Browning’s Depiction of Renaissance Art

Q. Write about Browning’s depiction of Renaissance art.

In the Victorian age of industrialism, governed by profits and market values, Art occupied a specialized but marginal position. The debate between those believed that art should have a social consciousness and responsibility and the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, who believed in “art for arts sake”, the elegant and classical composition, was underway in full force. The Renaissance witnessed the rebirth of the individual’s position in terms of art and a renewed appreciation of new cultures and that is perhaps why Browning persistently maintains that the art and the artist of that period offer an analysis of the present.

Five of Browning poems from 1842-55, “My Last Duchess”, “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church”, “Pictor Ignotus”, “Fra Lippo Lippi” and “Andre Del Sarto”, show an evolving and increasingly sophisticated response to the problem of meaning and value in art. In “My last Duchess”, the initial impression of the Duke is that of a connoisseur of art. The speaker of the poem, the Duke of Ferrara, is a connoisseur and collector of art objects, which he displays privately in order to impress people. The painting of the dead Duchess is realistic, lifelike, and shows the painter’s skill. This artistic quality is far more important to him than any sentimental value. In this poem, art and culture become tools for demonstrating social status – and ways to reduce unstable elements, like the Duchess herself, to things that can be physically controlled. The duke's appreciation of art reveals the control he has over the artists that produce his works of art; the portrait of his last duchess and the statue of Neptune. William Whitler in “Aesthetic Unity” says, “The duke has all the power of a Machiavellian prince; he has the knowledge of a man of culture, a patron of the arts, literature, sculpture, and painting…. The duke’s attitude towards art is a selfish delight in mere possession.”

In “Fra...