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Analysis of Robert Browning’s Andrea del Sarto

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on March 31, 2021 • ( 0 )

Andrea del Sarto/Wikimedia

According to tradition, Browning wrote “Andrea del Sarto”—perhaps his single greatest monologue—as a response to his friend John Kenyon’s request for a copy of Andrea del Sarto’s self-portrait with his wife Lucrezia. Leery of copy costs in Florence, Browning sent his own “Andrea del Sarto” instead, and the poem can be viewed as an elaboration of the painting. Also in the background of the poem is Browning’s debt to Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists , which includes a sketch of Andrea’s personal and artistic career. From Vasari Browning derived the idea of Andrea’s reputation for technical perfection reflected in the poem’s subtitle, “The Faultless Painter.”

Though the poem’s foremost focus is the issue of aesthetic failure, it begins with details surrounding a different kind of failure—the ruined romance between Andrea and Lucrezia. The poem represents a momentary suspension of the problems that characterize the relationship: its first line cuts a “quarrel” short and its last gives Lucrezia the go-ahead to meet her lover. Andrea asks Lucrezia to “bear with [him] for once,” implying that her doing so would represent an exception to her normal habits. Significantly, Andrea predicates his ability to work—to paint—on Lucrezia’s obliging his wish to sit hand-in-hand “by the window” with him “as married people use/Quietly, quietly the evening through.”

This link between artistic inspiration and romance develops into one of the poem’s primary themes. If Lucrezia had “but brought a mind” strong in proportion to her good looks, Andrea wistfully reasons, they “might have risen to Rafael” together. In Andrea’s view, his own part in producing masterpieces is to supply the artistic skill; it is for Lucrezia to provide him with “soul” or passion. Toward the poem’s conclusion Andrea suggests that the important difference between himself and the other great artists of Renaissance Italy is his marriage: “they overcome/Because there’s still Lucrezia.”

Yet for all Andrea’s apparent interest in blaming Lucrezia for his shortcomings as an artist, he opposes to it a parallel explanation that rests on the idea of fate. Soon after he first makes the association between his career and his marriage, Andrea declares, “Love, we are in God’s hand,” which suggests that nothing could have changed what fate had in store for them. Bound by larger powers, Andrea is “fettered fast,” and would accept the lot fate has accorded him rather than struggle vainly against it. By this view, it is neither Lucrezia’s nor his own fault that Andrea has not reached greatness. But the speaker does not resolve the question by finally accepting any single account he considers. Instead, fate and failed romance coexist in a dialectic that continues throughout the poem, as Andrea tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.

Amidst the uncertainties of figuring responsibility in the poem, the issue of Andrea’s skill stands utterly resolved. Passing from romance and fate to the topic of his own reputation, Andrea allows himself a moment of righteous pride in what he has managed to achieve in spite of the handicaps of an unfaithful spouse and an unfavorable “lot” in life. Producing flawless paintings is, for Andrea, “easy,” and he needs no “sketches first, no studies” to work from, but paints “perfectly” without preparation. But Andrea provides this account of his worth by way of acknowledging his limitations. “Well, less is more, Lucrezia,” he states matter-of-factly, meaning that other artists’ inferior technical endowments have not stood in the way of their grand ambitions.

Comparing himself to those artists that “reach many a time a heaven that’s shut to me,” Andrea indirectly reveals that his shortcomings are in fact willed, that his failure is, to an extent, selfimposed. Ignoring his rivals and his wife alike, Andrea claims to paint “from [himself] and to [himself].” Rather than striving to transcend personal limitations, Andrea accepts them, thus assuring himself that he will experience neither the pain of artistic failure nor the glory of genuine artistic success. He declares that “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp”—that the best artists push themselves beyond what they think they can do. Andrea, however, prefers not to engage in such agonizing pursuits: “All is silver grey/Placid and perfect in my art: the worse!” In effect, Andrea trades the chance for greatness for the certainty of mediocrity, preferring the safety of low expectations to the risk of a rampant ambition.

That Andrea is not wholly without ambition, though, shows through his fond recollection of “that long festal year at Fountainbleau,” during which he enjoyed the patronage of King Francis I. By Vasari’s account, Andrea’s art flourished for the year he spent at Fountainbleau, but his time there was cut short as he acquiesced to Lucrezia’s demands to return to her in Florence. Andrea’s nostalgic remembrance of his “kingly days” is riven with evidence of a need for an audience sympathetic to his work. Andrea paints “proudly with [Francis’s] breath on” him, almost literally inspired by the attention. Too, Andrea credits Lucrezia for playing the part of his muse, “waiting on [his] work/To crown the issue with a last reward.” For a moment, Andrea is tempted again to find in Lucrezia’s infidelity—her having “grown restless”—reason for the diminution of his artistic aims. In keeping with Andrea’s typically dialectical movement between fate and romance, Andrea soon ceases speculating on Lucrezia’s role in determining his career to consider fate’s part in shaping it. What emerges in spite of his constantly shifting rationales is a sense of his passivity, whether he seems dependent on the goodness of Lucrezia and Francis, or emphatically subject to the dictates of fate.

Whatever methods Andrea uses to “excuse” his underachieving mentality, his obsession with gauging his renown had he arduously applied himself becomes more and more clear. Much of the poem is located in the conditional past: what would have happened for him if things had been different? Having failed to join the likes of Rafael and Michelangelo in the uppermost echelon of Renaissance artists, Andrea nevertheless cherishes a grand notion of the eminence he could have achieved under different circumstances. By way of illustration, he relates an anecdote in which Michelangelo tells Rafael of Andrea’s potential—how his abilities, applied with a proper dose of ambition, “would bring the sweat” onto Rafael’s brow.

The poem’s final hundred lines are fraught with the rhetoric of resolve, as Andrea repeatedly tries to come to grips with the partial fulfillment his career has brought him. Eager to persuade himself that life with Lucrezia is worth the sacrifice of his ambitions, Andrea “resolve[s] to think” that his fortunes have improved in the wake of leaving France for Florence. He strenuously reasons that the loss of “such a chance” for greatness will have been worthwhile if Lucrezia is herself “more pleased” with the situation as it stands. Testament to Andrea’s interest in rationalizing his failure, he later contemplates the immutability of the past: “I regret little, I would change still less./Since there my past life lies, why alter it?” The dialectic underlying the poem thus provides Andrea with a pair of ways to stave off the pain of a lost opportunity. Both Lucrezia’s ostensible happiness and the very fatality of the past help mitigate Andrea’s sense of a greatness needlessly foregone.

