CHAPTER I

BROWNING’S GENERAL INTEREST IN ART.

I. SUBJECT MATTER OF BROWNING’S POEMS.--Three prominent facts concerning the subjects of Browning’s poetry are: the comparative insignificance of nature, the extensive treatment of art, and the predominance of the human soul. Only a few poems contain any extended reference to nature; and where such reference is found, nature is usually treated, as in _By the Fireside_, for its effect on human beings, and the soul still remains the dominant subject. Nature for its own sake is never a supreme concern. It is never considered as a primary moral force, akin to a personality, as in Wordsworth. The loveliness of nature is never personified for the sake of its own sensuous beauty, as in Keats or Shelley. _Pauline_, a youthful effort of which Browning later became ashamed, was written under the influence of Shelley, and approaches the style of that poet in the prominence and beauty of its nature descriptions; but no such examples of pure nature descriptions are found in Browning’s mature work. Several of the well-known longer poems--_Pippa Passes_, _Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day_, _The Flight of the Duchess_, for example--as well as other shorter lyrical poems, contain the nature element; but it is comparatively slight, and usually introduced for harmony, for contrast, or to give a mere unshaded background for the characters.

Concerning the predominance of the soul in Browning, every critic of the poet has written. It does not seem necessary to repeat any of this familiar criticism here. However, the emphasis placed upon personality and the soul does have a bearing on the discussion of Italian arts and artists as found in Browning. For personality is the dominant factor behind Browning’s selection and treatment of the Italian arts. Those arts in which personality is strongest he uses most. The poems having some one of the arts as a main theme usually had their origin in an interest aroused by some unique personality. Some further discussions of the relations of art and personality will be found in each of the five following chapters devoted to the individual arts; and more extended discussion is given in the general summary of Chapter VII.

Concerning Browning’s treatment of art, numerous articles have been written; but they are limited for the most part to consideration of one art or one poem. Browning, however, is the poet not of any one art but of art in general and of all the arts. Throughout life he was interested in more than one art and in spite of the seeming improbability of his ever having had serious doubts on the subject, it is stated[163] that he was long undecided whether to become a poet, a musician, or a painter. He might, says his biographer, have become an artist and perhaps a great one, because of his brilliant general ability and his special gifts.

II. INTEREST IN MUSIC.--As a child, Browning received a musical education and became a pianist of some ability. His appreciation of music was further cultivated, during his young manhood, by attendance at the best concerts and operas which London afforded. Beethoven seems to be the composer mentioned most frequently in biographical sketches and in his letters, a fact which may indicate his preference in music. During the latter years of his married life, according to letters by Mrs. Browning, he took charge of the musical education given to their son, Wiedemann. So far as appreciation of Italian music and attendance at concerts in Italy are concerned, he seems to have been little interested. But again in the years following 1873, while Browning was in London, he was in frequent attendance at musical concerts. His interest in music, then, was no intermittent fancy. It was constant and above the average. If any further proof of his interest in music were needed, it is found in the influence of that interest upon his poems; for they show a finer appreciation of music and a greater knowledge of its technique than those of any other writer.

III. RELATION TO PAINTING.--A knowledge of painting and a liking for it as well, were cultivated in Browning’s earliest years, through the medium of the Dulwich Gallery. Though it is probably impossible to trace the exact influence of this gallery on his writings, it may be suggested as the source of references to Italian art before his visits to Italy, and as the original stimulus of his interest in the subject. At least, the Dulwich Gallery was only a pleasant walk from his home, and there his father constantly took him.[164] There “he became familiar with the names of the great painters and learned something about their works. Later he became a familiar figure in one or two London studios.”

Whatever the cause of a certain decline of interest in painting previous to 1841 may have been, that decline was of short duration. Probably it was due to the increasing attention he was giving to poetry as a serious occupation. When he began to feel himself better established in his poetical career, he returned to his interest in the sister art. A letter which he wrote to Miss Haworth (probably in 1841) says that he is coming to love painting again as he did once in earlier years. In the same letter he speaks of his early efforts at the age of two years and three months, and characterizes himself as a wonderful painter in his childhood; but he adds, “as eleven out of every twelve of us are.” Such a remark, while it shows an early interest in art, and indicates that his fond relatives may have considered him a youthful prodigy in art, as fond relatives have a habit of doing on slight premises, implies that he himself did not consider his artistic ability seriously.

Browning’s interest in painting, as well as in sculpture, was retained throughout his life. On September 19, 1846, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Browning set sail for Italy; and from that time on, the wife’s letters are full of references to her husband’s interest in art. In a letter from Pisa dated November 5, 1846, she says she means to know something of pictures; for Robert does, and he will open her eyes for her. Here at Pisa, she continues, the first steps in art, for her, are to be taken. A letter dated October 1, 1847, mentions their friend, Mr. Powers, the American sculptor. Mr. Story, another sculptor; Mr. Kirkup, the art connoisseur; Fredrick Leighton; a French sculptress named Mme. de Fauveau; Gibson; Page; a Mr. Fisher, who was painting the portraits of Mr. Browning and Wiedemann; Mr. Wilde, an American artist; and Harriet Hosmer--all these artists are named as acquaintances of the literary Brownings who were stay-at-home people in Florence. Many letters also mention trips to certain places where individual pictures were seen, such as “a divine picture of Guercino” (August 1848), Domenichino’s “David” at Fano (August, 1848), and the works of Guido Reni, Da Vinci, the Carracci, and Correggio.

