The characters portrayed by Browning in his dramatic monologues are various and often rise from the world of the Italian Renaissance. From the artist Fra Lippo Lippi who has become a monk without his will, to Andrea del Sarto, a great painter who has subordinated his art to the demands of an exploitative wife, Browning manages to reveal the true value of art. The pictures of great artists blended with historical detail are embodied in his poems.
Vasari’s Lives of the artistsis the source of the back-story to Andrea Del Sarto. Andrea Del Sarto, called “the faultless painter,” also Andrea senzaErrori, was a great painter of the Florentine School. He was born in Gualfonda, Florence, in 1487.Del Sarto was a magnificent painter but because of an …show more content…
Andrea presents us a different kind of character from Fra Lippo Lippi, ones with a resigned attitude and thoughtful perspective. The artist attempts to buy his little semblance of love from his wife promising to paint to gain money for her. Constantly, under his wife authority he is being distracted from his work as an artist. With self-confidence that he can do things that others would find impossible he feels himself to be only a craftsman (Line 82):
I do what many dream of, all their lives,
Dream? Strive to do, and agonize to do,
And fail in doing(Lines …show more content…
He thinks it is the influence of this woman which kept him from mounting to the heights attained by Angelo and Rafael: “Why do I need you? / What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?
At one moment in the poem he recalls the “kingly days” in France (line 165) when he had painted for the royal court and again pointed that his worldly concerns have stopped him from achieving his promise as an artist. He was asked by Francis, King of France , to buy some Italian artwork for court but instead of taking his mission to the end he chooses to remain in France together with his beautiful wife and buying a house from King’s money. He talks about his scam as an inevitable misfortune:
King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights
When I look up from painting, eyes tired
Vasari’s Lives of the artistsis the source of the back-story to Andrea Del Sarto. Andrea Del Sarto, called “the faultless painter,” also Andrea senzaErrori, was a great painter of the Florentine School. He was born in Gualfonda, Florence, in 1487.Del Sarto was a magnificent painter but because of an …show more content…
Andrea presents us a different kind of character from Fra Lippo Lippi, ones with a resigned attitude and thoughtful perspective. The artist attempts to buy his little semblance of love from his wife promising to paint to gain money for her. Constantly, under his wife authority he is being distracted from his work as an artist. With self-confidence that he can do things that others would find impossible he feels himself to be only a craftsman (Line 82):
I do what many dream of, all their lives,
Dream? Strive to do, and agonize to do,
And fail in doing(Lines …show more content…
He thinks it is the influence of this woman which kept him from mounting to the heights attained by Angelo and Rafael: “Why do I need you? / What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?
At one moment in the poem he recalls the “kingly days” in France (line 165) when he had painted for the royal court and again pointed that his worldly concerns have stopped him from achieving his promise as an artist. He was asked by Francis, King of France , to buy some Italian artwork for court but instead of taking his mission to the end he chooses to remain in France together with his beautiful wife and buying a house from King’s money. He talks about his scam as an inevitable misfortune:
King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights
When I look up from painting, eyes tired