美しき過ち utsukushiki ayamachi Beautiful Mistakes

美しき過ち does not say which mistake, so you bring your own to it. Its noun, 過ち, runs from an error you learn from, through a wrong you own, to a love you should not have had, and the English mistake covers all three. The English often means a happy accident as well. In the Japanese print read for its history the phrase is used of feeling, of love and of sin. For the happy accident by itself, Japanese has other idioms, 怪我の功名 and 失敗は成功のもと. Whether it is for a mistake you learned from or for something harder is yours.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 美しき過ち.

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