Katana: Mumei (Norishige) - 67th NBTHK Juyo Token

Norishige worked in Etchū at the end of Kamakura, a pupil of Shintōgo Kunimitsu and a brother-student of Yukimitsu and Masamune, with whom he carried the Sōshū tradition to its maturity. Older texts such as the Kokon Mei Zukushi list him among Masamune's ten disciples, but the dated blades that survive, in the Shōwa, Engen and Ōan years, and the form of his tachi and tantō, lead the published sources to read him by the Muromachi-era account as a pupil of Shintōgo Kunimitsu and a brother-student of Masamune, perhaps a little the earlier of the two.

The common manner, and the one that bears his name, is matsukawa-hada (松皮肌). His itame stands boldly, often in a large pattern mixed with mokume, and through it thick chikei enter abundantly until the surface reads like the bark of a pine; the steel is dark, the ji-nie thick. The published sources place him closest of the great Sōshū hands to Masamune, yet note that he expresses the changes of nie even more openly than Masamune[[c:1]], so that the ha and the hada together show what they call the ten-thousand changes of nie[[c:2]]. The bold standing grain laced with thick chikei is the mechanism behind the pine-bark, and it runs through the great majority of his work.

Over that hada runs a notare mixed with gunome in deep nie, the nioiguchi subdued and sunken, the opposite of bright Bizen, alive with abundant kinsuji and sunagashi, with nijuba and drifting yubashiri. The bōshi is a point the older profiles got wrong: it does not merely turn back in a small round, it sweeps out strongly in hakikake into a midare-komi, at times pointed or burned through in yakizume, the brushed nie of the tip continuous with the restless ji below. The sunken nioiguchi and that swept, nie-broken bōshi are as much his signature as the bark itself.

There is a second manner, and it is the refined one the connoisseur prizes. On his rare signed tachi and his early dated signed tantō the hada does not stand as much as usual; the forging tightens to a calmer fine ko-itame, the ji and ha both quieter, the steel brighter and more clearly lit, the chikei and kinsuji more restrained. A representative signed tachi is marked as calmer in ji and ha than his usual work[[c:3]], its small-notare temper sunk over the swirling Norishige grain still legible beneath; an early signed tantō of Shōwa 3 is read as standing less, brighter, and connecting to Shintōgo Kunimitsu and Yukimitsu[[c:4]], his earlier hand. This fine, bright forging is not a lapse from the matsukawa but a distinct and highly regarded facet of him.

For recognition the two manners share the same core: thick dark chikei, a subdued sunken nioiguchi, kinsuji and sunagashi running busily, and the swept hakikake bōshi. The subdued nioiguchi parts him from the bright nioiguchi of Bizen; the openly varied nie and the heavier standing grain part him from Masamune, whose chikei runs through a tighter, quieter jigane. Where the bark is absent, on the fine signed pieces, the chikei and the sunken nioiguchi carry the attribution. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jō saku, and among all swordsmiths his Tokubetsu-Jūyō count stands near the very top.

His signed work is itself a rarity: it is mostly tantō, and signed tachi are so few that an earlier appraisal could count only two[[c:5]]; the designated corpus today holds four — two Important Cultural Properties and two Tokubetsu-Jūyō — the rest of his work ō-suriage and mumei. The named blades carry the histories of the great houses: a signed tachi passed from Toyotomi Hideyoshi's circle and through Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, who bestowed it at the Yanagisawa residence, into the Yanagisawa family, while others descended through the Shimazu, the Maeda, the Hosokawa and the Ii. A few of his own works look back to Ko-Bizen and Ko-Hōki for an archaic flavor. His pine-bark forging did not die with him; his pupil Tametsugu carried it west, where it became the mark of the later Etchū smiths.