taking stock

William Blake, Glad Day or The Dance of Albion, c. 1794.

I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's;
I will not reason or compare; my business is to create.

William Blake

There are times in life when you make certain decisions and are compelled to take stock. A few days ago, as I was rummaging through endless boxes of books I hadn't opened for years (mainly due to lack of space), and sorting out which ones to rescue from oblivion and send to my house in Tokyo, I stopped to wonder what drew me to these works from the outset. Most of them are out-of-print copies bought from second-hand bookshops, the work of artists who were neglected or forgotten in their lifetime - they didn't 'sell', to use the depressing jargon of commercialism - because they were utterly, uncompromisingly devoted to their own inner vision.

And what a vision it was, what a vision, giving birth to works of baffling complexity, inconstancy, heterogeneity, ambition; unsettling in their subversion of conventions and systems of authority, and thus inviting the contempt of the usual gatekeepers: publishers, editors, and, of course, the devoted followers of intellectual fashions - critics, academics... - who dismiss anything that does not lend itself to the abstract, theoretical gaze. As a result, to use the words of a dear friend, 'the truly innovative are marginalised beyond the borders of silence itself'.*

If there ever was a figure who epitomised the overwhelming difficulties and challenges confronting the creative artist in such a resistant, stony-hearted world, it was William Blake. While he is nowadays a celebrated artist, about whom multitudes of academic books have been written and prestigious exhibitions held, Blake was largely overlooked in his time - he was mostly seen as little more than an insane eccentric - and made a meagre living as an engraver and illustrator for books and magazines. In his lifetime, he never managed to sell one single copy of his astounding, visionary illuminated books of poems, which display not only a superb sense of craftsmanship but his immense learning (Blake didn't attend school and, in adult age, taught himself Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Italian, so that he could read classical works in their original language). His 'business' was to create, with no concessions to the temptation to lower his standards and betray his vision in order to become popular.

It is not my intention to romanticise this kind of hand to mouth artistic existence. Quite the contrary, I'm fully aware of the persistent, unbearable pain and sense of injustice that must result from one's work - and life, for, to those truly committed to their art, there is no division between them, their art is their life and vice-versa - not being valued as it should. I only wish we lived in a better, much better world where the work of the most gifted artists were understood, loved and valued in their lifetime. Yet, I'm irresistibly drawn to those who have had the courage to resist the dominant cynicism of the age, who have had the stamina to sacrifice everything - financial and emotional stability, relationships, the mediocrity of a 'normal' life... - for creative freedom. Away from groups, coteries, movements, promotional apparatuses, and political agendas, concerned exclusively with the singularity of and faithfulness to their inner vision, attending their one and only necessary business: creation.

And why? Because against the grain of these horrendous times of self-promoting fakers and shallow sound bites, I believe, more and more, that nothing else is worth doing. Nothing else but to feel, be alive through art.

Because, as another neglected giant dear to my heart once put it:

To be exclusively concerned with the highest forms of life
Is not to be less alive than 'normal people.'

Hugh MacDiarmid, 'In the Shetland Islands.'



*Clive Bush, Out of Dissent: A Study of Five Contemporary British Poets (London: Talus, 1997). p.2.