The afterlife, for Andrea, represents the promise of compensation, and he ends his monologue by imagining a renewed opportunity to compete with “Leonard, Rafael [and] Agnolo” that will take place in heaven. The “four great walls” on which the contest will be staged belong to a string of tableau images in the poem that includes the “window” that affords the view of Fiesole, the “convent-wall” Andrea notes as he gazes at the city, and the “frame” his hands make as he clasps Lucrezia’s face. The images center Andrea’s optimism, and like the “four great walls” set forth toward the end of the poem, they represent an alternative past, one in which Andrea enjoys a sympathetic public, financial security, a faithful wife, and a place among the great artists of the time.

It is precisely the habit of shifting from images of life as it was to images of life as it might have been that most fully describes the logic of “Andrea del Sarto.” To the very end Andrea remains perplexed by his past. Was it he who chose Lucrezia (as he says in the penultimate line of the poem) or fate that chose her for him? Could he have willed a triumph over circumstance or was his career always already out of his control? The poem represents a tremendously sophisticated portrait of a dialectical element in human psychology. Under the sway of his own dialectical temperment, various versions of the past vie and tangle with one another as Andrea tallies a lifetime of dubious gains and painful losses.

Further Reading Bloom, Harold, ed. Robert Browning. New York: Chelsea House, 1985. Bloom, Harold, and Adrienne Munich, eds. Robert Browning: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1979. Chesterton, G. K. Robert Browning. London: Macmillan, 1903. Cook, Eleanor. Browning’s Lyrics: An Exploration. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974. Crowell, Norton B. The Convex Glass: The Mind of Robert Browning. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1968. De Vane, William Clyde, and Kenneth Leslie Knickerbocker, eds. New Letters. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950. De Vane, William Clyde. A Browning Handbook. New York: F. S. Crofts and Co., 1935. Drew, Philip. The Poetry of Robert Browning: A Critical Introduction. London: Methuen, 1970. Jack, Ian. Browning’s Major Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973. Jack, Ian, and Margaret Smith, eds. The Poetical Works of Robert Browning. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Wagner-Lawlor, Jennifer A. “The Pragmatics of Silence, and the Figuration of the Reader in Browning’s Dramatic Monologues.” Victorian Poetry 35, no. 3 (1997): 287–302. Source: Bloom, H., 2001. Broomall, PA: Chelsea House Publishers.

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Andrea del Sarto

By Robert Browning

‘Andrea del Sarto’ by Robert Browning tells the story of the largely unremarkable career of Andrea del Sarto.

Robert Browning

Nationality: English

He is considered one of the preeminent Victorian poets of the period.

Poem Analyzed by Emma Baldwin

B.A. English (Minor: Creative Writing), B.F.A. Fine Art, B.A. Art Histories

‘ Andrea del Sarto ‘ by Robert Browning was published in the collection, Men and Women. It is written in the form of a dramatic monologue told from the perspective of the Italian Renaissance painter, Andrea del Sarto.

Explore Andrea del Sarto

• 2 Analysis of Andrea del Sarto 
• 3 About Robert Browning

The poem begins with the speaker , the artist Andrea del Sarto , asking his wife, Lucrezia, to come and sit with him for a moment without fighting. He wants the two of them to have a quiet moment together before he jumps into a reflection of his life. The speaker begins by describing the passage of time and the lack of control he feels he had over his life.  

The speaker then spends the majority of the poem discussing how his skill level compares to the work of other artists. He knows that he has more skill than others such as Michelangelo or Raphael, but his art does not have the soul the others can tap into. Somehow they have been able to enter heaven and leave with inspiration that he never receives. The artist is disappointed by this fact as no one seems to value his own art the way he thinks they should.  

At points, he tries to put most of the blame for his life onto his wife. He thinks that she is the one that has been holding him back. He points out the fact that the other artists don’t have the same impediment. He thinks about the time that he spent in France working for the king. There, he was applauded by the court but then forced back to Italy by his wife who was tired of the way things were.  

By the end of the poem, he concludes that although his life has not been what he wanted he knows that he cannot change it. He is happy to have spent this time with his wife and says as much to her. This nice moment is interrupted by the arrival of Lucrezia’s cousin. This “cousin” is demanding money from del Sarto to help pay off gambling debts. He gives in to the request and tells his wife, solemnly and sadly, that she can go.  

Analysis of Andrea del Sarto  

But do not let us quarrel any more,   No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:   Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.   You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?   I’ll work then for your friend’s friend, never fear,   Treat his own subject after his own way,   Fix his own time, accept too his own price,   And shut the money into this small hand   When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?   Oh, I’ll content him,—but to-morrow, Love!  

The speaker of this poem, Andrea del Sarto , begins the piece by addressing his wife. These two will be the predominant characters that feature in this poem and many parts of the monologue are clearly spoken to Lucrezia.  

He asks her at the beginning of the poem if they can just have one moment in which they are not fighting or “quarrel[ing].” He hopes that she will listen to him for just this once as he has every intention of conceding to her wishes. Lucrezia turns her face towards the speaker but he does not believe that she is genuine. He asks her if she brought “her heart” to their conversation .  

Del Sarto tells his wife that he is willing to do what she asked and pay, or lend money to her “friend’s friend. It is unclear why the friend needs money but he promises to do it “to-morrow.”  

Lines 11-20

I often am much wearier than you think,   This evening more than usual, and it seems   As if—forgive now—should you let me sit   Here by the window with your hand in mine   And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,   Both of one mind, as married people use,   Quietly, quietly the evening through,   I might get up to-morrow to my work   Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.   To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!  

He confesses to her at the beginning of this section, in an attempt to keep her full attention, that oftentimes he is much “wearier” than she might think, and especially so this evening.  

