FRA LIPPO LIPPI BY ROBERT BROWNING

By Poem Analysis

‘Fra Lippo Lippi’ by Robert Browning is a dramatic monologue running the length of 392 lines. The poem
is written in blank verse with each line following the meter of iambic pentameter. There are five beats per
line, each beginning with an unstressed syllable, and ending with a stressed one. It is important that this
poem not be confined by a rhyme scheme as Browning needs the lines to sound like a conversation is
taking place. This helps the reader imagine that they too are participating in the rapid storytelling.

SUMMARY
● ‘Fra Lippo Lippi’ by Robert Browning details the difficult, tumultuous, and sometimes scandalous
life of the painter Fra Lippo Lippi.

The poem begins as the painter and monk Lippo Lippi, also the poem's narrator, is caught by some
authority figures while roving his town's red light district. As he begins, he is being physically accosted by
one of the police. He accuses them f being overzealous and that he need not be punished. It is not until
he name-drops "Cosimo of the Medici" (from the ruling family of Florence) as a nearby friend that he is
released.

He then addresses himself specifically to the band's leader, identifying himself as the famous painter and
then suggesting that they are all, himself included, too quick to bow down to what authority figures
suggest. Now free, he suggests that the listener allow his subordinates to wander off to their own devices.
Then he tells how he had been busy the past three weeks shut up in his room, until heard a band of merry
revelers passing by and used a ladder to climb down to the streets to pursue his own fun. It was while
engaged in that fun that he was caught, and he defends himself to the judgmental listener, asking "what
am I a beast for?" if not to pursue his beastly appetites.

It is then that Lippo begins to tell his life story. He was orphaned while still a baby and starved until his
aunt gave him over to a convent. When the monks there asked if he was willing to renounce the world in
service of monk-hood, Lippo was quick to agree since renouncing the world meant a steady supply of
food in the convent. He quickly took to the "idleness" of a monk's life, even at eight years old, but was
undistinguished in any of the studies they had him attempt.

His one talent was the ability to recreate the faces of individuals through drawings, partially because as a
starving child he was given great insight into the details that distinguished one face from another and the
way those faces illustrated different characteristics. Instead of studying in the convent, he devoted himself
to doodles and drawings, until the Prior noticed his talent and assigned him to be the convent's artist.

As the convent's artist, Lippo proceeded to paint a myriad of situations, all drawn from the real world The
common manks loved his work since in his artistry they could recognize images from their everyday lives.
However, "the Prior and the learned" do not admire Lippo's focus on realistic subjects, instead insisting
that the artist's job is not to pay "homage to the perishable clay" of flesh and body, but to transcend the
body and attempt to reveal the soul. They insist that he paint more saintly images, focusing on
representations of praise and saintliness instead of everyday reality.

Lippo protests to his listener that a painter can reveal the soul through representations of the body, since
"simple beauty" is "about the best thing God invents." Lippo identifies this as the main conflict of his
otherwise-privileged life: where he wants to paint things as they are, his masters insist he paint life from a
moral perspective. As much as he hates it, he must acquiesce to their wishes in order to stay successful,
and hence he must go after prostitutes and other unsavory activity, like the one he was caught involved in
at poem's beginning. As a boy brought up poor and in love with life, he cannot so easily forget his artistic
impulse to represent life as he sees it to be.

He then speaks to the listener about what generations of artists owe one another and how an artist who
breaks new ground must always flaunt the conventions. He mentions a painter named Hulking Tom who
studies under him, who Lippo believes will further reinvent artistic practice in the way he himself has done
through pursuing realism.

He poses to his listener the basic question whether it is better to "paint [things] just as they are," or to try
to improve upon God's creations. He suggests that even in reproducing nature, the artist has the power to
help people to see objects that they have taken for granted in a new light. He grows angry thinking of how
his masters ruin the purpose of art, but quickly apologies before he might anger the policeman.

He then tells his listener about his plan to please both his masters and himself. He is planning to paint at
great piece of religious art that will show God, the Madonna, and "of course a saint or two." However, in
the corner of the painting, he will include a picture of himself watching the scene. He then fantasizes
aloud how a "sweet angelic slip of a thing" will address him in the painting, praising his talent and
authorship, until the "hothead husband" comes and forces Lippi to hide away in the painting. Lippo bids
goodbye to his listener and heads back home.

