Kantei

Robust tachi and slender tachi

Work and style

Tachi almost always, in two manners: the robust one, with a high koshizori and an ikubi kissaki, and the slender one, more sober.

On this page
  1. Sugata
  2. Jihada
  3. Hamon
  4. Bōshi
  5. Nakago and mei
  6. Kantei keys
  7. The tachi of the Kyūshū National Museum
  8. A slender tachi

Sugata

Almost all his work is tachi; hardly any tantō remain (Sesko speaks of a couple) and there is the odd kodachi and the odd stocky uchigatana. The typical tachi is wide, with koshizori (a high curvature, at the waist) or toriizori, with funbari and a chū-kissaki of the ikubi type (猪首, ikubi, “boar’s neck”); there are also finer, slender ones. For Sesko, his most common vein is the magnificent, robust one, with an ikubi-kissaki and a lively jiba; his first pieces, more sober, link up with the earlier masters of Kyoto.

Jihada

Dense ko-itame with plenty of ji-nie, sometimes with mokume, ō-hada and nagare; nie-utsuri or midare-utsuri, fine chikei and, on some pieces, jifu.

Hamon

A ko-nie suguha with ko-midare, ko-chōji, ashi and yō, sometimes with very small, tightly packed chōji, or a showier chōji-midare; on the slender pieces, the nioiguchi is wide. His kantei features: the karimata (small half-moon-shaped uchinoke above the habuchi, which link him to Awataguchi Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo and Ayanokōji Sadatoshi), the muneyaki and the nijūba in the bōshi.

Bōshi

Suguha or notare-komi with ko-maru-kaeri and hakikake; sometimes the kaeri is so short that it looks like yakitsume.

Nakago and mei

He signs with two characters, 国行 (Kuniyuki), without placing 来 (Rai) in front. The nakago is usually unshortened. Many blades bear a bōhi ending in kaki-nagashi on the nakago.

Kantei keys

The pieces with midare-utsuri and a showy hamon can recall Bizen, but Sesko warns that they have too much nie for a mid-Kamakura Bizen; and the sugata, with a koshizori that fades towards the point, separates Ko-Bizen from his tachi.

A slender tachi

The Kyūshū National Museum describes its tachi 国行 (Kuniyuki): a slender sugata, deep koshizori and a small kissaki; well-tightened ko-itame with masame; a wide suguha with chōji, of ko-nie, with sunagashi and kinsuji; a bōshi with a ko-maru tip; a nakago with a hook-shaped tip. The museum sums up that his style has two modes, the robust and the slender, and that this tachi belongs to the second.