BROWNING'S ITALY (26 page)

The next important step in his life was his marriage. The relation between Sarto and his wife forms so integral a part of the atmosphere of the poem that we give it just as Vasari did in the first edition of his Lives:

"At that time there was a most beautiful girl in the '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 among 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.

"Now it happened that a sudden and griev-ous illness seized the husband of this woman, who rose no more from his bed, but died thereof. Without taking counsel of his friends, therefore, without regard to the dignity of his art or the consideration due to

his genius and to the eminence he had attained with so much labor; without a word, in short, to any of his kindred, Andrea took this Lucrezia di Baccio del Fede, such was the name of the woman, to be his wife; her beauty appearing to him to merit thus much at his hands, and his love for her having more in-fluence over him than the glory and honor towards which he had begun to make such hopeful advances. But when this news be-came known in Florence, the respect and affection which his friends had previously borne to Andrea changed to contempt and disgust, since it appeared to them that the darkness of this disgrace had obscured for a time all the glory and renown obtained by his talents.

"But he destroyed his own peace as well as estranged his friends by this act, seeing that he soon became jealous and found that he had besides fallen into the hands of an artful woman, who made him do as she pleased in all things. He abandoned his own poor father and mother, for example, and adopted the father and sisters of his wife in their stead; insomuch that all who knew the facts mourned over him and he soon began to be as much avoided as he had been previously sought after. His disciples still re-

THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 265

mained with him, it is true, in the hope of learning something useful, yet there was not one of them, great or small that was not mal-treated by his wife, both by evil words and despiteful actions: none could escape her blows, but although Andrea lived in the midst of all that torment, he yet accounted it a high pleasure."

The darkness of this stoiy is somewhat lightened by the fact that Del Sarto in his will, made a few years before his death, speaks of her with great affection and makes ample Provision for her. Though still handsome she remained a widow, and while selling Andrea's other pictures, she retained his portrait of himself. It is further related that more than thirty years after Del Sarto's death, when the young Jacopo Chimenti da Empoli was making some studies from the frescos in the portico of the Annunziata, an old woman on her way to Mass stopped and spoke to him; after some talk about his work and the paintings, she told him that she was the model for several of the figures in them. It was Lucrezia, who had outlived the great school of Florence and who still came to pray in the church where her husband was buried. She died in 1570.

The other damaging event of his life

grew out of his relation with the King of France.

The King of France had been delighted with two pictures painted for him by Andrea del Sarto, and hearing that Andrea might be prevailed upon to visit France, invited him and had him provided with everything need-ful for the expenses of the journey.

Having in due time arrived at the French Court he was received by the monarch very amicably and with many favors, even the first day of his arrival was marked to Andrea by proofs of that magnanimous sov-ereign's liberality and courtesy, since he at once received not only a present of money, but the added gift of veiy rieh and honorable vest-ments. He painted many pictures, gave great satisfaction to the whole court and received a considerable annual income from the King.

" One day he received a letter, after having received many others from Lucrezia his wife, whom he had left disconsolate tot his de-parture, although she wanted for nothing. She wrote with bitter complaints to Andrea, declaring that she never ceased to weep and was in perpetual affliction at his absence. He, therefore, asked the King's permission to return to Florence, but said that when he had arranged his affairs in that city he would

THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 267

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 sculp-tures of great value. The King, confiding in these promises, gave him money for the pur-chase 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 her 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, in-dulging himself in various pleasures and doing no work, of that belonging to the French King also, the whole of which he had con-sumed. 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: he remained, theref ore, in Florence and the King was so angered thereby that for a long time he would not look at any

Florentine pictures, and declared that if ever he laid hands on him he would do him more härm than he had ever done him good. He remained in Florence as we have said and from a highly eminent position he sank to the very lowest, procuring a livelihood and passing his time as he best might."

Browning not only uses these events in his poem, but he allows Vasari's opinion of Del Sarto to color the portrayal of his character. We can say of the man in the poem exactly the same things that Vasari says of the actual man:

"Had this master possessed a somewhat bolder and more elevated mind, had he been as much distinguished for higher qualifica-tions as he was for genius and depth of judg-ment 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 have been added to the ad-vantages wherewith he was endowed, would have rendered him a truly divine painter. His figures are entirely free from errors and

THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 269

perfect in all their proportions and are for the most part simple and chaste."

Later criticism is in much the same key as that of Vasari's. He is admitted to deserve the name given him by the Italians of "the faultless painter," because as Symonds says "in all the technical requirements of art, in drawing, composition, handling of fresco and oils, disposition of draperies, and feeling for light and shadow, he was above criticism." Furthermore Symonds gives expression to what every one must feel in looking at his pictures, the beauty of his coloring. "His silver-gray harmonies and liquid blendings of lines cool, yet lustrous, have a charm pecu-liar to himself alone. We find the like no-where eise in Italy." And yet, and yet, he echoes the old feeling that Andrea del Sarto cannot take rank among the greatest Renaissance painters. "What he lacked was pre-cisely the most precious gift — inspiration, depth of emotion, energy of thought."

Browning has made known the personality, and awakened our sympathy for this brilliant f ailure among the great painters of Italy in a masterly manner, which as in the case of "Fra Lippo Lippi," and the remaining art monologues, can be appreciated only by read-ing the poems themselves.

ANDREA DEL SARTO

(CALLED "THE FAULTLESS PAINTEB")

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 tum your face, but does it bring your heart ? TU 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, 1*11 content him, — but to-morrow, Love! 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! 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 — My face, my moon, my everybody's moon, Which everybody looks on and calls his, And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,

THE ARTIST AND fflS ART 271

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 grayness 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.

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 seif

And all that I was born to be and do,

A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand.

How stränge now, looks the life he makes us lead;

So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!

I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!

This Chamber f or 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.

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!

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!

Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.

There bums a truer light of God in them,

In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,

Heart, or whate'er eise, 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 teil the world.

My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.

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 eise,

Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?

Speak as they please, what does the mountain care ?

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what's a heaven for ? All is silver-gray

Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!

THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 273

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,