Shoami Schools Thesis

Shoami is a name you will hear and read about, and you will not give it much thought – but you should, from the point of view of there having once been a very large number of them, with a subsequently very large output.  The main problem about identifying older examples of Shoami work is that it would seem that no contemporary physical records of their ‘organisation’ exists today. This is not to say that it is impossible to ascribe a School to a Shoami tsuba that you may find – far from it. Later Edo works of Shoami tsubashi are all too well known to tsuba collectors simply because there were so many workers in very many places in Japan who followed the established traditions of Shoami. This makes it possible to find Shoami tsuba everywhere you go, if you can read the signs, but it has to be admitted that, with some remarkable exceptions, late Edo works are a change of what the School began to produce in their real heyday, the late Muromachi period.

Really early tsuba from this period are called Ko-Shoami , meaning old Shoami. The biggest difference between them and their following generations is that the Ko-Shoami frequently used copper, refined or unrefined – the difference is in the darker colour of the unrefined version – and if you can find one of those you will be doing very well indeed. In their more frequent iron works people frequently compare them to the products of the Umetada group, but that is only in that they use iron of very good quality. The actual products are very different. The Ko-Shoami works that exist are almost always unsigned and their classification is a matter of studied opinion based on shape, theme, style of rim/hitsu-ana etc. Not always an easy proposition. Their inspiration for the decorative inlay that became typically their own was long proposed to be in the Yoshiro zogan tradition. This is not a case of being an offshoot, just a matter of long term borrowing influences from  neighboring artists. It is accepted – on the basis of comparisons between branch schools – that the origins of the Ko- Shoami are most likely to be in the formation of the Iyo group, which judges agree are very ‘Spartan’ in appearance. This makes sense to anyone who has developed a ‘feel’ to relate products to the time they were made; the whole of the Momoyama period was no more or less than a running War, and nothing made then imparts the sense of being ordinary.

There is a contender for the title of Founder and that is the Kyo-Shoami group.  Unfortunately, in terms of accumulated evidence, their works just do not come out as being quite so old as those from Iyo. We can all look at Kyo Shoami and recognise instantly that theirs was a more developed style, with greater sophistication and a more obvious approach to decoration – so much so that you can see the potential for the previously mentioned link to the very decorative Yoshiro style.

Kyoto does have a particular claim to fame and that is that their founder, possibly a man who signed Masanori, was quite definitely the Tsubako who gave the Edo period Shoami their main inspiration. This may never be resolved because, like most early pieces of any school, there are very few that are signed, and Masanori is the only man whose work demonstrates greater age than other signed pieces. As it so happens it has long been believed that there were probably three generations of the name up to about 1690 but the styles do differ sufficiently to let Shoami specialists see the difference. Masanori (Shodai) is listed in the Nihon To Koza as having five main styles that were his speciality and it remarks that there was almost nothing he could not do. This man was talented and original.

Unfortunately it is ironic that although he provided a wonderful basis for the fame his School enjoyed immediately following his time, he also laid the foundations for their downfall by being a head above his followers. Exceptional skill made his work special. His followers were not so good and it became easier and easier to take his general themes on into the realms of Kinko tsuba without any spark of talent to make them stand out from the rest. By now we are looking at the middle Edo period and everything handed down from previous generations was stagnating in repetition of cheap decorative effects.

By the time we get to the middle of the 18th century there were no more than a handful of Shoami whose work is worthy of praise, and the majority were producing tsuba of poor quality iron with lavish quantities of gold or silver nunome to make up for the lack of real workmanship. These are called Kenjo tsuba and you will see them about, usually on swords put together in the 19th century. The name comes from the kind of very elaborate tsuba that, we are told, Samurai would purchase in the big cities as gifts for higher ranking individuals.  At first sight they are very attractive, then you look closer and think better of it. Their artistic worth is generally about equal with the thickness of the nunome. For a great school like the Shoami to descend to making this type of tsuba is quite tragic, but that is how they ended.

 To return to the Kyoto style of Shoami, who followed Masanori?  A great many.  I have listed the main sub-schools below as each moved from their origins, be those origins in Iyo or Kyoto, or even by adoption, because there were people who chose to become Shoami, rather than being brought up in their tradition.  I will give a brief description of the work of each group, rather than individuals, because it makes more sense to address the styles they produced, which were impressively many.

Iyo-Shoami.

The oldest, from the end of the Muromachi and into Momoyama, have thick copper or iron plates, with hammered surfaces, sometimes very small Sukashi piercings but more often with shallow sukidashi-bori – that is a ‘gouged out’ face to leave the decorative theme in low relief. The themes are always simple and not naturalistic. Rims usually raised the same way with gilding applied on, rather than inlaid in, the surface.

Later works of the middle Edo followed the main body of the Kyo-Shoami combination; small Sukashi piercings with nunome, and so became virtually the same as the Kyo product. Still later they followed the Kyo in doing extensive Sukashi and full-blown Kinko inlay works.

Kyo-Shoami.

Usually hammered surface iron, can be quite thin, with relatively small Sukashi piercings and a good balance of good quality (thick) nunome that may follow the outlines of the Sukashi (often right into the edges of the Sukashi cuts) and go around the rim in vines or zigzags, reminiscent of brocade patterns. 

It is the combination of Sukashi with gilding or silver shallow inlay that gives them their character. These are essentially patterned embellishments rather than being little people, animals etc,. Rims can be very finely raised with great elegance and are usually given the gilding treatment.

