Though I should say that even this need for exactness, because it depends on a love of language, and how far it can sustain the nuances of human expression, is an impersonal quality that does have a personal dimension.
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When Flaubert spoke of ‘le mot juste,’ for example, he was prizing the sort of calculation or precision that characterizes the most necessitous sense of the literary artist, and that itself is an impersonal quality, not having the same substance as the love or enthusiasm that writers and readers alike tend to bear for the written word (where it appears in stories and poetry), and that does seem personal, as it involves an expanding of the heart, and the free play of emotions.
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Which isn’t to say that an artist will have no love for their medium, or passion for it as a means by which to introduce an art object into reality, for they must, and will, but that there is a difference between loving a thing, or a pursuit, and having the talent to shape that thing in a way that obtains to the level of art.
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By way of which observation we can arrive at a truth that would seem so paradoxical — that the degree to which art most profoundly does express a feeling that is personal to the artist increases in proportion to how thoroughly that artist can impersonalize their relationship to the medium with which they work.
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For, at a certain point in the creation of any work of art, the artist will recognize how the events they have set in motion, by way of their subconscious, will be possessed of enough integrity and purpose that what they need to do, to see the artwork through to its completion, is channel the medium of their work in such a way that the medium itself is given a kind of power of decision, whereupon the artist, though still present, becomes almost invisible, and more like a conductor than a contributing intelligence.
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In other words, Chekhov could’ve chosen any object as the inspiration for his work — it might have been an ashtray, or it might have been something else. For no sooner would he have begun to depict that object than would his wisdom and talent have drawn it into relationship with a larger truth, and a wider scope of events, the possibilities of which, in all their complexity, he would be cognizant of. Which in turn would have allowed him to yield his intentions for that object (had he had any to begin with) to the intentions of the fiction he’d brought into existence.
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Meaning, subject is incidental to an artist, for there is to be found, in all the great ones, a vision so encompassing, and a talent so prodigious, that, no matter where they direct their gaze, or to what items they devote their attention, the thing we refer to when we describe what an artwork is about will be charged so thoroughly with the ‘whatness’ of the artist’s style that it will no longer belong to the spectrum of nature alone, or to the realm of the familiar, but will share in the heightened reality that originates in the person of each artist, is carried by them everywhere, and is evidenced like a thumbprint in every work they will produce.
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Which illustrates, I think, the fact that art is rarely only what it purports to be about, or what it is ostensibly about, but is, in addition to that, a means by which an artist exercises their virtuosity.
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I’m reminded again of that anecdote about Chekhov, wherein he was asked by a friend and fellow writer how he wrote his stories, to which he laughed, pointed to the nearest object, which happened to be an ashtray, and said, “Tomorrow I will write a story called ‘The Ashtray.’”
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Which isn’t to say that somewhere within me, in the recesses of my psyche, there isn’t a mechanism that is functioning somewhat like a compass, directing me toward this or that subject, and away from this or that one, but that, because I am writing as an artist would write (if I may describe myself that way, for the purpose of this entry), such a mechanism must work in harmony with, or be brought under the auspices of, that facility with language for which my conscious mind has an affinity.
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And yet I cannot say I’m ever really aware that I’m considering anything as I write, but seem to myself to be moved only by instinct, and a deference toward the momentum of language, and the integrity of the sentences on which I am commenced.
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All of which I mention because, I guess, it came to mind while I was sitting here, thinking of what to write next. And because, maybe, to this point in this diary, I have written almost exclusively about art and spirituality, so that I feel as though I have neglected other topics, or, anyway, have allowed myself only a short leash when considering what topics to write about.
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I was born in England, but that was by happenstance. My family is from Australia.
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Before I moved to New York I lived in Northampton, in Massachusetts, and before that Houston, in Texas, and before that a number of cities in the Midwest, where I went to high school and college, and before that Australia.
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Also on the floor, against the wall (so I don’t trip on them), is a pair of dumbbells that have travelled with me to every apartment I’ve lived in since before I moved to New York.
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The larger of the canvases have been rolled up and stood on end in a corner of the closet.
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On my floor, other than those books, which are piled in a corner near the radiator, beneath the window, are some canvases I painted a few years ago and that I have now stacked here and there against the wall, and against my desk, and in the closet, and which I never look at anymore, for they are turned away from me, so that I see, if I happen to glance at them, only the untreated side of the canvas, and the frames to which they have been stapled.
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I have also begun reading The Thief’s Journal, by Jean Genet, a copy of which came into my possession a while ago but had been sitting among some books on my floor ever since.
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In other words, while the work of an artist, or any given citizen, is episodic (so that, in between projects, or during those times when they are seeking out the next mode of expression, or occupation, they are subject to that restlessness and absence of purpose that is native to our condition, which we have learned to call ‘existential’), the work of a saint is continual, and needs not wait for circumstances to arrange themselves into a particular configuration, or pleasingness, for it to be called upon or solicited, but adjusts with fluidity to the shape of each moment, by way of the recognition that all situations have their own moral geography, the response to which the saint feels compelled to deliver (for no other reason than they believe providence wills it, and love providence with a completeness from which all their actions follow). So that, given the proper orientation of their soul to reality, the person who would be a saint can intuit, with a confidence and cheerfulness that are the mark of the holy spirit, what deeds or words, or perhaps even silence, to be the initiator of.
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A saint who is an artist, for example, continues to be a saint once she puts down the implements of her artistry, and allows her attention to go elsewhere. But an artist who has no sanctity, or who is, let us say, conventionally ‘good,’ or, even more to the point, is neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad,’ but merely a person of ordinary mettle who happens to be gifted artistically, once she puts down those implements, and is no longer practicing her art, resumes the habits of her moral ordinariness, and cannot be distinguished, spiritually, from the sea of men and women into which she disappears.