The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

7. A game in which a player wears a blindfold. to the more exalted character, should ever appear I. This portrait of Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531) in him." was derived from a biography written by his pupil Browning also follows Vasari's account of Giorgio Vasari, author of The Lives of the Painters Andrea's marriage to a beautiful widow, Lucrezia, (1550). Vasari's account seeks to explain why his "an artful woman w ho made him do as she pleased Florentine master, one of the most skillful painters in all things." Vasari reports that Andrea's "immodof the Renaissance, never altogether fulfilled the erate love for her soon caused him to neglect the promise he had shown early in his career and why studies demanded hv his art" and that this infatuhe had never arrived (in Vasari's opinion) at the ation had "more influence over him than the glory level of such artists as Raphael. Vasari noted that and honor towards which he had begun to make Andrea suffered from "a certain timidity of mind such hopeful advances." . . . which rendered it impossible that those evi-2. A suburb on the hills overlooking Florence. dences of ardor and animation, which are proper

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ANDREA DEL SARTO / 1281

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:

25 It saves0 a model. So! keep looking so � saves the expense of My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!3 �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,

30 Which everybody looks on and calls his, And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn, While she looks�no one's: very dear, no less.4 You smile? why, there's my picture ready made, There's what we painters call our harmony!

35 A common grayness silvers everything5� 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

40 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, 45 And autumn grows, autumn in everything. Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape As if I saw alike my work and self And all that I was born to be and do, A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. 50 How strange 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 for example�turn your head� All that's behind us! You don't understand 55 Nor care to understand about my art, But you can hear at least when people speak: And that cartoon,0 the second from the door drawing �It is the thing, Love! so such things should be � Behold Madonna!�I am bold to say. 60 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, 1 do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge, 65 Who listened to the Legate's6 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, 70 �Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,

3. Coils of hair like the coils of a serpent. 5. The predominant color in many of Andrea's 4. Her affections are centered on no one person, paintings is silver gray, not even on her husband, yet she is nevertheless 6. A deputy of the pope, dear to him.

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1282 / ROBERT BROWNING

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

75 Carelessly passing with your robes afloat� Yet do much less, so much less, Someone7 says (I know his name, no matter)�so much less! Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. There burns a truer light of God in them,

so In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, Heart, or whate'er else, 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,

85 Enter and take their place there sure enough, Though they come back and cannot tell 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.

90 I, painting from myself and to myself, Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame Or their praise either. Somebody remarks Morello's8 outline there is wrongly traced, His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,

95 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!