BROWNING'S ITALY (27 page)

Out 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.)

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.

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!

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 overrules.

Beside, incentives come from the souTs seif;

The rest avail not. Why do I need you ?

What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo ?

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.

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, Rafaers 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 band kept plying by those hearts, —

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;

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Too live the life grew, golden and not gray,

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 ?

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.

For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,

Said one day Agnolo, his very seif,

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!"

To RafaeTs! —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 f orget 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?

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.

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?

While hand and eye and something of a heart

Are left me, work's my wäre, and what's it worth ?

Fll pay my fancy. Only let me sit

The gray remainder of the evening out,

Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly

How could I 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 teil you of its worth.

Will you ? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.

I take the subjects for his corridor,

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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?

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 ooin, 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 rieh! Let each one bear his lot. They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died: And I have labored 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.

Pictor Ignotus reveals the feelings of a sensitive spirit, failing for quite other reasons than Andrea del Sarto. While such a being might think the reasons for his not painting pictures like the youth so much praised were because of his dislike to merchandize his art, or because he did not wish to have them sullied by blundering criticism, the truth is that the feeling itself is a sign of the self-con-sciousness which leads to imitation rather than to real creative force. We may imagine this painter belonging to the crowd of painters who filled up the latter part of the sixteenth Century and marked the decline of the great age of Italian art.

PICTOR IGNOTUS

FLORENCE, 15—

I could have painted pictures like that youth's

Ye praise so. How my soul Springs up! No bar Stayed me — ah, thought which saddens while it soothes!

— Never did fate forbid me, star by star, To outburst on your night with all my gift

Of fires from God: nor would my flesh have shrunk From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift

And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk To the centre, of an instant; or around

Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan The license and the limit, space and bound,

Allowed to truth made visible in man.

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And, like that youth je praise so, all I saw,

Over the canvas could my hand have flung, Each face obedient to its passion's law,

Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue; Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood,

A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace, Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood

Pull down the nesting dove's heart to its place; Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up,

And locked the mouth fast, like a Castle braved, — O human faces, hath it spilt, my cup ?

What did ye give me that I have not saved ? Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well!)

Of going — I, in each new picture, — f orth, As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell,

To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South, or North, Bound for the calmly satisfied great State,

Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went, Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight,

Through old streets named af resh f rom the event, Till it reached home, where learned age should greet

My face, and youth, the star not yet distinct Above his hair, lie learning at my feet! —

Oh, thus to live, I and my picture, linked With love about, and praise, tili life should end,

And then not go to heaven, but linger here, Here on my earth, earth's every man my friend —

The thought grew frightful, 'twas so wildly dear! But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such sights

Have scared me, like the revels through a door Of some stränge house of idols at its rites!

This world seemed not the world it was before: Mixed with my loving trusting ones, there trooped

• . . Who summoned those cold faces that begun

To press on me and judge me ? Though I stooped

Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun, They drew me forth, and spite of me . . . enough!

These buy and seil our pictures, take and give, Count them for garniture and household-stuff,

And where they live needs must our pictures live And see their faces, listen to their prate,

Partakers of their daily pettiness, Discussed of, — "This I love, or this I hate,

This likes me more, and this affects me less!" Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles

My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint These endless cloisters and eternal aisles

With the same series, Virgin, Babe and Saint, With the same cold calm beautiful regard, —

At least no merchant traffics in my heart; The sanctuary's gloom at least shall ward

Vain tongues from where my pictures stand apart; Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine

While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke, They moulder on the damp walTs travertine,

'Mid echoes the light footsteps never woke. So, die my pictures! surely, gently die!

O youth, men praise so, — holds their praise its worth ? Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry ?

Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth ?

One more poem of Browning's gives a glimpse of Renaissance art, "The Bishop Orders his tomb at St. Praxed's." This may be read in connection with "Pictor Ignotus" as revealing another phase of the decadence of art, when gross worldliness, luxuiy and

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hypocrisy had become the distinguishing marks of the clergy and were manifested in the art which they encouraged for their own glorification. The Bishop and his tomb are both imaginary, but they none the less reveal with absolute fidelity the hypocrisy of the clergy, not to say their absolute wickedness, and the vulgär art that appealed to their degenerate taste.

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT

PRAXED'S CHURCH

ROME, 15—

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!

Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back ?

Nephews — sons mine ... ah God, I know not!

Well — She, men,would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! What's done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, And as she died so must we die ourselves, And thence ye may pereeive the world's a dream. Life, how and what is it ? As here I lie In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask "Do I live, am I dead ?" Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: —- Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;