In the middle ages of Japan, there are three types of beauty-yasashi, hie, and kare. Yasashi means something gentle, mild, soft, placid and warm. Hie is used for something cold, thin, pure, refined, noble, simple, exact and solid. Kare for something dry, strong, rough and violent. In his secret letter to Sumitane Furuichi, Schuko Murata (1422-1502) wrote, "Kare is not in itself beauty, it can be beautiful only under the condition that it is mediated with hie." This higher kare, i.e. hie-kare is one of the most unique ideas of Japanese beauty. According to the system of the training in art, on which Schuko, Zeami, Teika, Schinkei and the other great artists insisted, one must in the beginning train himself to bring forth only the beauty yasashi, because hie is too high and kare is too risky to try for beginners. Being purified or deepened, yasashi becomes hie necessarily. Because yasashi and hie are homogeneous in essence, in spite of great difference in their appearances. But hie and kare are heterogeneous, not only in appearances but also in essence. Therefore man cannot stand on the stage of hie-kare by merely purifying or deepening hie and kare. Only by jumping on the stage of hie into the stage of kare and by mediating kare with kare, man can give birth to the beauty hie-kare.
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