和気

Phase 1 · The Bizen Wake School (和気) · 1280 – 1400

2 smiths · 0 Kokuhō · 0 Jūbun · 2 Jūbi · 1 Tokujū · 13 Jūyō

Major smiths

• Shigesuke (重助) — Mainline · 1326-1329. Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Two tachi bearing dates in the Karyaku era, one inscribed in the first month of Karyaku 3 (1328) and the other in the tenth, fix almost everything that is known of Shigesuke. He was a swordsmith of the Wake group, a small line working at Wake-shō in Bizen Province a short way from Osafune in the closing years of the Kamakura period. The published sources name him together with Shigenori as the Wake smiths, dating the pair by these few surviving signed pieces, and record the local tradition that "Wake is said to have been the former homeland of the Ko-Bizen smiths"[[c:1]], with the cautious addition that the line may have drawn on the Ko-Bizen lineage, though the matter is not clear. His is a peripheral Bizen hand, set against the great Osafune workshops a few miles to the west, and read very much in their light. His recognized manner is the signed tachi, slender and small in scale, one carrying a *wazori*-tinged curvature and another a *koshizori* feeling despite its compact size, running to a *chū-kissaki*. Over a tightly packed *ko-itame* with *ji-nie* and a standing *midare-utsuri* he tempers not the clove-flower of mainstream Osafune but a restrained *suguha-chō*, into which he sets small *gunome* and small *chōji*, with *ko-ashi* entering and *saka-ashi* intermingled. The *nioiguchi* tends tight, with *ko-nie* and *kinsuji*. This quieter, *suguha*-based line, carried over the rich Bizen *utsuri*, is the spine of his hand and the feature that separates the Wake group from the flamboyant Osafune temper of the same decades. The *jigane* is the constant across his work. A standing *midare-utsuri* rises on three in four of his blades, signed and *mumei* alike, over an *itame* that in the tachi tightens to a fine *ko-itame* and in the shortened katana stands a little, mixed with *mokume* and *nagare*. On the most fully described pieces the steel carries *ji-nie* in fine particles, *chikei* entering, and a slightly mottled *jifu*-like complexion, the old Bizen *jigane* the Wake line keeps from its supposed Ko-Bizen root. Over that *jigane* the *bōshi* runs a shallow *notare-komi* and turns back in *ko-maru*, sometimes finishing in *yakitsume* or with a touch of *hakikake*; on the *ō-suriage* katana a *bō-hi* is frequently carved through. Within this one hand the published sources draw two further registers. A *hira-zukuri* tantō, its five-character signature cut away after "Bishū Wake-jū" and judged Shigesuke from a dated reverse of Karyaku 1, is forged in a flowing *itame* with conspicuous *o-hada* and tempered in a *gunome-midare* with reverse-slanting elements and a *kataochi*-style *gunome*; the commentary calls it a piece that "tempers a *kataochi-gunome*-like blade reminiscent of Kagemitsu"[[c:2]], good in workmanship and valuable as source material for the study of the Wake smiths even with the signature truncated. The larger part of his record, the *ō-suriage mumei* katana, is attributed to him as the typical Wake hand, affirmed from era, school and the standard set by the surviving signed tachi rather than from any personal flourish. What sets him apart from his Osafune neighbours is exactly what the judges keep returning to. The *Jūyō Bijutsuhin* commentary, examining one of the dated tachi, finds that "in comparison with the hamon activity of the near-contemporary Osafune Kagemitsu, there is variation"[[c:3]], and of the other that its workmanship is in no way inferior to, and may even surpass, the standard work of that master. The modern judges read the *mumei* katana the same way, calling their *midare-utsuri*, *suguha-chō* with *ko-gunome* and shallow *notare ko-maru* *bōshi* close to contemporary Osafune work, the affinity that justifies the attribution. He stands, then, as a quiet satellite of the Osafune school, his name preserved because a Bizen *suguha* hand of this date, distinct from the clove-flower mainstream, is worth keeping straight. For the collector he is a rare peripheral name rather than a great one, and the record is honest about it. There are no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties on it; his standing rests instead on a single Tokubetsu Jūyō tachi, nine Jūyō blades, and two prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, twelve designated works on record in all. The published commentary calls the signed Tokubetsu Jūyō tachi "an outstanding achievement among his works"[[c:4]], of particularly fine preservation, and one of the *Jūyō* katana "an excellent piece attributed to Shigesuke, with no breakdown in either *ji* or *ha*"[[c:5]]. His blades sit in collections grounded in their own provenance: the finest signed tachi was bestowed by the shōgun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi on Mizuno Katsunaga in 1701 and long held by the Mizuno house, lords of Yūki Domain in Shimōsa; the Mitsui family owned one of the dated *Jūyō Bijutsuhin* tachi, and the Tsukamoto Museum of Art holds the other. With so few signed works in existence and most of the *mumei* attributions long held, a Shigesuke comes to market only rarely, and a signed example is among the scarcer documents a Bizen collector could hope to encounter, a record of how the old Wake line worked in the shadow of Osafune.
