ITALIAN PAINTING IN THE POEMS OF BROWNING.
I. GENERAL STATEMENT.--Twenty-nine poems contain the names of Italian
painters, and fifty-one Italian painters are mentioned by name; while
several of the great artists are mentioned in many poems. Michael
Angelo is referred to in ten different poems; Raphael in seven,
besides the duplicate mention in three sections of _The Ring and the
Book_; Correggio, and Titian, each in six poems, and Da Vinci in five
different poems. These are all great masters of the High Renaissance
in Italy; and therefore, they are the greatest artists the world
has known: the repeated introduction of their names is perfectly
natural. But among Browning’s fifty-one painters, some of so little
importance are named that references to them are rare in histories of
art. Even with the most insignificant, some telling phrase is often
used to express with admirable precision the artist’s relation to the
history of art. The best example of this is found in _Old Pictures
in Florence_, where the poet capriciously calls the roll of the past
Florentine artists, chiding them because none of their works have
come into his possession. In the one poem seventeen men who have been
classified as painters, besides some who are sculptors and architects
primarily, find a place. Only two or three of the artists are given
more than a line or two; but many of even the most insignificant
are summed up in some phrase like the following: “Da Vincis derive
in good time from Dellos;” “Stefano ... called Nature’s Ape and the
world’s despair;” “the wronged Lippino,” or “my Pollajolo, the twice a
craftsman.”
II. EXTENT OF BROWNING’S KNOWLEDGE.--To cover the entire field as he
does, from Cimabue through the Renaissance and down to modern times
(for he omits almost no artist of importance in the whole history of
painting, besides including many surprises in the way of insignificant
ones), Browning must have had a wonderful amount of historical
knowledge. This familiarity with the development of the art was gained
in three ways--by some study of the subject before he went to Italy, by
reading histories of the painters after going there, and by visiting
galleries and churches in Italy and studying the pictures found therein.
The fact that Browning had an interest in studying the London galleries
before he went to Italy, and indeed, was a student of pictures from his
childhood, has already been noted in the introductory remarks.[176]
Just how great the poet’s knowledge of Italian art was at this period,
is hard to determine. But his first poem, _Pauline_, contains a
reference to Andromeda, a picture by Caravaggio, who was a Renaissance
artist. Mrs. Orr[177] tells us that the picture was always before him
as a boy and that he loved the story of the divine deliverer and the
innocent victim which it represented. In one of his early letters to
Elizabeth Barrett, Browning gives the following account of his fondness
for Andromeda: “How some people use their pictures, for instance, is
a mystery to me. My Polidore’s perfect Andromeda along with ‘Boors
Carousing’ where I found her--my own father’s doing, or I would say
more.”
These statements prove that a fondness for _some_ Italian art, at
least, had been a part of his life from a very early age; and in
addition, they suggest that a person who had so keen an appreciation
for a picture by an artist so little known as Caravaggio, must have
known a great deal more about Italian art than is implied in this one
statement. Browning was in his twenty-first year when _Pauline_, the
poem referring to Andromeda, was published. This was five years before
his first visit to Italy, but even at this time, his appreciation of
the picture was so complete that he compared the ever-beautiful and
unchanging Andromeda to himself and seemed to feel that she had as real
an existence.
III. IRREGULAR DISTRIBUTION OF REFERENCES.--While the influence of
painting began so early in Browning’s poetical career, and extended
to its close, the last art poem being _Beatrice Signorini_, in
the Asolando group, published just at the time of his death, the
chronological distribution of the subject is by no means regular.
In _Paracelsus_, reference to painting is found; _Sordello_ has some
minor references; _Pippa Passes_ contains some mention of painting and
much concerning sculpture. _Pictor Ignotus_, the first poem devoted
entirely to a painter, was published in 1845. All these items form a
comparatively slender thread of references up to the publications of
1855. At that date Browning had lived in Italy nine years, had studied
art histories, and seen pictures. Our chronicler, Mrs. Browning, we
recall, furnishes us the information--in the previously mentioned
letter of 1847 to Horne--that they were reading Vasari. This was the
next year after the Brownings went to Italy to take up their residence
there. Though Browning’s early trips (in 1838 and 1844) seem to have
had small influence on his poetic treatment of painting, the Italian
residence bore fruit. Between 1847, the year when the residence
began, and 1855, only one poem of Browning’s was published, and some
references to painting are found in it. The publications of 1855
include the following poems on painting: _Old Pictures in Florence_,
_The Guardian Angel_, _Fra Lippo Lippi_, _Andrea del Sarto_, and _One
Word More_. In this one year, all the finest and best known of his
poems on painting were given to the world. Just why this is true is
hard to prove but easy to conjecture. The time just previous to their
publication marks the period of greatest, most intimate art study,
since these poems were the product of the first nine years in Italy.