To help remedy this weariness, del Sarto asks that Lucrezia come and sit by him, with her hand in his, and look out on “Fiesole,” a section of Florence, Italy. Together there they will sit “quietly,” and maybe be able to refresh themselves for the next day.  

Lines 21-28

Your soft hand is a woman of itself,   And mine the man’s bared breast she curls inside.   Don’t count the time lost, neither; you must serve   For each of the five pictures we require:   It saves a model. So! keep looking so—   My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!   —How could you ever prick those perfect ears,   Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet—  

The speaker is deeply endeared by the feeling of his wife’s hand. He sees it as being a representation of her entire body that can curl inside his own, a representation of “the man’s bared breast.”  

He is cherishing how his wife appears to him at this moment. He sees her as being a “serpentining beauty” that will serve him as the model for “five pictures” that he is planning. He says that it will save them money that way and he would rather paint her anyway. She’s so perfect and pristine that he can’t imagine why she would ever even pierce her ear to wear earrings.

Lines 29-40

My face, my moon, my everybody’s moon,   Which everybody looks on and calls his,   And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,   While she looks—no one’s: very dear, no less.   You smile? why, there’s my picture ready made,   There’s what we painters call our harmony!   A common greyness silvers everything,—   All in a twilight, you and I alike   —You, at the point of your first pride in me   (That’s gone you know),—but I, at every point;   My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down   To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.  

He continues to lavish praise on his wife as he thinks about her image hanging in the homes of men that have purchased his work. Each of these men looks at the painting and considers it theirs but she does not belong to any of them.  

The speaker seems to believe that Lucrezia is the ideal model for his work as he says that with one smile from her he can compose a whole painting. That is all the inspiration that he needs. She is what “painters call our harmony!” She is his muse .  

He remembers a time when they were both new to one another when they first met. Initially, she was proud of who he was and what he was going to be, but he knows that is “gone.” Additionally, he says that back then he had his, “youth…hope…[and] art” that he was living through. All this has been “toned down” later in life as things did not turn out quite as he expected.

Lines 41- 51

There’s the bell clinking from the chapel-top; That length of convent-wall across the way Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside; The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease, And autumn grows, autumn in everything. Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape As if I saw alike my work and self And all that I was born to be and do, A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God’s hand. How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead; So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!

From where the two are sitting overlooking Fiesole, he can hear the chiming, or “clinking” of a bell “from the chapel-top” as well as observe the church and the “last monk” leaving the garden for the day.  

The speaker then takes a moment here to ponder how “we,” he and Lucrezia, as well as all of humankind, are in “God’s hand.” Time is passing, allowing him to look back on his life and see if he was able to accomplish what he wanted. He recognizes that the life God makes for “us” is both free and “fettered.”

Lines 52-59

I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!   This chamber for example—turn your head—   All that’s behind us! You don’t understand   Nor care to understand about my art,   But you can hear at least when people speak:   And that cartoon, the second from the door   —It is the thing, Love! so such things should be—   Behold Madonna!—I am bold to say.  

The speaker believes that God made a “fetter” for human life and let it do what it wanted to. At this point in the poem, the speaker begins to lament the career that he did not quite have.  

He believes that all those throughout his life did not truly understand his art. They did not care to take the time to truly see it.  

Del Sarto does mention an instance of happiness, that was more than likely reoccurring, as people commented from afar that his “cartoon,” or sketch for a painting, was just “the thing.” Many have felt “Love!” For his work, but just not to the extent that he feels he deserves.

Lines 60-67

   I can do with my pencil what I know,   What I see, what at bottom of my heart   I wish for, if I ever wish so deep—   Do easily, too—when I say, perfectly,   I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge,   Who listened to the Legate’s talk last week,   And just as much they used to say in France.   At any rate ’tis easy, all of it!  

The artist knows the skills that he possesses, and he can feel his own ability, coming from his heart, that allows him to create anything. It is easy for him to do “perfectly” what others struggle with.  

He does interject here to say that he does not want to sound like he’s bragging, but “you,” meaning Lucrezia, know of “my” ability and the ease with which “I” create.

Lines 68-77

No sketches first, no studies, that’s long past:   I do what many dream of, all their lives,   —Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,   And fail in doing. I could count twenty such   On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,   Who strive—you don’t know how the others strive   To paint a little thing like that you smeared   Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,—   Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,   (I know his name, no matter)—so much less!  

The speaker goes on, allowing himself a few more lines of self-indulgence saying that he has never needed to sketch or study a subject before he draws it.  

He can do what many “strive to do, and agonize to do, / And fail in doing.” There are many such men in this town.

Lines 78-87

Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.   There burns a truer light of God in them,   In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,   Heart, or whate’er else, than goes on to prompt   This low-pulsed forthright craftsman’s hand of mine.   Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,   Reach many a time a heaven that’s shut to me,   Enter and take their place there sure enough,   Though they come back and cannot tell the world.   My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.  

While these men may envy the ease with which he creates perfect paintings, he does not have something that they do. They have in them a true light of God that exists in their “vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain.” These men are blessed by God but also suffer for his gifts.  

Del Sarto goes back to speaking about himself, using an insult that is often cast his way. He calls his own hand that of a “craftsman” that does not create with heart, only with skill. His art and his mind are “shut” out of heaven where the other men are readily entering and exiting with the subjects they paint. He can get close to heaven, but not quite all the way.

Lines 88-96

The sudden blood of these men! at a word—   Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.   I, painting from myself and to myself,   Know what I do, am unmoved by men’s blame   Or their praise either. Somebody remarks   Morello’s outline there is wrongly traced,   His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,   Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?   Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?  

The speaker has now worked himself into a serious frustration at the state of his own artistic ability. He is trying to find flaws in “these men” that can tap into the divine subject matter . While del Sarto sees himself as being even-tempered, “these men” are easy to upset and quick to cast blame on others.  

Whenever someone comments on his work and critiques his efforts he thinks, “what of that?” He doesn’t care if he is criticized for how something is drawn because he knows his own skill.