Although Browning never had a course of thorough instruction in art, he gave some attention to drawing during the reaction from literary work that followed the publication of _Men and Women_, in 1855. A letter from Mrs. Browning to her old friend, Mrs. Jameson, dated May 2, 1856, gives the story. After thirteen days application on the part of her husband, she tells us, he produced some really astonishingly good copies of heads, though his purpose was only to fill in the pause in his literary career. Then Mrs. Browning adds: “And really, with all his feeling and knowledge of art, some of the mechanical trick of it can not be out of place.”

IV. RELATION TO SCULPTURE.--A similar though less conspicuous interest in sculpture[165] was maintained through Browning’s entire career. The first mention of it in either letters or poems is found in a letter of 1838, to Miss Haworth, in which the statement concerning Canova implies disappointment and previous expectation. _Sordello_, 1840, contains the first reference found in a poem; and from that time on, some references are found with a considerable degree of regularity in both poems and letters. While the interest was not great compared with that taken in painting, it was fairly continuous. No mention of Italian sculpture is found in the poems of Browning after the publication of _The Ring and the Book_, in 1868-9; though references to the art of Greece, the great home of sculpture, occur frequently.

In 1860, a letter from Mrs. Browning says that her husband has begun modeling under the direction of Mr. Story at his studio. She speaks of his progress, of his turning his studies in anatomy to account, and of the fact that he had already copied two busts--those of young Augustus, and of Psyche. At this time he was working six hours a day at modeling. “His habit,” says Mrs. Browning, “was to work by fits and starts”; and as in the case of drawing, he had undertaken work in sculpture until his mind should be ready again for poetical work.

V. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PRECEDING SECTIONS.--Many other statements showing an appreciation of the arts are found in the biographies and letters of the Brownings. Of these, some details will be mentioned later, in connection with the treatment of each separate art. Only such facts have been noted here as tend to establish the basis on which our discussion is built--namely, that Browning had a great and continuous interest in the fine arts and that it is only reasonable to expect a considerable amount of knowledge and appreciation of them to appear in his writings. Our final conclusions will concern _personality_ as the source of Browning’s interest in the arts.

VI. TIME SPENT IN ITALY.--The amount of time spent by Robert Browning in Italy is a further reason for expecting Italian art themes in his writings. In 1838, at the age of twenty-six, he made his first trip to Italy; and in 1844 he was again there, from August or September until December. In 1846, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning went to Italy to live, and excepting intervals for trips to France and England, were there until the death of the latter in 1861. For several years after this, Browning spent most of his time in England. In 1878, however, he returned to Northern Italy; and of his eleven remaining years, seven autumns were spent in Venice, until his death there in 1889.

VII. ENGLISH KNOWLEDGE OF ITALIAN ART IN BROWNING’S TIME.--In spite of the fact that Browning spent so much time in Italy, the space given to Italian art in his poems is remarkable because so little was known of that subject in England at that time. Vasari’s rambling, gossipy, and sometimes inaccurate biographies may have been known in England at this time. Even if so, Browning, at least, seems not to have become acquainted with them until the years of his residence in Italy; for a letter written in 1847 by Mrs. Browning to Horne, says that they are engaged in reading Vasari.

During the nineteenth century, the history of art began to assume a more important place as a distinct branch of general history. The century was well advanced, however, when the first complete work in this subject appeared--Kugler’s _Handbook of the History of Art_. It was not translated from the German until 1855, when the part referring to Italy was published in an English translation by Sir Charles Eastlake. (Many of Browning’s best art poems were published in 1855, and some of them previous to that time.) Taking this work as the beginning of modern treatment of art history, and noting the fact that the next work of importance referring to Italian art alone and treating it from the historical standpoint was published by Crowe and Cavalcaselle in 1876, it is evident that nothing like the present general knowledge of it could have existed in England in Browning’s time. Certainly this makes his treatment of art history, particularly the facility with which he presents the tendencies of different periods, more remarkable than similar attainment would be in more recent times. Even with the added knowledge resulting from recent investigations, no other writer has been able to produce such perfect poems of the musician or the painter as Browning has built about Fra Lippo Lippi, or the Italian by adoption, Abt Vogler.[166]

VIII. NON-ENGLISH THEMES AND SETTINGS IN GENERAL.--The Italian element is only one result, though a very significant result, of a general tendency on the part of Browning to choose poetic subjects of non-English character. From the Orient,[167] from Greece,[168] from France,[169] from any region, in fact, which pleased his fancy, however remote, he levied his contributions. With this general non-English tendency, it is not surprising that in Italy, where he spent so much time, he found material for every sort of poem from _Fra Lippo Lippi_ to _Luria_ and _The Ring and the Book_, and that he should shape his material into poems with much of the atmosphere of Italy, the home of the arts.

IX. A QUANTITATIVE STATEMENT.--As a matter of fact, the supposition that Browning’s poetry embodies a large amount of Italian art reference is correct. Forty-nine poems out of two hundred and twenty-two, or more than one-fifth of the entire number, have some mention of one or more of the arts or artists of Italy, while other poems deal with the arts of other nations or with a general comparison of the arts.