Florence, 15—
First publ. B & P vii (DR & L), 6 Nov. 1845; repr. 1849, 1863, 18652, 1868, 1872, 1888. The Latin title means lit. ‘painter unknown’, used for anonymous works; ‘ignotus’ can also mean ‘of low birth’ and (as past participle of ‘ignosco’) ‘forgiven’, ‘overlooked’. The date of composition is unknown, but a time during or shortly after B.’s second trip to Italy (Aug.–Dec. 1844) is likely. DeVane (Handbook 155) argues that it was ‘certainly conceived, and possibly written, during Browning’s visit to Florence, which may have been early in November, 1844’. Rome, however, which B. visited during his 1844 trip, is also an important presence in the poem; B. would have seen there the work of Raphael, to whom Pictor contrasts himself (see ll. 1–2).
Elvan Kintner (LK 129n. 1) suggests that it was to this poem that B. referred in a letter to EBB. of ?18 July 1845 (Correspondence x 312–13) in which he describes
a poem you are to see—written some time ago—which advises nobody who thinks nobly of the Soul, to give, if he or she can help, such a good argument to the materialist as the owning that any great choice of that Soul, which it is born to make and which—(in its determining, as it must, the whole future course and impulses of that soul)—which must endure for ever (even tho’ the object that induced the choice should disappear) —owning, I say, that such a choice may be scientifically determined and produced, at any operator’s pleasure, by a definite number of ingredients, so much youth, so much beauty, so much talent &c &c with the same certainty and precision that another kind of operator will construct you an artificial volcano with so much steel filings and flower of sulphur and what not: there is more in the soul than rises to the surface and meets the eye; whatever does that, is for the world’s immediate uses; and were this world all, all in us would be producible and available for use, as it is with the body now—but with the soul, what is to be developed afterward is the main thing, and instinctively asserts its rights—so that when you hate (or love) you shall not be able to explain “why” (“You” is the ordinary enough creature of my poem—he might not be so able.)
Pictor’s ‘great choice’, according to this theory, would be his decision to retire to a monastery instead of pursuing the commercial career that his ‘talent’ might seem to warrant; and this decision results from a hatred of the world which reflects Pictor’s instinctive longing to transcend it, though he himself is unable to understand his action in those terms, and represents it as misanthropy, or dislike of commercialism. The question of the value or otherwise of popularity to a poet was discussed by B. and EBB. during their early correspondence, and Pictor may have been written in the context of their debate: see EBB. to B., 3 Feb. 1845, and B.’s reply, 11 Feb. 1845 (Correspondence x 52, 70–1).
A historical original for the painter has been suggested by J. B. Bullen (‘Browning’s “Pictor Ignotus” and Vasari’s “Life of Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco” ’, RES xxiii [1972] 313–19). Bullen argues that it was from Vasari’s Vite de’ Pittori (Florence 1550) and A. F. Rio’s De la Poésie Chrétienne (Paris 1836) that B. learned of Bartolommeo (c. 1475–1517), who painted predominantly religious subjects, and who, under the influence of Savanarola, entered the Dominican Order in 1499 and abandoned painting altogether for four years, a decision Vasari attributes in part to personal timidity. Bullen points out that Fra Bartolommeo’s surname was unknown, and that he was commonly called simply ‘il Frate’ (the Friar); following earlier commentators, he identifies the ‘youth’ of l. 1 with Raphael, and goes on to suggest a reference to the period (mentioned by Vasari and Rio) when Bartolommeo visited Rome and painted with him. Cp. Anna Jameson, Memoirs of the Early Italian Painters (first publ. 1843): ‘[Bartolommeo] might have been the Raphael, had not Fortune been determined in favour of the other’. See also headnote to Lines on Correggio, II 454. M. H. Bright (‘Browning’s Celebrated Pictor Ignotus’, ELN xiii [1976] 192–4) objects to the identification both on circumstantial grounds (Fra Bartolommeo did paint on canvas and in the houses of rich men, whereas Pictor paints frescoes in churches; Bartolommeo did sell his pictures; he was not a monotonous anti-realist but was praised for the animation of his figures, etc.), and on the interpretative ground that the poem hinges on the fact that the painter has not achieved, and will not achieve, recognition, either during his lifetime or after death, a state of affairs which emphatically did not apply to Fra Bartolommeo. For further exchanges between Bullen and Bright, see ELN xiii (1976) 206–15; we accept Bright’s view that Bartolommeo is not the literal subject of the poem; but it is plausible to claim that B. drew on some details of his career.