Sukidashi bori as above in Iyo (with Mon, etc) picked out with gilding.  Some of the Sukashi work is very extensive in the middle to late Edo and could be confused with other Schools quite easily.

After this they made what we consider pure Kinko art works, less tsuba than jewellery.

Some rare pieces have been seen with very skilled true inlay on shakudo plates and these are regarded very highly. It must be said that, leaving aside their obvious quality, these would be very difficult to classify apart from the better class of Bakumatsu Bushu work.

Signed works must always be judged for their workmanship, which is a great clue to their age.

(Both Iyo and Kyo Shoami may fall into the category of Ko-Shoami – the oldest.)

Awa Shoami.

Beginning in the early 17th century the Awa started by making brass plate tsuba inlaid with shallow gold designs that were easily identifiable with the Shoami standard of work – vines, zigzags, brocade patterns etc. around the Sukashi cuts and the rims.

These will again be difficult to definitely identify unless they are fully signed, because the same ideas were popular (again) in the 19th century with the machi bori (street carvers) of Bushu.  Moving on, they used the same general patterns in iron and started to make very competent full Sukashi works like landscapes, shishi and peonies. The only obvious identifying feature to look for is a decorated rim as above, or the remains of it since you can expect the nunome to have worn away. 

Awa works are very pleasant, typically Edo in ‘feel’ and can be looked upon as standing between the ancient roots of the Shoami and their cheapened, rather touristy, ending.

Aizu Shoami.

Sadly this is where the Shoami story starts to go wrong. The Aizu Shoami have a name for copying anything, including all of the foregoing, especially the better Kyo School. They began about 1650 or so and just kept on going right through to the Meiji period. With a lot of craftsmen in their Mon this means that sometimes you may find an Aizu work that is brilliant, but more often you will find the mediocre. Because there is more mediocre than anything else it is best to describe that as being their usual standard. Low relief carving of landscapes and scenes from mythology in iron, sometimes including small Sukashi piercings to highlight details are their forte. The quality of work is generally less than you would have liked, although several made a speciality of copying Nara styles quite well, to the point of confusing the boundaries. They also had several people move on to join the School of Iwamoto Konkwan – I can only hope their association made them improve.

Treat a signed Aizu work with caution. You should not automatically decry it without trying to see what the tsubako was trying to do. If he was copying someone else it will have to be a very skilled work to be worth your attention, but if he was doing something that owes nothing to anyone else he may be worth researching.

Not everyone in Aizu was making copies or gimei tsuba.

Shonai Shoami.

Rough. The Shonai have a way of making you feel they sold it a bit before they actually finished it. This is really weird because one of the greatest Tsubashi in history started his career with them; Tsuchiya Yasuchika, who went on to be one of the most skilful metal artists of the 19th century.

In a strange reversal of the usual scenario, it seems probable that his presence in Shonai had more effect on them than their teaching did on him, since the Shonai moved very rapidly into simulating his Nara style. Usually made of quite poor iron, the subjects are noticeably Chinese in character. Chinese landscapes in big, deep low relief cuts, animals (mythological or otherwise) in the same low relief, lots of floral themes which may or may not have some Sukashi piercings to add to the picture. These themes will be very familiar if you have ever noticed how many seemingly sub-standard Nara pieces there are about; they aren’t Nara, they are Shonai.

You can go even further and see how, in the later 19th century the same pieces were being made in brass, sometimes cast as rough as can be, for putting on tourist swords. This has to be the Shoami’s final descent.

Akita Shonai.

The Akita came from the 17th century, just like most of the main Shoami Schools, and were as simple and ‘Spartan’ as the Iyo in their beginnings, with stylised floral inlays on hammered iron plates. However we are not likely to see any of their earlier works and therefore must judge them on their 18th and 19th century output. It was the Akita, in the far North, who had to stand up and be the ones to take the Shoami into the 19th century proper, and they did it with some style, probably because they were a bit isolated.  The whole ethos of their middle and later tsuba is of the developed Edo period, and this is reflected in that they did not limit themselves to any particular metal or style.

If they used iron (rarely) it will be excellent iron and the subject will be treated in the Kinko way; very precise carving, almost extravagant shallow inlays (traditional Shoami vines etc,) and attention to detail.  On the other hand, picture a shakudo plate carved with a 3D landscape with little Warriors running about, really well carved faces of copper or gold, little gold Naginata, details of armour etc, etc. Both will be Akita Shoami and the whole direction of the Shoami has now, with them, become entirely Kinko- but without becoming cheap tourist tsuba..

The most obvious thing about them is that they will nearly always be perfectly round and will have the big wide rounded Ryu Hitsu that you always associate with most Shoami Schools. After that you are looking for a signature to pin it down.

I find a great deal of similarity with the major Bushu Schools when looking at Akita work.  This must be because the development of both Akita and Bushu was itself parallel to the development of Edo as the Capital, and business moved on in step with the growth of the City. I am talking styles and fashions here, not geographical movement or expansion.

Doing business with the Capital, down on the Plain, makes their ability to diversify in a lot of styles sensible and desirable – being able to do it well the way the Akita did is entirely another matter and earns our respect.

This brings us back to Masanori, the man who could do anything, and I think it is entirely fitting that I end there with the Akita, of whom I think he would have been rather proud.

Subsidiary Schools of the Shoami.

Taken from the NiHon To Koza, Kodogu Volume 1.

Bizen. Oshu. Bushu. Soshu. Sesshu. Kashu. Seishu. (Ise.) Banshu.(Harima.) Sakushu. (Mimisaka.) Doshu (Tosa.) Unshu. Inshu (Inaba.) Kyushu.

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