10,603. RUDIMENTS, pt. 245

RUDIMENTS, pt. 245

(Making Cars)

Men made of other stuff; men

of a different circumference.

Has it ever hit you, a moment

when you're bowled over by

something new, or something

unexpected? It seems one either

accepts that moment, or closes

up and casts it off, like sleet

slamming against steel on the side

of a building. But the rat-tat-tat

of that sleet on the metal fascia

just won't go away, keeps on

plugging at you, demands

attention. That's what happened

to me, at about age 14. The

very plain name, William Blake,

kept  tapping at my head.' Listen!

Listen! Look up!' it seemed to

be saying. And then, just like

that, things began falling into

place. As on a Tuesday, when

you run across a word you've

seldom used, seen, or heard

before, and which then, by

Friday, you've seen a hundred

times, so it was for me, with

William Blake. (1757-1827).

London, Lambeth, Felpham

Manor. The guy overwhelmed

me, swarmed me  -  references,

notes, allusions. I couldn't escape.

By age 16 I was immersed. I

read and scribbled  -  the Prophetic

Books, the Marriage of Heaven

and Hell, Los, Enitharmon, Urizen.

It all came together for me; soared.

-

Blake had many contingents of self.

Considered, simply, an eccentric

English Romantic, which is completely

incorrect anyway, he was absorbed

as just another weird scribe of his

time. Fuseli said he was 'good to

steal from.' meaning work, not

things; styles and approached. He

(Blake) was so little outgoing that

no one ever really would even know

if you were taking his work, or

cribbing from his style. Engraver,

artist, illustrator, poet, writer, he

comprised so much. There aren't

too many people who initiate

their own process of doing things;

as did Blake in his copper-etch

engraving process, thus lending

vivid colors, outline and form to

his art work. His wife was named

Catherine, and, when William took

her in, was basically an unlettered,

untutored British girl  -  with whom

he spend time and effort, teaching

her those skills. Her most famed

quote is, upon having a visitor ask

why the house had no soap, was

'Mr. Blake's skin don't dirt.' Later

in life, in Felpham Manor or

Lambeth, I forget, Blake was

arrested and jailed for heaving

a policeman off his property. The

proper bobbie had arrived to serve

a writ or a warrant or a complaint

about William defaming the King,

or the current state of the rulers or

something. Blake took major

offense, went ballistic, and gave

the copper the old heave-ho. The

history books and the art and

literature scoundrels get him

all wrong. What's convenient

about just labeling someone weird

or eccentric or so far out of the

mainstream, as they do William

Blake, is that it's the same as

just throwing him out into the

garbage heap of unimportance.

They do that  -  these smug

merchants of the worldly ways,

finding the most convenient ways

of 'dismissing' someone, through

academic or taste methods, scoffing.

-

So, dismissed merely as a wild-eye

Romanticist, far-off the standard range

of British art in that time period, he's

forgotten. You need remember, on

the other hand  -  and this is my

worked opinion  -  he was twenty

times more all that and worked into

his own work every aspect of the

revolutionary times he lived in,

and as artist, illustrated for it too.

Remember, his years overlapped

perfectly the years of the American

Revolution. He wrote a long piece,

called 'America.' Prophetic books

(a category, again, the dweebs

made up so as to have a catch-all

phrase by which to entrap him),

they called all this. You need to

think more of William Blake as

a Thomas Paine (American patriot,

revolutionary, and pamphleteer)

with a art-eye. In Blake's oeuvre,

you have to take every preconception

you have and turn it on its head. OR,

you can maybe (try to) struggle

through the overly intense writings

of this 'Prophetic' books. They are

almost a life-study of their own

and take a ton of understanding

and careful reading to decipher.

-

I tried. Believe you me. All that

Winter, as I recall, 1966, I tried.

Without much real advantage on

my side, especially as a kid. It

was kind of out of my league.

(Have you ever read, or tried to

read, something above your level;

difficult to stay with, follow, or

remember, especially in these

Blakean cases, all the made up

names and relationships and

fantastic images). So, instead

I turned to the commentators and

critics who'd written of him  -  sort

of a back-door way in, but probably

the best way. Northrup Frye. Kathleen

Raine  -  there's a massive amount

of Blake scholarship and most all

of it is good, top-notch and totally

commendable. May I suggest.

-

In any case, I stuck it out, all of it,

and began being rewarded. And then,

even better, after 'Blake and Tradition,'

which is Raine's book, once or twice

there were museum shows with a

few of his 'illustrated' books, or

'illuminated' books as they were

referred to. Seeing them knocked

me dead. To say that I no longer

quite knew what I was doing is

probably accurate. He didn't seem

to fit in, certainly not among the

streets of NYC. There was a certain

something in the air in those years

that oozed British, on the proper side

of things  - styles, fashion, talk , music.

It was all mashed together, but he

stood outside of even that  -  just

not a 'part' of anything. There

were probably a hundred books

with illustrations of his work, but

once the color was taken out of

them, they were nothing much  - 

they lost all power. Overly

musculated (musculatured?)

people, too-carefully drawn, or

exaggeratedly. However you'd

say. It was almost unattractive to

me, and became a stumbling block

too. Until the vividness of the

colors was brought out. That made

the difference. But that was

expensive, and the cheap books,

if they did try with the color

illustrations, gobbled everything

into muck as the cheap paper used

absorbed the color. You needed a

hard-finish, 80 or 100 lb. matte,

sheet to show it right. Too much

was otherwise lost. That was one

of the reasons it had become easy

to throw him overboard. Nothing

really 'worked' in the simple and

swift sense of things as we know

them today. He needs the quality.

He was very old-line in that sense.

Plus, he was true revolutionary

himself; everything was upside

down. What common practice

viewed as God, he viewed as

the Devil, God on Its head. The

fiery fury of the old-testament

God he scoffed at as a hoary

old crank. 'Urizen,' he called

it  -  which was a made-up God

name from 'Your Reason.' He

detested Reason, and Logic, and

controls and caution. Los, and

Enitharmon, and Oothon. God 

would say 'Stop! Don't do it!' 

but Blake's pantheon would 

have you run it all to excess; 

do it again and again.

-

Now I know that all sounds horrid

to those of you who remain as

committed, religious traditionalists.

And I'll try to explain everything,

eventually  -  but not as doctrine or

expository stuff, that would be too

boring. Rather I'll skip it all along

in the telling of tales and happenings

which illustrate points to be made.

William Blake is not a 'marginal artist'

artist at all. Everyone's always trying
to make him one, and 'not that great 
a one', and a 'vociferous, overwrought 
poet and writer.' That suits them, and 
they can therefore have it. Let the picture

suit their frame. I hang my pictures 

frameless. Blake is beyond category,

and fits nothing, And it can all be

explained and shown and proven.

He was a  -  truly  -  Madman, 

Revolutionary, Visionary, Mystic, 

Angel-Seeing Religious who saw

'eternity in a grain of sand.' To quote,

appx. [......continued, next]