Many DR & L poems, such as Lost Leader (p. 206), Lost Mistress (II 293), Time’s Revenges (II 279), also deal with loss, renunciation, and defection, but by placing Pictor, in 1863, in Men, and Women, B. elected to stress its place in his theory of the development of Renaissance art. EBB. commented: ‘This poem is so fine, . . so full of power, . . as to claim every possible attention to the working of it. It begins greatly, grandly, & ends so—the winding up winds up the soul in it. The versification too is noble … & altogether it classes with your finest poems of the length—does it not, in your own mind? I cannot tell you how much it impresses mine’ (Wellesley MS: all her comments recorded in the notes derive from this text, unless otherwise stated). William Stigand, summing up B.’s career towards the close of his review of DP (ER cxx [Oct. 1864] 537–65; repr. CH 230–60), suggested an analogy between B.’s own attitude to popular success, and Pictor’s: ‘Mr. Browning has always chosen … to remain apart from the beaten track of the ordinary world; and we can imagine him sharing in the feelings of his own “Pictor Ignotus” who … thus expresses his contempt for the vulgar crowd—[quotes ll. 46–57]. So Mr. Browning has chosen his portion, and the popularity which he has despised will in all probability never be thrust upon him.’
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,
5 To outburst on your night with all my gift
Of fires from God: nor would this flesh have shrunk
From seconding that soul, with eyes uplift
And wide to Heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk
To the centre of an instant, or around
10 Sent calmly and inquisitive to scan
The license and the limit, space and bound,
Allowed to Truth made visible in Man.
And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw,
Over the canvass could my hand have flung,
15 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
20 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,—
Men, women, children, hath it spilt, my cup?
What did ye give me that I have not saved?
25 Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well!)
Of going—I, in each new picture,—forth,
And making new hearts beat and bosoms swell,
As still to Pope and Kaiser, South and North,
Bound for the calmly satisfied great State,
30 Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went,
Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight
Through old streets named afresh from its event,
—Of reaching thus my home, where Age should greet
My face, and Youth, the star as yet distinct
35 Above his hair, lie learning at my feet,—
Oh, thus to live, I and my pictures, linked
With love about, and praise, till life should end,
And then not go to Heaven but linger here,
Here on my earth, its every man my friend,—
40 Oh, that grows frightful, ’tis so wildly dear!
But a voice changed it! Glimpses of such sights
Have scared me, like the revels thro’ a door
Of some strange House of Idols at its rites;
This world seemed not the world it was before!
45 Mixed with my loving ones there trooped—for what?
Who summoned those cold faces which begun
To press on me and judge me? As asquat
And shrinking from the soldiery a nun,
They drew me forth, and spite of me . . enough!
50 These buy and sell 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,
55 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
60 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;
65 Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine
While, blackening in the daily candle smoke,
They moulder on the damp wall’s travertine,
’Mid echoes the light footstep never woke.
So die, my pictures; surely, gently die!
70 Oh 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?
6–7. this … that] my … my (1849–88).
7–10. uplift … sunk … Sent: these verbs are all past participles modifying ‘eyes’.
8–9. EBB. quoted: ‘like a thunder sunk / To the centre of an instant’, and commented: ‘Is there not something obscure in the expression? And it is all so fine here, that you should let the reader stand up as straight as he can, to look round’.
10. Sent] Turned (1849–88).
15–16. Cp. Fifine (1872) 1719–26: ‘the infinitude / Of passions, loves and hates, man pampers till his mood / Becomes himself, the whole sole face we name him by, / Nor want denotement else, if age or youth supply / The rest of him: old, young,—classed creature: in the main / A love, a hate, a hope, a fear, each soul a-strain / Some one way through the flesh—the face, the evidence / O’ the soul at work inside’.
19–20. EBB. quoted these lines (with ‘rapture’ for ‘Rapture’ and ‘her eyes’ for ‘the eyes’) and commented: ‘A most exquisite image, & perfect in the expression of it I think’. Cp. A Forest Thought 52 (I 344), ‘the brood-song of the cushat-dove’.
23. Men, women, children] O Human faces (1849–88, except ‘human’, 1863–88. 23–4. The ‘cup’ is a frequent biblical image of God’s bounty: the speaker’s use of it contrasts with Psalms xxiii 5: ‘thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over’.
26–35. These lines, together with ll. 57–68, suggest a contrast, not simply between secular and religious art, but between easel painting (portable and therefore saleable) and fresco (stationary: the usual medium of ecclesiastical art). Murray2 claims: ‘in the sixteenth century, it may be doubted whether any cabinet pictures, that is to say, moveable pictures, intended merely to hang upon the wall and be looked at as ornaments … ever existed’ (p. 428).
27. EBB. quoted ‘Ever new hearts made beat & bosoms swell’, and commented: ‘The construction seems to me to be entangled a little by this line, . . & the reader pauses before he clears the meaning to himself. Why not clear it for him by writing the line thus . . for instance . . ? “New hearts being made to beat, & breasts to swell” or something better which will strike you. Will you consider?’
And ] As, (1849–88).
28.] To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South or North, (1849–88, except ‘South, or’, 1870–88). For ‘Kaiser’ see Sordello i 78–9n., 131n. (I 399, 403).
32. DeVane (Handbook 156) suggests a reference to the Borgo Allegri in Rome, so named after a Madonna by Cimabue was carried along it. its event] the event (1865– 88). The 1845 reading involves an unusual sense of ‘event’, as meaning something like ‘appearance, apparition’.