• Shigenori (重則) — Mainline · 1324-1326. Jūyō. Shigenori was a swordsmith of the late Kamakura period who lived at Wake Manor, Wake-shō, in Bizen province, his activity fixed by dated works of Shōchū 3, also read as Genkō 4 (1324), and Karyaku 3 (1328). The published sources record him beside a second Wake smith, Shigesuke, the two known together from this handful of dated pieces, and they cite Wake as one of the proposed homelands of the old Ko-Bizen smiths. One view holds that Shigenori too descended from the Ko-Bizen line, though the published record holds the matter not clearly settled. Four of his blades have passed the Jūyō shinsa: three signed tachi and one greatly shortened mumei katana attributed to Wake Shigenori. They are enough to read one steady hand, a smith whose work stands so close to the Osafune main line of his own day that the published sources liken his best to that of Sanenaga and Kagemitsu, yet whose ji and ha carry a quieter, slightly rustic character that marks him as a man of Wake rather than of Osafune proper. The temper is the heart of his recognition. Over a calm base of narrow suguha, *hoso-suguha*, he mixes only small forms: *ko-gunome*, *ko-midare* and *ko-chōji*, never the tall clove-midare of the Osafune main line. *Ko-ashi* enter the line well, with *yō* on the mumei katana, and the temper runs *nioi*-dominant, *nioi-gachi*, with *ko-nie* added. The *nioiguchi* is tight, *shimari*, and at moments takes on an *urumi*, a soft, moist tone, and is bright on the latest of his blades; *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* appear, the *kinsuji* set near the base on his earliest tachi. The published sources name precisely this controlled, somewhat huddled *midare*, mixed with *ko-gunome*, as the place where the distinctive character of the Wake group shows, the temper that closely resembles late-Kamakura Osafune work but stops short of its full flowering. The *jigane* carries the other half of the reading. He forges a *ko-itame* to *itame* that takes in *mokume* and stands faintly open, *hada-tachi*, gathering *ji-nie*, with *chikei* entering and patches of *jifu*, *ō-hada* and clear *sumi-hada*. Across this jigane a *midare-utsuri* rises distinctly, the speckled reflection of old Bizen steel and the feature that seats him beside the Osafune main line. On the mumei katana the forging is overall fine yet slightly standing, and along the *habuchi* a minute *nie* breaks into *hotsure*, giving the ji and ha a small rustic vigor, *yashu*; it is exactly here that the published sources find the attribution to Wake affirmed, writing that on this point 「ここに和気の極めが首肯される」[[c:1]]. The *bōshi* answers the calm of the temper, running shallowly *notare* or *sugu* and turning back in *ko-maru*. The four blades draw a single manner rather than a sequence of phases. The shape is the late-Kamakura tachi throughout: *shinogi-zukuri*, mostly slender, with *koshizori* and *funbari* and a small to medium point, every example shortened, *suriage* or *ō-suriage*, as such early Bizen tachi almost always are. The signed pieces carry their inscriptions toward the *mune*: a two-character *mei*, simply Shigenori, on the 24th- and 56th-session tachi, and on the 31st a somewhat fine-chiseled long signature, Bishū Wake-jū Shigenori, partly corroded by age. The 56th-session tachi, slender and signed, the published sources prize less for its scale than for its testimony, calling signed work by Wake Shigenori exceptionally rare and the blade therefore extremely valuable material for understanding this smith and his group. The mumei katana of the 59th session is the counter-case, a strong, long blade of standard width whose Wake attribution rests not on a signature but on the connoisseur's reading of that rustic *habuchi*. What distinguishes Shigenori is therefore a matter of degree against a close model. His midare-utsuri jigane and *ko-gunome* in *suguha* set him squarely among the late-Kamakura Bizen smiths, and the published sources twice describe his work as close to the Osafune smiths of the time, reading the 31st-session tachi as workmanship 「真長・景光さながらの出来」[[c:2]], much like Sanenaga and Kagemitsu, and judging it 「重則の上々作と称してよく」[[c:3]], fit to be called an especially fine work by Shigenori, adding that the corroded inscription is no real concern. Yet the same sources are careful to hold him apart: the subdued, slightly huddled *midare*, the persistent *ko-gunome*, and the rustic vigor of the *habuchi* are where the Wake hand reveals itself, the marks of a Ko-Bizen-descended satellite working alongside, and in the manner of, the orthodox Osafune line without quite belonging to it. Four blades on record, all at the Jūyō level and none designated above it, are the whole of Shigenori's preserved corpus, and signed examples are rarer still: of the four, three bear his name and one is a mumei attribution. The published sources record no daimyō provenance and name no holding institution for these pieces, and signed Wake Shigenori is by their own account exceptionally rare, so the survival of even three signed tachi is itself the point of interest. A blade by this smith is not a thing the collector encounters often; when one appears it is at the Jūyō tier, valued less as a famous name than as evidence of a small, half-documented Bizen group whose hand the published record can still recover. For the student of late Kamakura Bizen, that scarcity is the attraction: each surviving Shigenori is a primary witness to the Wake workshop, and the mumei katana of the 59th session, where 「刃縁には一際光の強い刃沸がきらめき」[[c:4]], the *habuchi* glittering with particularly intense *ha-nie*, is the finest demonstration of what that recovered hand could do.