The Tale of the Heike and End of Heian Japan

The Jetavana Temple bells ring the passing of all things.
Twinned sal trees, white in full flower, declare the great man's certain fall.
The arrogant do not long endure:
They are like a dream one night in spring.
The bold and brave perish in the end:
They are as dust in the wind.

--Translated by Royall Tyler

The Tale of the Heike is a chronicle, reasonably accurate if overblown in certain tales, of the four-year war between the Heike or Taira family and the Genji or Minamoto family, fought in 1181 to 1185. This war brought an end to the Heian period (794 to 1185), remembered by the Japanese as the height of courtly elegance.

The Tale of Genji chronicled that courtly world; the Tale of the Heike recorded the war that brought it down, and the beginning of the age of the Samurai. Above is a twelfth-century wooden mask, which is as close as I could get to a depiction of a warrior from the Heian period; they painted court scenes and temples, not battles.

But as soon as you enter the Kamakura Period (1185-1333), there are lots and lots of battle scenes.

Thinking on this, I wonder whether war is to some extent a style. Everybody has it to some degree, but some have it much more than others; could it be that this is partly a reflection of the style of life they adopt? When what matters at the top is one's style with verses, or cleverness in conversation, do people really fight less than when what matters is a string of victories?