Poems (Marianne Moore)/WHEN I BUY PICTURES

by Marianne Moore

WHEN I BUY PICTURES

or what is closer to the truth, when I look at
 that of which I may regard myself as the
  imaginary possessor, I fix upon that which would
 give me pleasure in my average moments: the satire upon curiosity,
   in which no more is discernible than the intensity of the mood;

or quite the opposite—the old thing, the medi-
 æval decorated hat box, in which there
  are hounds with waists diminishing like the waist of the hour-glass
 and deer, both white and brown, and birds and seated people; it may be no more than a square
   of parquetry; the literal biography perhaps—in letters stand-

ing well apart upon a parchment-like expanse;
 or that which is better without words, which means
  just as much or just as little as it is understood to
 mean by the observer—the grave of Adam, prefigured by himself; a bed of beans
   or artichokes in six varieties of blue; the snipe-legged hiero—

glyphic in three parts; it may be anything. Too
 stern an intellectual emphasis, i-
  ronic or other upon this quality or that, detracts
 from one's enjoyment; it must not wish to disarm anything; nor may the approved tri
   umph easily be honoured—that which is great because something else is small.

It comes to this: of whatever sort it is, it
 must make known the fact that it has been displayed
  to acknowledge the spiritual forces which have made it;
 and it must admit that it is the work of X, if X produced it; of Y, if made
   by Y. It must be a voluntary gift with the name written on it.