Lines 97-106

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,   Or what’s a heaven for? All is silver-grey,   Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!   I know both what I want and what might gain,   And yet how profitless to know, to sigh   “Had I been two, another and myself,   “Our head would have o’erlooked the world!” No doubt.   Yonder’s a work now, of that famous youth   The Urbinate who died five years ago.   (‘Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)

All this being said, the speaker knows that a man should reach for things that might seem unattainable. He looks at his own work and sees how it is perfectly one thing. It is “Placid” in a way that bothers him.  

Even though he can see what he wants to create, he is unable to imbue his art with the soul that other’s works have. He knows that if he had been “two” different people in one body, himself, and someone with the skill of Michelangelo, he would have conquered the world of art.  

From where the speaker is sitting he references a piece of art across the room. This line drags the audience back into the physical room with del Sarto and Lucrezia. The piece that he is referencing was sent to him by “George Vasari,” the famous Italian biographer of artists and their works.

Lines 107-114

Well, I can fancy how he did it all, Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, Above and through his art—for it gives way; That arm is wrongly put—and there again— A fault to pardon in the drawing’s lines, Its body, so to speak: its soul is right, He means right—that, a child may understand.

This particular piece is easy for the speaker to break down. He knows how it was painted and how the artist “Pour[ed] his soul” into the art for “kings and popes to see.”  

The art may be beautiful in its conception but del Sarto, with his eye for detail, can see that the “arm is wrongly put” and that there are faults in the “drawing’s lines.” These details are excused by other viewers as its “soul is right.” All may understand that, even a child.

Lines 115-126

Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:   But all the play, the insight and the stretch—   (Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?   Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,   We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!   Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think—   More than I merit, yes, by many times.   But had you—oh, with the same perfect brow,   And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,   And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird   The fowler’s pipe, and follows to the snare —   Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!  

Even del Sarto understands that even if the arm is not quite right, it is still beautiful. He knows that with his skill he could fix it.  

Once more he bemoans the fact that he was not given the soul to rise above everyone else. He could have even surpassed “Rafael.” He refers to himself and Lucrezia as rising together through the ranks of the art world and that if she with all of her perfections of physical beauty, only brought with her a mind that might have improved del Sarto’s life. He is casting part of his disappointment in himself onto her.

Lines 127-136

Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged   “God and the glory! never care for gain.   “The present by the future, what is that?   “Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!   “Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!”   I might have done it for you. So it seems:   Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules.   Beside, incentives come from the soul’s self;   The rest avail not. Why do I need you?   What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?  

Some women, the speaker states, do bring brains with them into their marriages. Why, he thinks, didn’t his wife? The next lines of the poem are what the speaker wishes his wife had said to him throughout his life.

If she had really wanted to help his career and further his art she would have told him that he should give all glory to God without caring for “gain.” He should be attempting to raise himself to the status of “Agnolo,” meaning Michelangelo or climb up to where “Rafael,” or Raphael, is.  

If she had said this he might have done it for her. Or,   he says, maybe it wouldn’t have worked that way because God controls everything. He changes his tone here and says that it was not her fault for not speaking up to him. Instead, he should never have had a wife in the first place, like Michelangelo and Raphael.

Lines 137-148  

In this world, who can do a thing, will not;   And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:   Yet the will’s somewhat—somewhat, too, the power—   And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,   God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.   ‘Tis safer for me, if the award be strict,   That I am something underrated here,   Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.   I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,   For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.   The best is when they pass and look aside;   But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.  

In the world in which they are living, the speaker says that the men who want to do something are unable to, and the men who can do it, won’t. This is frustrating to him and to all the “half-men” that are only blessed with half the talent they need.  

He decides that it is safer for him to have been given the life he has as he was not fit for one in which he has to speak with the “Paris lords.” He claims to like it when they ignore him.

Lines 149- 161

Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time,   And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!   I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,   Put on the glory, Rafael’s daily wear,   In that humane great monarch’s golden look,—   One finger in his beard or twisted curl   Over his mouth’s good mark that made the smile,   One arm about my shoulder, round my neck,   The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,   I painting proudly with his breath on me,   All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,   Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls   Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,—  

In this stanza , the speaker is slightly standing up against those that talk about him unkindly. He is remembering when he worked for the king of France, Francis, and was at Fontainebleau for a year.  

It was here that he had confidence and could put on the clothes, or stature of Raphael. This was caused by his closeness with the king. He remembers how Francis’ clothes sounded when he walked and how he stood over his shoulder as the speaker painted. When he had this position he was admired by the French court and with his paint, he could influence them and gain confidence from their looks.

Lines 162- 171

And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, This in the background, waiting on my work, To crown the issue with a last reward! A good time, was it not, my kingly days? And had you not grown restless… but I know— ‘Tis done and past: ’twas right, my instinct said: Too live the life grew, golden and not grey, And I’m the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt Out of the grange whose four walls make his world. How could it end in any other way?

One more he speaks directly to his wife. He remembers that in those days the best thing of all was her face waiting for him, approving of his work. He asks her if these days were not “kingly,” and says that it is her fault, “had [she] not grown restless…” and made him leave, his future might have been brighter.  

But, he concedes, what’s “done” is done. At this point in his life, he is but a “weak-eyed bat” that cannot be tempted out of his routine and “four walls.” He despondently concludes this section by saying that it could not have ended any other way.

Lines 172-182

You called me, and I came home to your heart.   The triumph was—to reach and stay there; since   I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?   Let my hands frame your face in your hair’s gold,   You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!   “Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;   “The Roman’s is the better when you pray,   “But still the other’s Virgin was his wife—”   Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge   Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows   My better fortune, I resolve to think.  

It appears as if Lucrezia, bored with their situation in France, had asked him to come home and so he did.  

He reaches his hands up to “frame” her face and golden hair and comforts himself by remembering that she is his. He “resolve[s] to think” that ending up with her, rather than painting something lasting, was his “better fortune.”

Lines 183-193

For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,   Said one day Agnolo, his very self,   To Rafael . . . I have known it all these years . . .   (When the young man was flaming out his thoughts   Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see,   Too lifted up in heart because of it)   “Friend, there’s a certain sorry little scrub   “Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,   “Who, were he set to plan and execute   “As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,   “Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!”  

