Fuchi-Kashira: Autumn Grass and Insects Landscape by Haruaki Hogen (Kao) and Kawasho

Kono Haruaki (春明, also read Shunmei), common name Kono Bunzo, was born in Edo in Tenmei 7 (1787) and at fifteen entered the workshop of Yanagawa Naoharu, of the Yokoya line. He first signed Haruto and changed his name to Haruaki in the Bunka era. Around Bunsei 4 or 5 he was appointed Hokkyo, and soon after he rose to Hogen, the rank that appears in nearly every signature on record. The published sources count him one of the representative Edo metalwork artists of the age of Goto Ichijo, and record that "he was called Haruaki of the East against Ichijo of the West"[[c:1]]. He trained many pupils and died in Echigo in Ansei 4 (1857).

His hand rests on the pictorial carving of the Yanagawa school, yet the published sources hold that "his ideal seems to have lain with the Goto house"[[c:2]]. Taking his teacher Naoharu together with Yokoya Somin and the Goto house as the sources of his method, he went on to a domain of his own. His shakudo is of the quality called "the wet black of a crow's feather"[[c:3]], and on it he sets brilliant gold and a wide range of coloured metals in a realistic, elegant picture, his takabori iro-e outstanding. In the details, the sources note, "the weighty chisel manner of the Goto school can be recognised"[[c:4]].

His techniques range widely. He works shakudo nanako, polished shibuichi and shibuichi ishime, iron, and solid gold, in high relief, sukidashi takabori and katachi-bori menuki, with hira-zogan inlay, katakiri-bori and the fine hairline of shigure rain. A kozuka of chrysanthemums made at fifty-six is called "more minutely and richly worked than usual"[[c:5]]. A tsuba of a kappa reaching for a cucumber, made in Tenpo 14 at fifty-seven, shows gold surihegashi and a tiny frog inlaid in shakudo on the reverse, with shigure kebori and katakiri-bori water. On a fuchi-kashira in solid gold a crowd of tortoises is carved so that each face and each shell differs.

His subjects run from the Goto canon to the playful. A Kurikara dragon mitokoromono is made with the Goto house in mind in both subject and technique, and its rare signature Hogen Haruaki belongs to a few works of his prime in the Bunsei era. Beside it stand the warrior Yoshiie reading an ambush from the broken line of geese, the guardian Nio in red copper with gold and silver, the immortals Gama and Tekkai, a horned owl at night, Okame under the moon, Fukurokuju, and a kozuka of the poet Sogi whose accompanying blade carries his verse on winter rain. The sources find in his work a light, witty Edo taste, and of a tsuba of the Tanabata festival they write that it is "finished as a work brimming with the feeling that only Haruaki commands"[[c:6]].

He was a restless traveller, and his signatures document it. In the Bunsei years he travelled through Tohoku and northern Kanto, making pieces on commission for wealthy patrons and farming families and leaving several fine works in Sendai. The Tanabata tsuba of Bunsei 11 is signed as made at Kamegasaki in the Shonai region, and in his late Kaei and Ansei years he went to Echigo, adding inscriptions that record his travels. He also used the art name Jippo-o, the old man of the ten directions, on menuki and a tsuba. A spring landscape tsuba with swallows and dandelions, made when he was past sixty, is described as fresh and lively despite his age.

For the collector Haruaki is a leading bakumatsu Edo master with a substantial designated record: eighteen works at the Juyo level, among them tsuba, kozuka, menuki, a mitokoromono and two complete wakizashi mountings fitted with his work, one with each fitting dated and signed Hogen. Two kozuka came down through the Ryushido collection. He has no higher designations. Signed pieces of his appear from time to time, and a fine dated work in his richly coloured high relief is a rewarding find for a collector of late Edo metalwork.