Echigo
越後の刀工 (Echigo no tōkō)
The smiths of Echigo: a northern province with few old workshops and one great twentieth-century name, Amata Akitsugu.
Style and characteristics
No fixed style of its own: the old blades follow Yamato and Yamashiro, with suguha; in the shinshintō period the province’s smiths worked in the Sagami and Bizen manners learnt in Edo.
History
Echigo had smiths from the Kamakura period, but their known work is scarce. In the shinshintō period Momokawa Nagayoshi and Yamamura Masanobu stood out. In the twentieth century Amata Akitsugu, from Niigata, made a deep study of the iron and steel of old forging and was named a Living National Treasure.
Smiths of the school
- Amata Akitsugu 天田昭次