Robert Browning’s poem, ‘Andrea del Sarto’ presents the reader with his views on the painter’s life, an artist who has lost faith in the Parnassian perfect of living for art, and now has to use art as a living. The poem appears at the darker side of the painter when he was older, and expresses a lot about Browning as nicely, and how he believed his function was perceived, and the context of his life and times. The poem covers lots of suggestions and themes, which not only develop a powerful poem, but also produce commentary from Browning’s prerogative of his personal scenario. The poem epitomizes Browning’s function, searching at a real figure in history, from Browning’s own perspective, in a actual state of affairs. Even though ‘Del Sarto’ might have been regarded as ‘The Faultless painter’ in his time, on the inside he had to repress a struggle. As historian Vasari pointed out, a ‘certain timidity of spirit’ that stopped him from gaining accurate recognition as 1 of the greats alongside ‘Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo’. This could be said to express Browning’s view of audience, because his wife was substantially much more effective than him. In this essay I will be hunting at the poem, and how it relates to Browning and the time it was written in.
The poem has a pretty melancholy tone all through, expressing the feelings of Browning’s ‘Del Sarto’, and to an extent Browning himself. It bargains with the artists demise, or recline, that he thinks is slowly beginning to destroy his life, and the freedom he after had as an artist. He tends to make references to the ‘autumn in everything’ that he now sees, and the sin of him being ‘tempted’ by ‘Francis’ coin’, which he ‘took’. It is clear from the beginning of the poem that ‘Del Sarto’ that he has to live with his resolve, and although he tries to outline his plight, he doesn’t transform it, as he says to Lucrezia ‘do not let us quarrel any more’. He is succumbing to what he has to now do. He has to function now for the income he will gain, which destroys the ethos of art. Hi reference to the recipient of the piece as a ‘friends friend’ emphasizes how distant he has got from his art, and his audience. It is not a particular audience, and neither does the picture convey a lot, as it is just…