ANALYSIS

Lines 1-14
This narrative, told solely from the perspective of the artist Fra Lippo Lippi, begins with the man being
accosted by police. He is telling his name to the policemen in the hopes that they will recognize him and
let him go. The speaker learns that Lippi is also a monk. He lives at the “Carmine cloister” and that he is
deceitful enough to pretend that the policemen were targeting him unfairly. He was indeed hoping to get
into a “house of ill-repute” to see the “sportive ladies,” or prostitutes, but feigns outrage. He says that
these policemen, or guardsmen, must have seen a monk and thought it would be a good time to “show
[their] zeal,” or demonstrate how strong and professional they are.

Lippi hopes that the men will take offense at his remarks and leave him alone. He compares their
attempted arrest of him to a rat who “haps on his wrong hole.” The policemen have stumbled into the
wrong “company.” It appears that this technique is not working and that the men are not backing off. Lippi
has a new idea and says, “Aha, you know your betters.” He commands one of the men to take his hand
“away that’s fiddling on my throat” by threatening retaliation due to who he is.

Lines 15-25
It is not until Lippi declares his friendship with the powerful “Cosimo of the Medici” that the officers back
off. He tells them that he is employed “the house that caps the corner.” This connection is such an
important one that, in an attempt to scare them further, he asks the men to remember to tell him “the day
you’re hanged” for accosting Lippi.

He continues to insult the police officers, referring to them as “knaves” and telling them that they are no
better than the fishermen who sweep the ocean and drag in whatever their net catches. He asks if he is a
“pilchard,” a small commonly caught fish. He finishes his lines of insults by calling the men “Judas.”
Lines 26-38
At this point, it appears that the guards are apologizing for their “mistake.” Lippi tells them that he is not
angry at them for what they’ve done and that their “hang-dogs,” or tired companions, should take this
“quarter-florin” and toast a drink to the house of the Medici. They are all square in the end.

The painter motions to one of the police officers, and tells his compatriots that he would like to use that
man’s face as the inspiration for “John Baptist’s head a-dangle by the hair / With one hand.” This
comment is both threatening and reconciliatory. Unfortunately, this painting or drawing is not going to
happen as there is no “chalk” close by.

Lines 39-50
After saying these lines Lippi takes the opportunity to announce to the men, after being recognized, that
he is “the painter” in question. This comment encourages Lippi to launch into the larger story of his life.
He wants to make sure that he can set this whole situation straight. He believes, or at least says, that they
need to know more details of his life.

At the beginning of the story, it is springtime and the painter is working on a number of paintings, all of
which seem to concern saints. This is a tedious subject for him and the poet emphasizes that by
repeating, “saints and saints / And saints again.” The artist is exhausted, stating that he could not “paint
all night.” He “leaned out of window for fresh air” and something catches his attention below.

Lines 51-61
Down below his window are a number of performers with “lutes” playing music, as well as people
laughing. This environment is much more desirable to the painter, so after singing along to the songs for a
few lines, he makes the decision to descend to the festival.

Lines 62-75
Instead of taking the stairs to the ground level, Lippi decides the best course of action is to “shred”
different items of cloth and use them as a ladder to get to the street. He does so, and “scrambling
somehow,” manages to make it. The group of people that Lippi had seen celebrating are moving down the
street and he catches up with them “by Saint Lawrence” church. This church is known today as the burial
place for many of the Medici family. This church is located in Florence, Italy, solidifying the setting of the
poem.

It was after this celebration that Lippi was grabbed on his way “to bed and have a bit of sleep.” He claims
that he must “rise up to-morrow and go work” on a painting of St. Jerome in the wilderness. This is when
the policemen grabbed Lippi and demanded to know what he was doing. He claims, they just mistook his
intentions.

Lines 76-87
As Lippo is telling this section of the story he is watching one guard and sees that his “eye twinkles still,”
and that he is shaking his “head” as if he does not believe him. It does seem that he is entertained by this
story though and is prepared to let Lippo continue for a while longer.

The guard is surprised and judgmental. In the shake of his head, he seems to say “a monk.” As if he does
not believe a monk would get up to such trouble. Lippi attempts to brush this off and claiming camaraderie
is the guard, asks that if Cosimo were to approach them that he would say nothing to the story Lippi just
told.
At this point in Lippi’s monologue, he travels back in time to when he was “a baby” and experienced his
mother and father dying. Their deaths left him “in the street” and it was there that he starved for “year or
two.” He ate whatever he could find and the “wind doubled me up,” it was cold and punishing to Lippi’s
body.

Lines 88-105
Partially during this time period his aunt, “Lappacia” looked after him “with one hand.” It is clear that she
did not do very much to support him and perhaps hit him.

One day Lippi was walking along “the wall, over the bridge, / By the straight cut to the convent.” It was
from the monks there that he had his “first bread that month.” While he was eating, the “good fat father”
who gave him the bread asks if he is prepared to give up “this very miserable world” and become a monk.

