観世正宗

The Kanze family — guardians of the most refined theatrical art in Japan — preserved a sword in their treasury. Zeami Motokiyo, who brought the Kanze school to its peak under the patronage of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, wrote in Fūshikaden of 'hana' — the flower of art — as the quality that perpetually surprises and renews the viewer's experience. Those who have studied Masamune's blades describe exactly this quality in them: the more carefully you look, the more you see, the nie never fully resolved, the jitetsu always offering new complexity. Perhaps the Kanze masters recognized a kindred aesthetic achievement in Masamune's work: two traditions — one of performance, one of steel — that both sought the inexhaustible flower of perfection. The sword passed eventually to the Owari Tokugawa house and now rests in the Tokugawa Art Museum, where the traditions of sword and theater are both honored.