Andrea del Sarto continues to speak to his wife, Lucrezia, imploring her to understand the daily trauma he goes through as he thinks about his place amongst the great artists.  

He imagines a conversation between the two great Renaissance masters, Raphael and Michelangelo. He likes to think of Michelangelo saying to Raphael, as he paints in Rome, that there is another artist that works in “our Florence” and is not acknowledged. This man, if he were to be given the same commissions that “you,” meaning Raphael, were given, then he would give you serious competition. To retain his place as one of the greatest painters of all time, Raphael would have “sweat” on his “brow.”  

This is of course a completely imagined conversation that del Sarto thinks up as he dreams of what he wishes people thought of him.

Lines 194- 204  

To Rafael’s!—And indeed the arm is wrong.   I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see,   Give the chalk here—quick, thus, the line should go!   Ay, but the soul! he’s Rafael! rub it out!   Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,   (What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?   Do you forget already words like those?)   If really there was such a chance, so lost,—   Is, whether you’re—not grateful—but more pleased.   Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!   This hour has been an hour! Another smile?  

In a torrent of emotion, contrary to how he portrayed himself previously, del Sarto turns to the Raphael copy that Vasari gave him and begins to make adjustments. He makes lines here and there, hoping to fix the arm, but then backtracks. He does not want to destroy the “soul” of the painting. “He’s Rafael!” Anything that del Sarto does to the painting will seem trite in comparison .  

The speaker, now relaxed again, thinks once more about this imagined opportunity to have the same type of commissions that Raphael received. He dreams if only “really there was such a chance .” He hopes that if this had been the case, Lucrezia would have been proud of him. Already an hour has passed during this conversation and he sees it as being a productive one.

Lines 205- 213

If you would sit thus by me every night   I should work better, do you comprehend?   I mean that I should earn more, give you more.   See, it is settled dusk now; there’s a star;   Morello’s gone, the watch-lights show the wall,   The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.   Come from the window, love,—come in, at last,   Inside the melancholy little house   We built to be so gay with. God is just.  

He tells her that if only she would take the time to sit with him every night, that he would work “better.” He would create better work, but he would also be able to take better care of her and give her more.  

The sun has set and it has “settled dusk now.” There is a star in the sky and the owls are hooting around them. He tells her to come away from the window and deeper into their “melancholy little house.”

Lines 214-223

King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, The walls become illumined, brick from brick Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold, That gold of his I did cement them with! Let us but love each other. Must you go? That Cousin here again? he waits outside? Must see you—you, and not with me? Those loans? More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that? Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?

As the speaker is pondering how the king of France now regards him, he is staring around the room imagining the house transformed into a palace. His daydream is interrupted by the appearance of his wife’s “Cousin” who is waiting for her outside. He does not want her to go, especially since the cousin is demanding money to pay off his gambling debts.  

He believes that she treated him kindly over the last hour in an attempt to get the money that her cousin needs.

Lines 224-234

While hand and eye and something of a heart   Are left me, work’s my ware, and what’s it worth?   I’ll pay my fancy. Only let me sit   The grey remainder of the evening out,   Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly   How I could paint, were I but back in France,   One picture, just one more—the Virgin’s face,   Not yours this time! I want you at my side   To hear them—that is, Michel Agnolo—   Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.   Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.

Del Sarto feels a new pang of loss as his wife is leaving him that night. He knows that he still has his work and “some of a heart,” left but “what,” he asks, is “it worth?”  

He agrees to pay the money but only if he can be let alone brood through the rest of the evening. He thinks that if he could only paint one more picture, it would depict the “Virgin’s face,” and not this time modeled after Lucrezia. He wants her there beside him, not in the picture. He wants to prove himself and have her hear all the wonderful things that the others will say about him.

But this is all tomorrow. For now, he tells her she can, “satisfy” her friend.

Lines 235- 243

I take the subjects for his corridor,   Finish the portrait out of hand—there, there,   And throw him in another thing or two   If he demurs; the whole should prove enough   To pay for this same Cousin’s freak. Beside,   What’s better and what’s all I care about,   Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!   Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,   The Cousin! what does he to please you more?  

In this stanza, it becomes clear that the relationship between the cousin and Lucrezia might be romantic. The speaker seems to understand this but knows that he cannot do anything to stop her. He gives her the “thirteen scudi” to pass on to the man, or “ruff” as he calls him.  

He asks if this amount pleases her and then asks what exactly the “cousin” does to please her more. He does not expect an answer to this question.

Lines 244-252

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. I regret little, I would change still less. Since there my past life lies, why alter it? The very wrong to Francis!—it is true I took his coin, was tempted and complied, And built this house and sinned, and all is said. My father and my mother died of want. Well, had I riches of my own? you see How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.

The last section of the poem breaks into one more long stanza. At the end of this night as he is looking back on his life he claims to “regret little,” and desire to “change still less.” It is hard to believe this assertion as he has spent the entire poem talking about how he wishes his life had been different.  

He does know though that there is no way that he can alter his “past life.” He declares that the time he spent in France with King Francis was wrong. That he never should have taken “his coin.” He may have been able to amass a bit of money off the king’s patronage, but he still was never happy.

Lines 253-267  

They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died:   And I have laboured somewhat in my time   And not been paid profusely. Some good son   Paint my two hundred pictures—let him try!   No doubt, there’s something strikes a balance. Yes,   You loved me quite enough. it seems to-night.   This must suffice me here. What would one have?   In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance—   Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,   Meted on each side by the angel’s reed,   For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me   To cover—the three first without a wife,   While I have mine! So—still they overcome   Because there’s still Lucrezia,—as I choose.   Again the Cousin’s whistle! Go, my Love.  

The last section of the poem concludes on a very solemn and self-pitying note with the speaker relating his own life to that of his parents. They were “born poor, lived poor, and poor they died.”  

The speaker knows that he has “laboured” in his days on the earth and that he has not been paid well for it. He questions whether he has been a good son to his parents and knows that other “good sons” would not have been able to paint the “two hundred pictures” that he did.  

Once more he turns to Lucrezia and tells her that, yes, “You loved me quite enough,” tonight. He must be happy with what he has received from her, and from life itself. He thinks that maybe he will have a new chance at success in heaven, but still, he will have his wife. When Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael get to heaven, they will not be married, but he will.  