Lippi knows that he does not really want this, but he does “renounce the world, its pride and greed” as
well as all the grand places. He was eight years old at the time and enjoyed the idleness of a monk’s life.
He was “warm” and always had a “good bellyful.” This time of relaxation did not last though.

Lines 106-126
Soon the other monks were trying to find a use for him. They attempted to make him study and learn
Latin. But he found this to be a waste of time. The only word that he remembers is “amo” or “I love.”

He wants his listeners to remember that this was a very pleasant alternative to living on the streets. His
“fortune” was much improved. It is better than begging for bits of food and trying to judge who will hit him
or help him.

Lippi also wants the listeners to know that some of the time he had to fight with dogs for their scraps.
While this was a miserable time, he was able to learn a lot about how to judge other people.

Lines 127-142
The expressions of men that he became so intimate with served as the inspiration for the first portraits he
drew. His sketches were done on “my copy-books,” or workbooks, and often on sheet music. Additionally,
he was not afraid of drawing on the walls, something that made the monks very unhappy.

Some, such as the Prior of the monastery, believe that he should be kicked out, and if he wasn’t, that they
should train him to do something else. This “something else” ends up being the start of his training as an
artist. He will help them “put the front on” the church that the monks have wanted.

Lines 143-164
In this section of the poem Lippo is describing the beginning of his career and how, as he was training
and learning, he started by drawing “every sort of monk.” He drew the “black and white” as well as the “fat
and lean.” He also studied “folk at church.”

He wanted to paint every type of person and scene. He painted young girls and even a murderer
surrounded by children. The poet describes these images vividly. It is easy to see why Lippo was
entranced by them and chose to spend time painting them.
Lines 165-178
Lippo has spent a lot of time painting at this point and wants to show off what he has done. He hangs up
what he has done on the walls of his room and all of the monks “closed in a circle and praised loud.” They
were greatly impressed by his realism and were even able to recognize specific faces and scenes, such
as the “boy who stoops to pat the dog.”

This triumph with the monks soon comes to an end as the higher-ranking members of the monastery,
including the Prior, come to see his work. The Prior is clearly upset by what he sees and says, “How?
What’s here?” He does not appreciate what Lippo has done. He does not consider it proper panting but
something from the devil.

Lines 179-198
The Prior attempts, in this section, to adequately describe why he does not like Lippo’s work. He believes
that it is a painter’s job to “lift” men above the world not show them as part of it. The Prior wants Lippo to
depict the human soul, but even he cannot come to a solid answer about what that is. He tries to
articulate his thoughts but is ultimately unable.

An artist that he believes Lippo should try to copy is “Giotto” who mastered the art of religious painting.
The Prior is so outraged by the painting, especially the depiction of his “niece” whose breasts he
suspiciously notices, that he tells Lippo to get rid of all of the work he has made.

Lines 199-214
The artist is horrified by the prospect of destroying his paintings and in an attempt to rebuff the Prior he
asks what the point is in “painting body, So ill.” He wants to know if he cannot do both what he wants and
what the Prior wants, paint the body and the soul.

He gives the example of the “Prior’s niece” and how her beautiful face will only expand a viewer’s
understanding of her soul, not impede it.

Lines 215-230
Lippo also offers another side to the argument that the Prior should find even less tolerable, the idea that
the body is painted and the soul is completely ignored, or “simple beauty.”

Since Lippo is already angry, he takes the argument further. He reveals his irritation with the fact that he
was taken into the monastery at eight years old when he did not have another choice. This decision has
made him miss out on a lot of life that he is interested in. He is, he says, “a man no doubt.” He states that
he will not be told what to do any longer and that he is his “ own master” and that he will “paint now as” he
pleases.

Lippo is not without choices now that he is grown up. He has a friend in the “Corner-house,” referring to
Cosimo Medici to whom he can go.

Lines 231-249
Although Lippo has Cosimo Medici to depend on, the monks still will not leave him alone. They are
always there telling him that if he does not work harder he will never reach the likes of other monk
painters such as “Brother Angelico” or “Brother Lorenzo” both of whom the monks consider great artists.
They tell Lippo he will not even finish in third place.
Lippo spends the next lines of the poem singing another song, similar to that featured at the beginning of
the piece. He does not give much credence to the opinions of the monks as “their Latin” does not make
them art scholars. He does try to please the monks sometimes, but sometimes he decides he does not
care and paints what he likes.

Lines 250-269
In this section of the poem the painter informs his listeners that it is not the only painting that he wants
independence in, but life itself. “The world and life’s too big to pass for a dream,” he does not want
everything to pass him by when he never wanted to be a monk in the first place. It is this impulse that he
satisfies when he sneaks out of the house.

