Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!”
In two and one-half lines it gives a powerful suggestion of admiration for art because it was fashionable, of emphasis on technique rather than content, of the classical subject matter and bronze material that were in vogue at the time, and of the character expressed in the intellectual but heartless Duke’s purpose of taming the Duchess.
The Bishop orders his Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church (1845) is imaginary in its narrative, and probably in all the sculpture named, though the church of Santa Prassede, in Rome, by its richness of decoration, and by a tomb similar to the one the Bishop is represented as desiring, gave the suggestion for the poem. Probably in all literature there is no more skilful summary of a corrupt churchman’s attitude toward his church, his fellow churchmen, the future, earthly love, and art. The characterization is both fearless and powerful. This poem and My Last Duchess are companion studies. Both the Duke and the Bishop are fond of power and prestige, both are jealous and envious, each displays his attitude toward woman and toward art. The Bishop has more feeling, though it is largely feeling for himself; and the Duke possesses more icy pride. Each values art, particularly sculpture, as something for display, something luxurious and (contrary to the highest ideas of art) something beyond the power of common people to appreciate. The poems deal with the same period, but My Last Duchess is a summary of the secular attitude, The Bishop orders his Tomb presents the view of an official of the church.
Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day (1850), in a section devoted to the reverie of the seeker for religious truth after his inspection of Catholicism at Rome, censures the attitude of the early church toward the physical beauty of the statuary Italy had inherited from Greece. While the subject of the poem is religion, not art, incidentally it contains one of Browning’s best defences of the nude. He viewed the nude as a fitting expression of the beauty God has placed in the world, and rejoiced in the “noble daring, steadfast duty, The heroic in action or in passion,” or even the merely beautiful physique—all as presented in sculpture. In Chapter VI will be found further mention of the nude, in connection with Francis Furini (1887).[171] The Lady and the Painter, a non-Italianate poem, published in the Asolando group (1889), also throws further light on Browning’s attitude toward the nude. These two poems are of interest in the present discussion, however, only because they prove the attitude expressed in 1850 to have been a permanent one.
In The Statue and the Bust, the art references were not introduced for their own sake, but because they suggested a situation with dramatic possibilities. The statue of Duke Ferdinand exists as Browning pictured it. The bust seems to be an addition for poetic purposes, but it conforms to the spirit of the palace decorations, in that it was made of Robbia ware, for traces of that material still adorned the palace when the poem was written.
In Sordello (1840), the first poem containing any reference to Italian sculpture, the castle of Goito, the early home of Sordello, is rich in sculpturesque effects. “Those slim pillars, ... Cut like a company of palms—Some knot of bacchanals, flushed cheek combined With straining forehead, shoulders purpled—A dullish grey-streaked cumbrous font ... shrinking Caryatides, Of just-tinged marble—” all present a physical setting. They do more, however, than merely locate. Their lonely magnificence harmonizes with the tone of the story, and they exercise an influence on the nature of the dreaming, beauty-loving Sordello.
The best examples of sculpture used purely for setting are found in The Ring and the Book. Containing only its few references to pieces of sculpture in Florence and Rome, it is the one of the list of poems in which this art is least prominent. It presents no picture of a period, no discussion of an attitude toward art, no poetical background of the times aided by art references. Each instance tells us that at such-and-such a place in Rome, in sight of the statue named, a certain event occurred. “Toward Baccio’s Marble” (Part I, l. 44) is used to help locate the Florentine book-stall where Browning found the ‘old yellow book’ that became the basis of the poem. Part I, l. 889, quotes an example of the current gossip in Rome, as taking place “i’ the market-place O’ the Barberini by the Capucins; Where the old Triton ... Puffs up steel sleet.” This instance serves as setting, and further, in a continuation of the description—“out o’ the way O’ the motley merchandising multitude”—contrasts the quiet, regular play of the fountain to the turmoil of the characters. Part VI refers to Pasquin’s statue in a double comparison which emphasizes Pompilia’s innocence in contrast to the bestiality of the squibs that were formerly posted on the statue. In Part XI Guido says his first sight of an instrument for beheading was ‘At the Mouth-of-Truth o’ the river-side you know, Retiring out of noisy crowded Rome’—a reference which serves as a definite means of location.
Yet all instances from The Ring and the Book prove little concerning Browning’s interest in art, or his specialized attention to sculpture. The fact that pieces of statuary serve a man as landmarks in Florence or Rome implies little beyond an effort at clearness in location. The Ring and the Book, then, in sculpture, is interesting rather for absence than for presence of such references. In fact sculpture is not prominent in the Italian art references of Browning. Not only is it a lesser art quantitatively in Browning’s poetry, but it seems to be placed on a distinctly lower plane. Reasons for these facts, are, in part, the predominance of the other arts over sculpture in Italy, and the particular quality of sculpture as an art which makes it tend toward the expression of physical beauty instead of the soul.
Though Browning himself did some work in modeling,[172] he used very few technical terms connected with that art. Since he never put a sculptor speaker on the stage of his poet-world, one does not expect to hear the language of that art spoken. The Duke and the Bishop, it is true, express considerable interest in art, though it is rather in the dilettante spirit than that of serious criticism. “Caryatides,” used in Sordello, and “caritellas,” evidently used for cartellas[173] seem to be almost the only instances of technical—or semi-technical—terms connected with sculpture.