There was a certain power, appreciation, and a fineness of feeling
associated with these first years in the great art center of Florence
that never returned again. For some time before this, Browning had been
an interested student of art, and the Florentine residence brought his
ideas to their full maturity. The best that he was capable of putting
into verse on the subject of painting was both imagined and written
during this first period in Italy, the home of painting.
IV. SOURCES OF THE POEMS.--An event recorded by Mrs. Browning, in a
letter to Mrs. Jameson, dated May 4, 1850, throws light on the source
of _Old Pictures in Florence_. She says that her husband had picked
up at a few pauls each some “hole and corner pictures” in a corn shop
a mile from Florence. Mr. Kirkup (one of the best judges of pictures
in Florence) threw out such names for them as “Cimabue, Ghirlandajo,
Giottino, a Crucifixion painted on a banner, Giottesque, if not Giotto,
but unique or nearly so, on account of linen material--and a little
Virgin by a Byzantine master. Two angel pictures, bought last year,
prove to have been sawed off of the Ghirlandajo, so-called.”
Besides showing, as do many other statements of their life in Italy,
that Browning was deeply interested in art, these words suggest both
the title and the origin of _Old Pictures in Florence_, in which the
poet reproaches the spirits of the early masters for failing to leave
some of their works to one so appreciative as himself. What could be
more natural in its development? A poet-artist finds the pictures, is
told that they are genuine, and is very desirous of believing it. His
interest in personality turns his mind to the painters themselves,
his fancy runs with a loose rein--and we have the half-thoughtful
whimsicality of _Old Pictures in Florence_. On the serious side it
pleads for the following: (1) more attention to the early almost
unknown masters, instead of praise for Angelo, Raphael, and such famous
artists; (2) a greater appreciation of the development of Italian
painting, because it was development, than of the dead perfection of
Greek sculpture; (3) Italian freedom from Austria, and with it the
return of art to Florence, resulting in the completed Campanile with
the new flag upon it. The first two pleas are made on the ground of
the noble development of the early Italian painting, in contrast with
the later art of Italian painting and that of perfect Greek sculpture,
which were at a standstill.
_The Guardian Angel_ was the direct result of a visit by the Brownings
to Fano; probably in 1848, for during that year Murray sent them there
to find a summer residence. Mrs. Browning reports[178] that it was
unspeakable for such a purpose, but “the churches are very beautiful,
and a divine picture of Guercino’s is worth going all that way to see.”
The poem was published with the group of 1855, and in it mention is
made of three trips to see the picture while the Brownings were at Fano.
While _The Guardian Angel_ may be the only poem written as a direct
result of seeing a picture, _Andrea del Sarto_ was at least the result
of the existence of a picture. Mr. Kenyon, an intimate friend of the
Brownings, and a relative of Mrs. Browning, asked them to obtain for
him, if possible, a copy of Andrea’s picture of himself and wife. Since
he was unable to secure it, Browning wrote the poem and sent it as a
record of what the picture contained.
Vasari was the source of much of the historical material which Browning
used in his poems. His gossipy narrative was followed almost exactly in
_Fra Lippo Lippi_, and partly in _Andrea del Sarto_ and other poems.
Baldinucci’s histories of the Italian painters furnish material for
_Beatrice Signorini_, and the first part of _Filippo Baldinucci_.
Browning invented the last part of the latter, and makes his invention
more real by Filippo’s declaration, “Plague o’ me if I record it in my
book.”
V. POETIC FUNCTIONS OF THE REFERENCES TO PAINTING.--Many references
to painters or painting are used for comparisons, just as in the
case of other arts. Such is the one in _Pauline_, in which the poet
describes the Andromeda of Caravaggio, and contrasts her to his own
changing soul; and also the comparison in _Sordello_, of the hero to
the same picture. A third mention of Andromeda, in _Francis Furini_,
illustrates the beauty of the nude art. The painter of Andromeda,
Polidoro da Caravaggio, is introduced in _Waring_, in a far from
serious comparison, in which Browning wonders if his long-silent friend
is splashing in painting “as none splashed before, Since great Caldara
Polidore.”
In _Pippa Passes_, the Bishop compares one artist with another, by
expressing the hope that Jules will found a school like that of
Correggio. _In Three Days_ includes a comparison of the lights and
shades of a woman’s hair to painting, with the line, “As early Art
embrowns the gold.” _Any Wife to Any Husband_ compares the husband
who greatly admires other beautiful women, with anyone who looks at
Titian’s Venus--“Once more what is there to chide?” Passages in _Bishop
Blougram’s Apology_ name Correggio’s works and the pictures of Giulio
Romano as desirable things to own. The Bishop also states that he
keeps his restless unbelief quiet, “like the snake ’neath Michael’s
foot,” referring to the well-known painting by Raphael. In _James Lee’s
Wife_, the attitude toward an unbeautiful hand is illustrated by the
line--“Would Da Vinci turn from you?”
One of the most striking examples of the comparison of a person with
a picture is found in Part VI of _The Ring and the Book_, where
Caponsacchi likens Pompilia to the Madonna of Raphael in innocence. In