The naming of artists is a difficult matter...
Not just one of your ordinary games,
For every artist (would you believe all my jabber?)
Must have three (or more) indexable names...
 
First there's the name that his dear mother gave him,
Such as Christo, Guercino, or the Master of the Thames,
Such as El Greco, Fa Presto, or the School of John Nagy.
All of them clear, unambiguous names.
 
There are names used by friends and patrons in contracts,
On certificates of death, and on the tax rolls.
This is the stuff dissertations are made of,
So many, intriguing, so we may dispose
of them by noting that Janson and Hartt and Gardner
never pruned them for indexing in their prepared prose.
 
An artist, however, needs a name that particular,
A name that peculiar that makes him unique,
A name he can use for his entire oeuvre,
And needn't change more than thrice in a week.
 
Of these, there are many, but a few will suffice,
Such as Breughel, Bassano, Ostade or whatshisname Smythe.
By signing these to a corner of canvas,
He can be assured of everlasting fame,
As battalions of scholars battle ad infinitum
Attempting to attribute a hand to a name.
 
But above and beyond, there is one name left over.
And this is the name that you never will guess,
The name that no human research can discover.
It is the name that the indexer chose to index.
 
So when you notice a scholar in rapt contemplation,
A book or a screen eye to eye with his brain,
The reason, I warrant, is not due to his genius,
Not due to his thought or to thinking's long train,
But owes to reasons not wholly mysterious.
The truth, sad to tell, is ineluctably plain:
His mind is engaged in quizzed meditation,
Attempting to remember, recall or dissever
The thought from the thought from the thought of that name,
That damnable, F-able, ever ineffable,
Now so inscrutable, indexable name.
 
(Sorry T.S.)
 
Robert Baron
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