Other Famous SwordsTachiImportant Cultural Property

宇多国房

Uda Kunifusa

Aussi connu sous le nom de: Uda Kunifusa; Pinnacle of the Uda School of Etchū; Treasured Blade of the Maeda Lords of Kaga

Forgeron

Uda Kunifusa

Époque

Nanbokuchō to early Muromachi period (late 14th century)

Type

Tachi

Classement

Important Cultural Property

Lieu de conservation

Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art, Kanazawa

Description

Uda Kunifusa is a tachi by the master of the Uda school, a group of swordsmiths from Etchū Province (modern Toyama Prefecture) who produced blades distinguished by a unique phenomenon called shirake-utsuri — a pale, misty reflection in the steel that differs from both the Bizen school's choji-utsuri and the Sōshū school's ji-gane. Kunifusa represents the Uda school at its finest: the characteristic shirake-utsuri is clearly present, the ko-midare hamon is deep and composed, and the blade's proportions reflect the transition from Nanbokuchō to early Muromachi aesthetics. Long treasured by the Maeda lords of Kaga — the wealthiest daimyo outside the Tokugawa family — it is now an Important Cultural Property at the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art in Kanazawa.

Légendes et récits

The shirake-utsuri — pale misty reflection — that appears in the steel of Uda school blades is one of the most poetic phenomena in all of Japanese swordsmithing: not the crashing-wave energy of Sōshū, not the chrysanthemum clarity of Bizen, but a soft, foggy luminescence that seems to carry within it the mountain mist of the Tateyama range. The Uda school has been somewhat overshadowed by the five great traditions (Yamato, Yamashiro, Sōshū, Bizen, Mino), but recent scholarship has increasingly recognized their unique contribution — a regional tradition that solved the problems of steel and fire in ways no other school found. The Maeda lords of Kaga, who deliberately invested in culture rather than military power to avoid threatening the Tokugawa, assembled one of Japan's great collections; that Uda Kunifusa earned a place among their treasures speaks to the blade's exceptional quality. It now resides at Kanazawa's Ishikawa Prefectural Museum, in the city the Maeda made into Little Kyoto.