domains, producing so many tsuba smiths and works that it was referred to as "Choshu of the West" in contrast to "Aizu of the East." Their styles are so diverse they cannot be generalized, with various families such as Kawaji, Nakai, Okamoto, Okada, Kaneko, Nakahara, Fujii, Inoue, and Yado each leaving behind works with distinctive characteristics. Masatomi, whose common name was Hikobe, was the sixth generation head of the Okada family living in Hagi, Nagato no Kuni, and is known as an outstandingly skilled master who inherited the family's traditional techniques. It is recorded that on Bunka 14, February 28, he was granted an additional two koku of rice for his past achievements, and further given a three-person fuchi allowance totaling two koku three to, suggesting he received firm recognition from the domain. He retired in Bunsei 4, April, and passed away in Kaei 2, October; he is one of the master smiths representing late Edo period Choshu kinkō, layering meticulous tagane techniques and an excellent sense of painting over the traditions of a prestigious family. The Rokaku Sansui-zu (Pavilions and Landscapes) is a pictorial theme that depicts a refined state of mind removed from the mundane world, setting the stage in the ideal mountains and rivers of China with steep rocky mountains, deep valleys, pavilions, trees, and figures relaxing by the water. The highlights of the artist's compositional power and tagane techniques lie in fitting everything from the chikakage to the distant view within the limited surface of the tsuba, creating a sense of vast space through the depth of the carving and the use of margins. This work treats the marugata tetsu-ji as a single Chinese landscape painting; on the right side of the omote, it features pavilions and a tower overlapping a steep rock face, with temple buildings in a grotto and figures by the water below, while the left side features a boat on a lake and a mountain range continuing to the opposite shore, skillfully incorporating the seppa-dai and kozuka hitsu-ana into part of the wide landscape. On the ura, it depicts towering mountains, a waterfall dropping through a valley, forests, and figures at the water's edge, creating a composition where the scenery continues from the dense group of pavilions on the omote into the quiet, deep mountains. The thick ji-gane is well-forged, and while finely varying the depth of the carving into the jishada which bears a blackish-brown koshoku, it painstakingly carves out roof tiles, pillars, rock surfaces, tree leaves, and even the ripples on the water surface; from the front, the grand perspective of the entire scene emerges, and under slanted light, the three-dimensionality of the pavilions and rocky mountains appears one after another. In the Nihon Tosogu Kenkyukai Kanteisho as well, it is attributed as a work by the sixth generation Okada Masatomi and praised as a "Meitsuba" that uses well-forged ji-gane to magnificently carve and express a Chinese-style Rokaku Sansui-zu; among the signed works of Masatomi, this is a superior piece that allows one to fully appreciate his meticulous tagane techniques and compositional power, adding certain prestige to a collection of Choshu tsuba.