He concludes the poem with this reiteration, and misdirection of blame onto his wife. He tells her afterward that now she may go as her “Cousin” is whistling at her.

About Robert Browning

Robert Browning was born in Camberwell, London in May of 1812. His father was able to accumulate a large library containing around 6,000 books. This would form the basis of Browning’s early education and stimulate his interest in literature.  

From early in his life Browning’s family supported his poetic aspirations and helped him financially as well as with the publishing of his first works. He lived with his family until he met and married the fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett. Elizabeth and Robert moved to live in Florence, Italy. They had a son in 1849 and Browning’s rate of production dropped off significantly. Elizabeth, now known by her married name, Elizabeth Barrett Browning , died in 1861. After this, Browning and his son moved back to England.  

After receiving mixed reviews from critics when he was young, Browning finally gained some critical acclaim when he was in his 50s. His greatest work, The Ring and the Book was published in 1868-69.  

Before Browning’s death in 1889 in Venice, he lived to see the formation of the Browning Society and received an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law from Balliol College at Oxford University. He is buried in Westminster Abbey .  

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Robert Browning: Poems

By robert browning, robert browning: poems summary and analysis of "andrea del sarto (called 'the faultless painter')".

This dramatic monologue is narrated by Renaissance painter Andrea del Sarto to his wife Lucrezia . They live in Florence. Andrea begs Lucrezia that they end a quarrel over whether the painter should sell his paintings to a friend of his wife's. He acquiesces to her wish and promises he will give her the money if she will only hold his hand and sit with him by the window from which they can survey Florence.

He admits to feeling a deep melancholy, in which "a common grayness silvers everything" (line 35), and hopes she can pull him from it. He tells her that if she were to smile for him, he would be able to pull himself from such sadness. Andrea considers himself a failure as an artist, both because Lucrezia has lost her "first pride" (line 37) in him and because he has only one talent: the ability to create faultless paintings. Though many praise him for creating flawless reproductions, which he admits he does easily, with "no sketches first, no studies" (line 68), Andrea is aware that his work lacks the spirit and soul that bless his contemporaries Rafael and Michel Agnolo (Michelangelo). Considering himself only a "craftsman" (line 82), he knows they are able to glimpse heaven whereas he is stuck with earthly inspirations.

He surveys a painting that has been sent to him and notes how it has imperfections he could easily fix, but a "soul" (line 108) he could never capture. He begins to blame Lucrezia for denying him the soul that could have made him great, and while he forgives her for her beauty, he accuses her of not having brought a "mind" (line 126) that could have inspired him. He wonders whether what makes his contemporaries great is their lack of a wife.

Andrea then reminisces on their past. Long before, he had painted for a year in France for the royal court, producing work of which both he and Lucrezia were proud. But when she grew "restless" (line 165), they set off for Italy, where they bought a nice house with the money and he became a less inspired artist. However, he contemplates that it could have gone no other way, since fate intended him to be with Lucrezia, and he hopes future generations will forgive him his choices.

As evidence of his talent, he recalls how Michelangelo once complimented his talent to Rafael, but quickly loses that excitement as he focuses on the imperfections of the painting in front of him and his own failings. He begs Lucrezia to stay with him more often, sure that her love will inspire him to greater achievements, and he could thereby "earn more, give [her] more" (line 207).

Lucrezia is called from outside, by her cousin, who is implicitly her lover, and Andrea begs her to stay. He notes that the cousin has "loans" (line 221) that need paying, and says he will pay those if she stays. She seems to decline the offer and to insist she will leave.

In the poem's final section, Andrea grows melancholy again and insists he does "regret little… would change still less" (line 245). He justifies having fled France and sold out his artistic integrity and praises himself for his prolific faultless paintings. He notes again that Lucrezia is a part of his failure, but insists that she was his choice. Finally, he gives her leave to go to her cousin.

"Andrea del Sarto" is unique in Browning's dramatic monologue oeuvre because of its incredibly melancholic tone and pessimistic view of art. The voice, as well-drawn as usual, falls into blank verse, unrhymed, mostly iambic lines, but lacks the charisma of most of Browning's speakers. It's a fitting choice, since the character's basic approach to his dilemma is a rational, dialectical one – he follows several lines of thought in trying to find who or what is to blame for his unhappiness, reasoning through each option until he wears himself out. The piece veers between extreme moods and thoughts without any clear separations, suggesting the rhythm of depressive, desperate thought.

The irony is that his ability to rationalize does not mean he gets anywhere closer to truth, or that he is free from severe psychological hang-ups. First, a bit of history is useful. As with this poem's companion piece, " Fra Lippo Lippi ," Browning was inspired towards this subject by Vasari's Lives of the Artists , which tells of how Andrea was famous in his day for his ability to paint faultless work, though he was later eclipsed in greatness by his contemporaries, compared with whose work his looked vacuous. The other historical detail Browning draws upon is the painter's artistic life: he had painted for the French king for a while, until he and his wife Lucrezia took their bounty and went to Florence, where they used that money to buy a wonderful house.

Andrea's basic dilemma can be boiled down to one that still resonates with artists today: should he pursue high art or commercial art? Obviously, the two are not mutually exclusive, but the pursuit of the former demands great ambition and a willingness to fail, whereas the latter can be produced according to more easily categorizable formula. Andrea acknowledges that an artist ought be drawn towards the demands of high art, which pushes him to reach for the heavens: "a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?" (lines 97-98). And yet he repeatedly chooses to stay Earth-bound, choosing to create paintings for money, to stay within his comfort realm (in which he can create faultless paintings without any difficulty) and thereby maintain a high standard of living.

