Proactive Social Distancing by Artists Glenn Gould and Natsume Soseki

By Takako Ito, Consul-General of Japan in Toronto

Japan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world: 126 million people live in an area that is roughly one-third the size of Ontario. You may think it must be very difficult to maintain social distancing or seek solitude in such a country. 

Yet you will find many places in Japan where one can be immersed in the incredible beauty of nature, or visit historical monuments where epoch-making events took place over the past 2,000 years. 

Kyoto, Nara, and Mt. Fuji are well-known to expats, but just like Glenn Gould’s Wawa, there are also many hidden gems all over Japan. I wonder if Gould, with his deeply creative mind, ever took an “imaginary tour” of places like Shuzenji or Yugawara, where Natsume Soseki, the author of his favorite book The Three-Cornered World, stayed to heal his illness while writing his novels.

Both Shuzenji and Yugawara are rural towns not too far from Tokyo, and both are famous for their onsen (hot springs). I have never met a Japanese person who hates onsen! The enjoyment of bathing and relaxing in hot water, often combined with beautiful natural surroundings and delicious local food and sake, is a unique aspect of Japanese culture. 

Many famous Japanese artists and writers, including Nobel laureate for literature Kawabata Yasunari, would visit these rural onsen towns when they wanted to focus their creativity. They severed ties with their usual social activities so that they could be completely absorbed in their work, squarely facing the essence of the arts and finding their own creative expression. In a sense, this was their “proactive social distancing” – for their art.

Perhaps they required nothing but their body and soul, as well as their own tools, for artistic expression. And then perhaps something was needed afterwards to “heal” themselves from their hard work. It might have been a dialogue with nature, or bathing in a hot spring, or enjoying good food and drink. What it probably could not be was troublesome social interactions that caused stress … unless those were intentionally sought as a source of inspiration.

This “proactive social distancing” is different from the current social distancing made necessary by COVID-19, because the artists themselves decided when to start and when to end their seclusion. While Gould is known for his mostly solitary life, at times he choose to emerge from it to go to his studio to record with his team, or to discuss new creative ideas for the future.

In today’s “wired” world, concentrating one’s entire time, energy and consciousness on a particular work, while socially distancing, may be difficult, unless you consciously refuse to own any modern communication devices. I wonder, if Gould were still alive today at the age of 88, would he live without any of these wi-fi gadgets, or would he master their use? If today’s common sense dictates the use of social media, I would bet on the former.

“An artist is a person who lives in the triangle which remains after the angle which we may call common sense has been removed from this four-cornered world.” – from The Three-Cornered World (Japanese title: Kusamakura) by Natsume Soseki