Description

KANENAGA (兼長), Jōji (貞治, 1362-1368), Bizen – “Bishū Osafune-jū Kanenaga” (備州長船住兼長), according to tradition the son of Nagashige (長重), another tradition says that he was the son of Kaneshige (兼重), there exists also a two-generations theory about that Kanenaga, that means that a 2nd gen. was active from about Shitoku (至徳, 1384-1387) onwards, Kanenaga – whose name is sometimes also quoted with the Sino-Japanese reading Kenchō – was supposedly a student of Chōgi (長義) (the two-generations theory says that it was the 2nd gen. who studied under Chōgi), most of the ō-suriage-mumei blades attributed to Kanenaga show a flamboyant gunome-chōji in ko-nie-deki but there exists a signed hira-zukuri ko-wakizashi with the date signature of the fifth year Jōji (1366) which shows a different interpretation and reminds with its hitatsura of the Sōshū tradition, that means from the point of view of active period and workmanship (=Sōden-Bizen) is is possible that there was just one generation Kanenaga but who varied his style, the Ōseki Shō (往昔抄) mentions that Kanenaga worked until Meitoku (明徳, 1390-1394) which in turn would support the two-generations theory, ō-wazamono, jō-saku