He spends the monologue seeking the cause of his choice. The most common cause he returns to is his wife, so much so that he wonders whether his more acclaimed contemporaries have perhaps gained in ambition by lacking a wife. It's clear that he is under Lucrezia's thumb, both at the beginning – in which he acquiesces to painting for the sake of her "friend's friend" (line 5) even as it bothers him – and at the end, when he sends her off to a 'cousin' who is more than likely a lover, and whose debts Lucrezia forces her husband to work in order to pay. And yet, for all the ammunition he has to despise her, Andrea consistently pulls his punches. He accuses her of infidelity, of lack of faith in his art, of not having a "mind," but each time retreats and forgives her everything. Time and time again, he comes back to himself, insisting that he chose her. One question that then emerges is: does his refusal to directly confront her reveal a kindness in him or a weakness, a fear of recognizing his own inability to confront her and by extension himself?

His idea of ambition and great art seems well-founded and falls into a philosophy Browning often espoused, the doctrine of the imperfect. Like many artists before and after him, Browning believed that great art has to be willing to fail, whereas an artist like Andrea, who refuses to compromise his ability for faultless work, can only produce pretty pictures that reveal no depths of humanity. Perhaps the most telling irony of the poem comes in the speaker's continual return to the painting that sits in the room; he constantly notes how its arm is imperfect and how he could fix it, even as he notes that it reveals great soul in its artistry. In other words, while Andrea endeavors to discover the cause of his unhappiness, he reveals to the reader that his inability to take risks lies deep within himself.

It is here that the basic arc of the poem is revealed: ultimately, through his struggle to blame fate and Lucrezia for his unhappiness, Andrea constantly returns to himself as the villain. The dramatic irony is uncharacteristically light in this poem, because Andrea basically knows the answer to his query. Not only did he choose Lucrezia in the first place, but he also chose to escape France with her. Further, he chooses to let her go off to her lover, whom she refers to as her "cousin," and he chooses to continue painting in a way he despises. The deep fear at the heart of the poem is a fear of having no inspired purpose, of having talent but no direction. The heart of such despair is so deep that Andrea will use his every rational facility to avoid looking into that question, and so he instead convinces himself that all will be okay. His greatest weakness is that he barely asks the hardest question: what if all of this means nothing? Perhaps were he to fully confront that question, he would create work that resonated in a deeper way than his current paintings. But he is unwilling or unable to do so, and convinces himself that he chooses the material over the heavenly world, hoping he will be forgiven for future generations for the choice, even as he is deep-down certain that will not be the case.

Robert Browning: Poems Questions and Answers

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Comment on Robert Browning's philosophy of love as expressed in his"The Last Ride Together".

Browning's poem emphasizes the idea that the love one has shared on earth will be shared after "The Last Ride" together. These are lovers who are moving beyond what they have had on earth. He blesses her name in "pride and...

In Browning's "My Last Duchess" what is a euphemism?

"I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together"

My Last Duchess

The Duke shows us a portait of his late wife.

Study Guide for Robert Browning: Poems

Robert Browning: Poems study guide contains a biography of poet Robert Browning, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis of his major poems.

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Essays for Robert Browning: Poems

Robert Browning: Poems essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of poems by Robert Browning.

• Shelter From the Storm
• Hatred in Robert Browning's Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister
• The Insanity of Blindness: The Narrators in Browning's "Porphyria's Lover" and "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister"
• Where Are the Women?
• Robert Browning and the Representation of Desire

E-Text of Robert Browning: Poems

Robert Browning: Poems e-text contains the full texts of select poems by Robert Browning.

• Chronological List of Browning's Works
• Introduction: Life Of Browning
• Introduction: Browning As Poet
• Introduction: Appreciations
• Introduction: Bibliography

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Andrea del Sarto

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Although the early part of Robert Browning’s creative life was spent in comparative obscurity, he has come to be regarded as one of the most important English poets of the Victorian period. His dramatic monologues and the psycho-historical epic  The Ring and the Book  (1868-1869), a novel...

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Andrea Del Sarto by Robert Browning: poem analysis

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This is an analysis of the poem Andrea Del Sarto that begins with:

But do not let us quarrel any more, No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:... full text

More information about poems by Robert Browning

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Robert Browning

Andrea del sarto.

#BlankVerse #DramaticMonologue #EnglishWriters #Metaphor #Victorian

Other works by Robert Browning...

Your ghost will walk, you lover of… (If our loves remain) In an English lane, By a cornfield-side a-flutter with… Hark, those two in the hazel coppi…

I WILL be happy if but for once: Only help me, Autumn weather, Me and my cares to screen, ensconc… In luxury’s sofa-lap of leather! Sleep? Nay, comfort—with just a c…

WOE, he went galloping into the w… Clara, Clara! Let us two dream: shall he ’scape… Scarcely disfigurement, rather a g… Making for manhood which nowise we…

Christ God who savest man, save m… Of men Count Gismond who saved me… Count Gauthier, when he chose his… Chose time and place and company To suit it; when he struck at leng…

There’s a palace in Florence, the… And a statue watches it from the s… And this story of both do our town… Ages ago, a lady there, At the farthest window facing the…

OUT of your whole life give but a… All of your life that has gone bef… All to come after it,—so you ignor… So you make perfect the present,—c… In a rapture of rage, for perfecti…

Round the cape of a sudden came th… And the sun looked over the mounta… And straight was a path of gold fo… And the need of a world of men for…

Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst Of soul, ye bards! Quoth Bard the first: ‘Sir Olaf, the good knight, did d… His helm, and eke his habergeon ..…

. All June I bound the rose in shea… Now, rose by rose, I strip the le… And strew them where Pauline may… She will not turn aside? Alas!

(after he has been extemporizin … Would that the structure brave, th… Bidding my organ obey, calling its… Claiming each slave of the sound,… Armies of angels that soar, legion…

“THE Poet’s age is sad: for why? In youth, the natural world could… No common object but his eye At once involved with alien glow— His own soul’s iris-bow.

