Aoe Moritsugu

Moritsugu of Ko-Aoe in Bitchu is represented by five designated tachi: two Juyo Token, two Juyo Bijutsuhin certified in 1941, and an Important Cultural Property. The published sources open each account with his descent: 「守次は青江鍛冶の祖の安次の子と伝え、爾来同銘が南北朝時代まで継承されている」 (Moritsugu is said to be the son of Yasutsugu, founder of the Aoe smiths, and the same name was carried on into the Nanbokucho period). Because the name passed through several generations, his works are sorted by the hand of the signature.

The published sources distinguish the two-character signatures appraised as Ko-Aoe. One group is cut with a thick, strongly driven chisel in an almost block script, sometimes with reverse strokes. Another loosens that script slightly. A third is a large, smoothly cut cursive, and the stronger signatures appear to be the older. Both Juyo tachi carry the cursive form. An unusual habit sets him apart: 「古青江は佩裏に銘するのが通例であるが、守次は例外で佩表に銘するのを常としている」 (Ko-Aoe smiths normally sign on the haki-ura, but Moritsugu is an exception and as a rule signs on the haki-omote).

The sugata is slender, with high koshizori, funbari at the base and a ko-kissaki, even where the tang has been shortened. The jigane is a well-forged itame that stands out, mixed with mokume and nagare-hada, with fine ji-nie, chikei and jifu. The two Juyo Bijutsuhin are described as chirimen-hada with a suggestion of utsuri. The hamon is a suguha. On the 1983 tachi it is 「おとなしやかで上品な直刃を焼いており」 (a quiet and refined suguha), with ko-nie, fine sunagashi and kinsuji, and a straight boshi ending in ko-maru. On the Juyo Bijutsuhin it is nioi-dominant and tight at the nioiguchi, with ko-ashi and saka-ashi.

The 1990 tachi shows the livelier side of the same base. Its suguha is mixed with ko-midare, with ashi and yo in abundance, hotsure, uchinoke, kinsuji and sunagashi. The published sources single out its nie: 「光の強い沸が厚くつき、様々な変化を内包する古調な小乱れ刃が見事である」 (strong, bright nie adheres thickly, and the archaic ko-midare temper, holding many changes within it, is splendid). The Important Cultural Property is recorded as ko-itame with a suguha mixed with ko-midare.

The generation question is stated openly in the earlier record. Of one Juyo Bijutsuhin tachi they write 「この守次は初代ではないが、鎌倉時代中期を下らないであろう」 (this Moritsugu is not the first generation, but the work should not be later than the mid-Kamakura period), and a further comment there takes it for the third generation. That tachi was later in the Sano Art Museum, and the second Juyo Bijutsuhin is thought to be by the same hand. The five works are accordingly read as Ko-Aoe Moritsugu of the Kamakura period, without a firm division among the generations of the name.