33.] Till it reached home, where learned Age should greet (1849–88, except ‘age’, 1868–88). EBB. quoted ‘And thus to reach my home, where Age shd greet’, and commented: ‘Should you not write it . . “Of reaching thus my home” &c, the construction taking you back to what he dreamed of. First he dreamed “of going”— & then “of reaching” his home &c’. home: the picture’s ‘home’, where it is to be hung (not the painter’s literal home).
34. as yet] not yet (1849–88). With the 1845 text, cp. Wordsworth’s Ode: Intimations of Immortality, where ‘The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star’ fades for ‘The Youth, who daily farther from the east / Must travel’ (ll. 59, 72–3); note also ll. 122–3: ‘Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might / Of heaven-born freedom’. With the revised reading, cp. Soul’s Tragedy ii 634–41n. (II 217). Cp. also In a Balcony 688–9 (III 439): ‘I am not bid create, they see no star / Transfiguring my brow’.
36. pictures] picture (1849–88).
38. EBB. quoted ‘And then not go to Heaven &c’, adding: ‘Fine, all this!’
39. its] earth’s (1849–88).
40.] The thought grew frightful, ’twas so wildly dear! (1849–88).
41–56. Mrs Jameson (see headnote) cites one description of Bartolommeo as ‘a monk in the retirement of his cloister, shut out from the taunts and criticisms of the world’. Bullen (see headnote) argues that the ‘voice’ is that of Savanorola, whose preaching caused Fra Bartolommeo to destroy all his studies of nudes, and probably influenced his temporary abandonment of painting. According to Vasari, Bartolommeo was ‘a man of little courage, or rather, very timid and retiring’, and on the occasion of an attack upon a convent where he was staying, ‘began to be in great fear, and made a vow that if he escaped he would assume the religious habit’. But the parallel cannot be pressed too far: there is no evidence that Bartolommeo’s withdrawal expressed a distaste for commercialism, and B. presumably meant Pictor’s ‘voice’ to be understood metaphorically rather than literally, since without an explicit identification with Bartolommeo the reference to Savanorola could not be appreciated.
41. it!] it. (18652, 1868–88).
45.] Mixed with my loving trusting ones there trooped (1849–88, except ‘ones,’ 1870–88).
46. which] that (1849–88).
47. As asquat] Tho’ I stooped (1849–88, except ‘Though’, 1863–88).
48. And shrinking] Shrinking, as (1849–88).
50. EBB. quoted ‘These men may buy us, sell us, &c.’, and commented: ‘meaning pictures, by “us”. But the reader cannot see it until afterwards, & gets confused. Is it not so? And moreover I do think that by a touch or two you might give a clearer effect to the previous verses about the “jibing” &c’. These ‘previous verses’ were altered, beyond reconstruction.
52. needs must our pictures] our pictures needs must (1849–63).
55–6. Contrast B. to EBB., 24 May 1845: ‘I do myself justice, and dare call things by their names to myself, and say boldly, this I love, this I hate, this I would do, this I would not do, under all kinds of circumstances’ (Correspondence x 234–5).
57–61. If at whiles … regard: Murray2, speaking of ecclesiastical painters in fresco, comments: ‘From the fixed types of sacred subjects, transmitted from the earlier ages, no artist could dare to depart’ (p. 428). Speaking of Bartolommeo, Rio (see headnote) mentions that accusations of ‘powerlessness to draw the nude’ were perhaps intended to tempt him to ‘transgress the narrow circle of religious representations to which he had scrupulously confined himself ’ (p. 285).
57. chose] choose (18652).
58. paint] emended in agreement with all other eds. from ‘paint,’ in 1845.
60. Virgin, Babe, and Saint: Fra Bartolommeo (see headnote), along with Raphael, ‘evolved a new treatment … of the theme of the Madonna and Child with the Infant S. John in a Landscape’ (Oxford Companion to Art). See however ll. 26–35n. Cp. Lippo’s impatience, ‘A-painting for the great man, saints and saints / And saints again’ (Fra Lippo 48–9, p. 487).
63–9. Cp. Old Pictures 185–93 (pp. 423–4), where the ‘ghosts’ of the early Florentine painters ‘stand … Watching each fresco flaked and rasped, / Blocked up, knocked out, or whitewashed o’er / —No getting again what the church has grasped! / The works on the wall must take their chance, / “Works never conceded to England’s thick clime!” / (I hope they prefer their inheritance / Of a bucketful of Italian quick-lime.)’
67. travertine: a hard, white stone, used for building in Italy; cp. Tomb at St. Praxed’s 66n. (p. 241).
71. trump: trumpet. Fama (fame) ‘was worshipped by the ancients as a powerful goddess, and generally represented blowing a trumpet’ (Lemprière). Cp. Chaucer, House of Fame iii, where the goddess summons her trumpeter, Eolus, to proclaim either infamy with his ‘blake trumpe of bras’ (l. 545) or honour with his ‘trumpe of gold’ (l. 687).