Crescenzio, the Pope’s Legate at… —Year Fifteen hundred twenty-two,… On writing letters to the Pope ti… Rose, weary, to refresh himself, a… (I give mine Author’s very words:…

This strange thing happened to a p… Viterbo boasts the man among her s… Of note, I seem to think: his rea… Picked up its precepts in Cortona… That’s Pietro Berretini, whom the…

AN OLD STORY. It was roses, roses, all the way, With myrtle mixed in my path like… The house-roofs seemed to heave an… The church-spires flamed, such fla…

I chanced upon a new book yesterda… I opened it, and, where my finger… 'Twixt page and uncut page, these… Some six or seven at most - and le… That you, Fitzgerald, whom by ear…

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Poetry — Love and Its Corruption: Never the Time and the Place, Porphyria’s Lover and Andrea del Sarto

Love and Its Corruption: Never The Time and The Place, Porphyria’s Lover and Andrea Del Sarto

• Categories: Poetry Robert Browning

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Andrea del Sarto: Splendor and Renewal in the Renaissance Altarpiece (Introduction Proofs)

2020, Brill: Brill's Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History

Over the course of his career, Andrea del Sarto (1486–1530) created altarpieces rich in theological complexity, elegant in formal execution, and dazzlingly brilliant in chromatic impact. This book investigates the spiritual dimensions of those works, focusing on six highly-significant panels. According to Steven J. Cody, the beauty and splendor of Andrea’s paintings speak to a profound engagement with Christian theories of spiritual renewal—an engagement that only intensified as Andrea matured into one of the most admired artists of his time. From this perspective, 'Andrea del Sarto: Splendor and Renewal in the Renaissance Altarpiece' not only shines new light on a painter who has long deserved more scholarly attention; it also offers up fresh insights regarding the Renaissance altarpiece itself.

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Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte

Steven J Cody

Andrea del Sarto’s 'Disputation on the Trinity' (1517) engages with powerful traditions of spiritual learning that can be traced back to St. Augustine’s theological writings. This paper asks how and in what ways Andrea’s altarpiece might belong to such a rich intellectual history. The analysis connects Augustinian notions of desire and reform to the painting’s iconography and to the artist’s composition and treatment of color. This line of inquiry not only has exciting implications for the study of Renaissance altarpieces. It also lays the groundwork for a larger study of Andrea del Sarto and of his contributions to the period’s sense of spiritual reform, broadly conceived.

Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics

This paper analyzes Andrea del Sarto’s 'Noli me tangere' (1510) in view of the learned exchanges that occurred between the artist and his Augustinian collaborators. A central thesis of mine is that Andrea’s artistic decisions draw on several branches on knowledge simultaneously. His sophisticated handing of the human figure inflects Leonardo da Vinci’s chiaroscuro techniques in ways that invite the beholder to consider the mysteries of Christ’s body, as expressed in St. Augustine’s theological writings. Andrea’s incredibly novel facture, meanwhile, intersects with Augustine’s meditations on the senses and on spiritual reform. In this respect, I maintain that Andrea del Sarto’s significant yet often overlooked painting has much to tell us about the complex realities of producing religious art in the Italian Renaissance. It contributes to our increasingly nuanced understand of Augustine’s enduring relevance in this period, as well. The commission for the 'Noli me tangere' compelled Andrea to engage with some of the most ancient ideals of the Christian faith. And Andrea’s artistic decisions serve as indices of the religious knowledge he acquired as a result.

Perspectives on Europe

The Virgin and Child figure prominently in Andrea del Sarto’s 'Madonna of the Harpies' (1517). Standing atop a pedestal and before a sculptural niche, mother and son are bathed in dazzling light and color, even as they are visited by a dark cloud. This paper analyzes Andrea’s allusions to sculptural form, as well as his innovative handling of color and chiaroscuro, in view of the learned exchanges that occurred between the artist and his Franciscan patrons. Andrea’s pictorial decisions privilege sixteenth-century discussions of the paragone debate. They imitate theories of optical science, especially Leonardo da Vinici’s notions of lustro and splendore. And, at the same time, they resonate within traditions of theological commentary that include St. Bonaventure’s writings on the soul and on Christ’s Incarnation. In this regard, Andrea del Sarto’s significant yet often overlooked painting offers new possibilities for inquiring into the intellectual lives of artists in Renaissance Italy.

Stephanie C. Leone

Italian Art Society

Italian Art Society Newsletter

Making Copies in European Art 1400-1600, ed. M. Bellavitis, Brill

Irene Brooke

Colnaghi Studies Journal

David Y Kim

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Andrea Del Sarto

In context with browning, and the era it was written in, by the Victorian times came the Parnassian ideal of artistic integrity, whether in art or poetry, had been lost. Although it was an enlightened period, paving the way for surrealism, many of the artists of the time used it as trade for a source of income, rather than to portray ideas to the audience. Indeed, Brownings poems were not very well received in England when he was a young man, yet he still survived. However, when he got older he might of lost sight on his poetry, or would have seen others around him doing so. Elizabeth, his wife, however was a very successful poet in her time, as there was a huge audience for love poetry, something Browning tried to stay away from. Perhaps he thought his wife was losing her artistic integrity. This idea needs to be expanded on, however, before concluding this from the evidence given by the poem.

However, it is obvious that he thinks his art expresses a lot more about his wife to his audience, and does not like this being revealed to a friends friend. This is where the inner conflict is firstly identified; he wants to have artistic integrity, though does not want to paint his wife as he sees her. He actually segregates himself from his audience as referring to himself and other artists a we painters, and might think his picture of his wife will be looked upon incorrectly. Browning could easily of thought this about how his poetry was received. For example his poem, Meeting at Night is an entire poem based on sexual metaphor, and many could just take this as it is; yet when accompanied by Parting at Morning it relays a profound idea. This part of the poem suggests a divide and a possible disregard by browning of his audience.

As the poem continues, it starts to outline the foreboding feeling that de Sarto has in his life. Browning uses the nouns grayness and silvers as a verb to highlight this particular idea of gloominess, and dullness. He refers to his life as one that is in twilight. This imagery creates a dull, lifeless and sparse impression. This idea of loss of colour from his life and art, all being toned down are interestingly juxtaposed; as one declines, so does the other. There is a hint of finality her, not in itself, but something that is soon to come, but no idea when. This is previously expressed through lines such as I might get up tomorrow. This idea of uncertainty could well have been how Browning was feeling when he wrote the poem, since although it is not entirely certain when he wrote it, it is thought nearer the end of his life. He could easily have been feeling depressed about his work, and feel he had lost his youth and art. This is very ironic however, since one of his greatest poems, Childe Rolande was one of his last poems.

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