BROWNING'S ITALY (21 page)

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admire Giotto's Campanile, though John Addington S^onds caSs it "that .ify among Campanili," and who are bored beyond measure by the dingy, ancient pictures to be found in the chapels and cloisters of Florence, cracked with age and melancholy by reason of the white-washings they have had, and from which they can never quite recover. Furthermore, Symonds, who has done more than any one eise to set the key-note of criti-cism, makes a decided distinction between the artists of the earlier Renaissance and those who inaugurated the later Renaissance — the "Pre-Raphaelites." For the first he has enthusiasm almost as unbounded as Vasari, but his attitude toward the latter is often unsympathetic, as any one may see who cares to compare what he has to say about Ghirlandajo and Botticelli with what the Editors of Vasari's "Lives," the Blashfields and A. A. Hopkins say about these same painters. Symonds "hummed and buzzed" around the Michaels and Rafaels, though one could hardly say he did it with "little wit." Among the jewels of criticism in his studies of the Italian Renaissance there is perhaps not a more brilliant one than his summing up of the qualities of the four great masters, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael,

Michael Angelo, and Correggio. He hummed and buzzed to some purpose here.

"To these four men, each in his own de-gree and according to his own peculiar quality of mind, the fulness of the Renaissance in its power and freedom was revealed. They entered the inner shrine, where dwelt the spirit of their age, and bore to the world without the message each of them had heard. In their work posterity still may read the meaning of that epoch, differently rendered according to the difference of gift of each consummate artist, but comprehended in its unity by study of the four together. Leonardo is the wizard or diviner; to him the Renaissance offers her mystery and lends her magic. Raphael is the Phoebean singer; to him the Renaissance reveals her joy and dowers him with her gifts of melody. Correggio is the Ariel or Faun, the lover and light-giver; he has surprised laughter upon the face of the universe, and he paints this laughter in ever-varying movement. Michael Angelo is the prophet and Sibylline seer; to him the Renaissance discloses the travail of her spirit; him she endues with power; he wrests her secret, voyaging like an ideal Columbus, the vast abyss of thought alone."

Browning's attitude on the other hand,

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as expressed in this poem is very much like that of the English Brotherhood of Pre-Raphaelites, who formulated their doctrines in 1849, only six years before this poem was written. We are told that Hunt, Millais, and Rossetti reached their final resolve through the study of Lasinio's engravings of the frescos in the Campo Santo at Pisa. "These revealed to the young students an art not satisfied with itself, but reaching after higher things and earnestly seeking to interpret nature and human life. To be of the same spirit as the painters who preceded Raphael, using art as a means to noblest ends, and not merely to emulate the accomplishment of Raphael, as if art had said its last word when he died, was the ambition that the engravings awakened in the three young artists as they studied them. They were not blind to the genius of Raphael, nor did they deny that art had accomplished great things after his time; but, in Holman Hunt's own words, 'It appeared to them that afterwards art was so frequently tainted with the canker of corrup-tion that it was only in the earlier work they could find with certainty absolute health. Up to a definite point the tree was healthy: above it disease began, side by side with life there appeared death/" By way of showing

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his preference for imperfect, aspiring art Browning draws a contrast between Greek art and the early Italian art.

"If you knew their work you would deal your dole."

May I take upon me to instruct you ? When Greek Art ran and reached the goal,

Thus much had the world to boast in fructu — The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken,

Which the actual generations garble, Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Iimbs betoken)

And Iimbs (Soul informs) made new in marble.

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So, you saw yourself as you wished you were,

As you might have been, as you cannot be; Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there:

And grew content in your poor degree With your little power, by those statues' godhead,

And your little scope, by their eyes' füll sway, And your little grace, by their grace embodied,

And your little date, by their forms that stay.

You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am ?

Even so, you will not sit like Theseus. You would prove a model ? The Son of Priam

Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use. You're wroth — can you slay your snake Hke Apollo ?

You're grieved — still Niobe's the grander! You live — there's the Racers' frieze to follow:

You die — there's the dying Alexander.

So, testing your weakness by Üicir strength, Your meager charms by their rounded beauty,

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Measured by Art in your breadth and length, You learned — to submit is a mortal's duty.

— When I say 'you' 'tis the common soul, The collective, I mean: the race of Man

That receives life in parts to live in a whole, And grow here according to God's clear plan.

Growth came when, looking your last on them all,

You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day And cried with a start — What if we so small

Be greater and grander the while than they ? Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature ?

In both, of such lower types are we Precisely because of our wider nature;

For time, theirs — ours, for eternity.

"To-day's brief passion limits their ränge;

It seethes with the morrow for us and more. They are perfect — how eise ? they shall never change:

We are faulty — why not ? we have time in störe. The Artificer's hand is not arrested

With us; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished: They stand for our copy, and, once invested

With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished.

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Tis a lif e-long toil tili our lump be leaven —

The better! What's come to perfection perishes. Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven:

Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes. Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto!

Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish, Done at a stroke, was just (was it not?) *0\ 9

Thy great Campanile is still to finish.

" Is it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter,

But what and where depend on life's minute ? Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter

Our first step out of the gulf or in it ? Shall Man, such step within his endeavor,

Man's face, have no more play and action Than joy which is crystallized forever,

Or grief, an eternal petrifaction ?

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On which I conclude, that the early painters,

To cries of 'Greek Art and what more wish you ?' Replied, 'To become now self-acquainters,

And paint man man, whatever the issue! Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray,

New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters: To bring the invisible füll into play!

Let the visible go to the dogs — what matters ?'

" Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory

For daring so much, before they well did it. The first of the new, in our race's story,

Beats the last of the old; 'tis no idle quiddit. The worthies began a revolution,

Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge, Why, honor them now! (ends my allocution)

Nor confer your degree when the folk leave College.

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The poem resolves itself into a genuine bit of criticism with which one may or may not agree. Probably the wisest attitude is to like each phase of art for its own special quality. To offset Symonds' praise of the Masters we may take to our hearts Pater's

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exquisite appreciation of the Italian sculptors of the earlier half of the fifteenth Century. He says they are "more than mere fore-runners of the great masters of its close, and often reach perfection within the narrow limits which they chose to impose on their work. Their sculpture shares with the paint-ings of Botticelli and the churches of Brunel-leschi that profound expressiveness, that intimate impress of an indwelling soul, which is the peculiar fascination of the art of Italy in that Century. Their works have been much neglected and often almost hidden away amid the frippery of modern decora-tion, and we come with some surprise to the places where their fire still smoulders. One longs to penetrate into the lives of the men who have given expression to so much power and sweetness, but it is part of the reserve, the austere dignity and simplicity of their existence, that their lives are for the most part lost or told but briefly: from their lives as from their works all tumult of sound and color has passed away."

This poem of Browning's, however, is much more than a criticism of Italian art; we get from it real glimpses of Florence and its pic-tures flooded with the light of the poet's own feeling — a half serious, half sportive mood

his preference for imperfect, aspiring art Browning draws a contrast between Greek art and the early Italian art.

"If you knew their work you would deal your dole." May I take upon me to instruct you ?

218 BROWNING'S ITALY

in which he berates the ghosts of these early artists whom he has always praised, because they do not help him to unearth some precious bit of which he might become the happy owner. Even Giotto has treated him badly and let some one eise discover a certain rare little tablet.

Let us try now and see with the poet's eyes what he saw

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The morn when first it thunders in March,

The eel in the pond gives a leap they say: As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch

Of the viüa-gate this warm March day, No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled

In the valley beneath where, white and wide And washed by the morning water-gold,

Florence lay out on the mountain-side.

River and bridge and street and Square

Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, Through the live translucent bath of air,

As the sights in a magic crystal ball. And of all I saw and of all I praised

The most to praise and the best to see Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised:

But why did it more than startle me ?

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To break a silence that suits them best, But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear, When I find a Giotto join the rest!"

Any praise of Giotto will find an echo in the heart of most critics if not in that of all laymen. Cimabue, whom later on in the poem, Browning as we have already seen, calls "his painter," was the pioneer and did very remarkable work as such.

What he meant to the Florentines of his day is well illustrated by the story Vasari teils rf'bl. punting of fta Virgin foT the church of Santa Maria Novella. It was so much admired, they never having seen anything better, that it was carried in solemn procession with the sound of trumpets and other festal demonstrations from the house of Cimabue to the church, he himself being highly re-warded and honored for it. No doubt the poet often looked at this picture where it still hangs in a dark transept of Santa Maria Novella, and he doubtless saw what some see to-day, an attempt at expression which warmed the cockles of his heart. The spark of life has been Struck, the figures haye movement, as some one has facetiously said "Noah and his family, indeed, in the story of the Ark move almost with violence," but oonsidering these unmistakable signs of life,

The Cahfanile.

years 5 work upon it, when it had reached a very small portion of its height. The work is said to have been continued by Taddeo Gaddi, his godson, and his pupil and disciple for twenty-five years. He was succeeded by Francesco Talenti, who it is supposed may have modified and enriched the design. In form and decoration it was quite different from anything that had preceded it, and in the opinion of many combines every element of beauty possible in such a work. It Covers a Square of about forty-five feet and towers up two hundred and seventy-five feet. It has no openings except the doorway on the east side for more than a third of the way up. This lower third is divided into two stages with a slight protection at the top of each stage. Above these are two stages of equal height and exactly similar design. There are two two-light Windows in each face, beautiful in their graceful proportions and delicate ornamentation, with gabled arches and traceried balconies. To crown all is the belfry in a single stage much greater in height, and with a broad three-light open-ing in each face through which looks the blue Italian sky like a fair face more fair through the meshes of a veil. The wall is everywhere encrusted with panelings of white