In this monologue, “the faultless painter” (Andrea Senza Errori, as he was surnamed by the Italians) is the speaker. He addresses his worthless wife, Lucrezia, upon whom he weakly dotes, and for whom he has broken faith with his royal patron, Francis I. of France, in order that he might meet her demands for money, to be spent upon her pleasures. He laments that he has fallen below himself as an artist, that he has not realized the possibilities of his genius, half accusing, from the better side of his nature, and half excusing, in his uxoriousness, the woman who has had no sympathy with him in the high ideals which, with her support, he might have realized, and thus have placed himself beside Angelo and Rafael. “Had the mouth then urged ‘God and the glory! never care for gain. The present by the future, what is that? Live for fame, side by side with Angelo— Rafael is waiting. Up to God all three!’ I might have done it for you.”
In his ‘Comparative Study of Tennyson and Browning’ *, Professor Edward Dowden, setting forth Browning’s doctrines on the subject of Art, remarks:—
—
* Originally a lecture, delivered in 1868, and published in
‘Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art’ (Dublin), 5th
series, 1869; afterwards revised, and included in the
author’s ‘Studies in Literature, 1789-1877’. It is one of
the best criticisms of Browning’s poetry that have yet been
produced. Every Browning student should make a careful
study of it.
—
“The true glory of art is, that in its creation there arise desires and aspirations never to be satisfied on earth, but generating new desires and new aspirations, by which the spirit of man mounts to God Himself. The artist (Mr. Browning loves to insist on this point) who can realize in marble or in color, or in music, his ideal, has thereby missed the highest gain of art. In ‘Pippa Passes’ the regeneration of the young sculptor’s work turns on his finding that in the very perfection which he had attained lies ultimate failure. And one entire poem, ‘Andrea del Sarto’, has been devoted to the exposition of this thought. Andrea is ‘the faultless painter’; no line of his drawing ever goes astray; his hand expressed adequately and accurately all that his mind conceives; but for this very reason, precisely because he is ‘the faultless painter’, his work lacks the highest qualities of art:—
“‘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.’
“And in the youthful Raphael, whose technical execution fell so far below his own, Andrea recognizes the true master:—
“‘Yonder’s a work, now, of that famous youth’, etc.
“In Andrea del Sarto,” says Vasari, “art and nature combined to show all that may be done in painting, where design, coloring, and invention unite in one and the same person. Had this master possessed a somewhat bolder and more elevated mind, had he been as much distinguished for higher qualifications as he was for genius and depth of judgment in the art he practised, he would, beyond all doubt, have been without an equal. But there was a certain timidity of mind, a sort of diffidence and want of force in his nature, which rendered it impossible that those evidences of ardor and animation which are proper to the more exalted character, should ever appear in him; nor did he at any time display one particle of that elevation which, could it but have been added to the advantages wherewith he was endowed, would have rendered him a truly divine painter: wherefore the works of Andrea are wanting in those ornaments of grandeur, richness, and force, which appear so conspicuously in those of many other masters. His figures are, nevertheless, well drawn, they are entirely free from errors, and perfect in all their proportions, and are for the most part simple and chaste: the expression of his heads is natural and graceful in women and children, while in youths and old men it is full of life and animation. The draperies of this master are beautiful to a marvel, and the nude figures are admirably executed, the drawing is simple, the coloring is most exquisite, nay, it is truly divine.”
Mr. Ernest Radford, quoting this passage, in the Browning Society’s ‘Illustrations to Browning’s Poems’, remarks that “nearly the whole POEM of ‘Andrea del Sarto’ is a mere translation into the SUBJECTIVE Mood (if I may so say) of this passage in which the painter’s work is criticised from an external standpoint. . . .
“Recent researches into Andrea’s life throw doubt upon a good deal that Vasari has written concerning the unhappiness of his marriage and the manner of his death. And the biographer himself modifies, in his second edition, the account he had given of the fair Lucrezia. Vasari, it should be said, was a pupil of Andrea, and therefore must, in this instance, have had special opportunities of knowledge, though he may, on the same account, have had some special ‘animus’ when he wrote. For the purposes of his poem, Browning is content to take the traditional account of the matter, which, after all, seems to substantially accurate. The following is from the first edition:—
“At that time there was a most beautiful girl in Via di San Gallo, who was married to a cap-maker, and who, though born of a poor and vicious father, carried about her as much pride and haughtiness, as beauty and fascination. She delighted in trapping the hearts of men, and amongst others ensnared the unlucky Andrea, whose immoderate love for her soon caused him to neglect the studies demanded by his art, and in great measure to discontinue the assistance which he had given to his parents.
“Certain pictures of Andrea’s which had been painted for the King of France were received with much favor, and an invitation to Andrea soon followed their delivery, to ‘go and paint at the French Court’. He went accordingly, and ‘painted proudly’, as Browning relates, and prospered every way. But one day, being employed on the figure of a St. Jerome doing penance, which he was painting for the mother of the King, there came to him certain letters from Florence; these were written him by his wife; and from that time (whatever may have been the cause) he began to think of leaving France. He asked permission to that effect from the French King accordingly, saying that he desired to return to Florence, but that, when he had arranged his affairs in that city, he would return without fail to his Majesty; he added, that when he came back, his wife should accompany him, to the end that he might remain in France the more quietly; and that he would bring with him pictures and sculptures of great value. The King, confiding in these promises, gave him money for the purchase of those pictures and sculptures, Andrea taking an oath on the gospels to return within the space of a few months, and that done he departed to his native city.
“He arrived safely in Florence, enjoying the society of his beautiful wife, and that of his friends, with the sight of his native city, during several months; but when the period specified by the King, and that at which he ought to have returned, had come and passed, he found himself at the end, not only of his own money, but, what with building” (the “melancholy little house they built to be so gay with”) “indulging himself with various pleasures, and doing no work, of that belonging to the French monarch also, the whole of which he had consumed. He was, nevertheless, determined to return to France, but the prayers and tears of his wife had more power than his own necessities, or the faith which he had pledged to the King.”
“And so for a pretty woman’s sake, was a great nature degraded. And out of sympathy with its impulses, broad, and deep, and tender as only the greatest can show, ‘Andrea del Sarto’, our great, sad poem, was written.”
The monologue exhibits great perfection of finish. Its composition was occasioned, as Mr. Furnivall learned from the poet himself (see ‘Browning Society’s Papers’, Part II., p. 161), by the portrait of Andrea del Sarto and his wife, painted by himself, and now in the Pitti Palace, in Florence. Mr. Browning’s friend, and his wife’s friend, Mr. John Kenyon (the same to whom Mrs. Browning dedicated ‘Aurora Leigh’), had asked the poet to buy him a copy of Andrea del Sarto’s picture. None could be got, and so Mr. Browning put into a poem what the picture had said to himself, and sent it to Mr. Kenyon. It was certainly a worthy substitute.
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