The poet tells a short story that is meant to illustrate his own situation. He sees himself as a “mill-horse”
that enjoys eating grass for its own pleasure, not just as a way to make “chaff” or hay. The earthly
pleasure that the horse receives from eating is similar to that which the speaker gets from living and he
does not see a problem with it. It seems as if, even though he knows what he wants, he still holds some
respect for the monks and wants to know what they really believe. Many, he states, profess not to like
something but do it anyway.

He sees the world as the garden that God created for man and woman. He “learned” this lesson well and
“can’t unlearn ten minutes afterwards.” He will not soon forget it.

Lines 270-292
Lippo continues his story by putting himself down, calling himself a “beast.” Lippo is trying to explain to
the officers who are listening to his story that there is another boy at the monastery who is just like him.
The young man is learning how to paint and will soon be led to the experiences of life. This boy is large,
so much so that Lippo refers to him as “Hulking Tom.”

He tells the guard that neither of them speaks Latin, so they should have a similar opinion. He is trying to
flatter the man and says that the guard must have “seen the world.” Lippo wants to know if the man feels
“thankful” to God for making the beautiful world they live in. The speaker is hoping that the guard will
understand his impulse to paint and reproduce the world in which they live. Just because it is not
intrinsically religious, does not mean that it should be “passed over” and “despised.”

Lines 293-309
The painter anticipates an argument from the guard and preemptively mentions it. He says that the guard
might be wondering why to bother painting these at all, “His,” or God’s, “works / Are here already.” There
is no need to duplicate them.

In an effort to dismiss this idea the pointer points to a woman nearby asking the guard, “Suppose you
reproduce her”? He makes sure to tell the guard that there’s no way, with no painting skills, he could do it.
But if he did, “There’s no advantage.” One must “beat her,” make something that is even more beautiful.
Paintings make people better, more beautiful, and they will last longer so that one may see the perfect
version of someone’s face long after they are gone.

God gave man art for this purpose. For example, he says, have you looked at your own “cullion” or
rascal-like face? Lippo states that he would be able to fix it with only a piece of chalk.
Lines 310-335
Lippo knows that if he was able to paint “higher things,” to even a grander standard than they already
exist, there would be no need for the Prior to preaching as he does. He would take the “Prior’s
pulpit-place” and do the preaching instead. The speaker continues on to state that it “makes [ him] mad”
that he will not get to see all the changes taking place in the world after he is in his grave. His purpose in
life is to find meaning in the world, that is the only reason he has been put on earth.

The Prior’s words jump back into Lippo’s head as if he is continually haunted by them. The meaning that
Lippo is sussing out is not the right one, by the Prior’s standards. It does not tell the common people that
they need to come to church.

If that is all art is about, the world might as well do away with it and replace it with a “bell to chime the
hour with. Lippo wants another example to prove his point so he tells his listeners of a “fresco,” or painting
on wet plaster that was immensely popular during the Renaissance, that he completed at the church of
Saint Lawrence. The people of Florence have defaced his painting, they do not understand what he was
trying to. His work does not compute with their world view and they have “scratched and prodded” at the
wall. It “eased” them to do so. Lippo does mention in these lines that his painting, so hated by the
“fool[ish]” public, has caused them to pray with greater reverence and return to church more often.

Lines 336-359
At the beginning of this section of lines, Lippo is backtracking. He does not want the guards to get too
upset about what he has said and report him. He tells them that it has just been “idle” talk that was
“Spoken in a huff.” He reminds the men that he has a head full of “Chianti wine!”

The painter seems to have reached the point where he feels bad about what he has said or at least
worried he’s going to get in trouble. He tells the guards that he is plotting to “make amends” with the
church. The “plot” he coming up with regards the painting of a piece at “Sant’Ambrogio’s.” His plan is to
“paint God in the midst, Madonna and her babe.” These characters will be “Ringed by” a “flowery…brood”
of angels with sweet faces and flowers.
Other characters in this painting will include “Saint John’…because he saves the Florentines” as well as
“Saint Ambrose.”

Lines 360-375
There is a “dark stair” in the corner of the painting as well as a “great light, / Music and talking.” From that
portion of the wall, Lippo will paint himself. It was common practice during the Renaissance for painters to
add themselves into large scale paintings, oftentimes as commoners, or unremarkable observers of a
scene. He will show himself to be “Mazed, motionless, moonstruck” by what he is observing.

Even within the confines of the planned painting, Lippo does not feel like he belongs in the religious world.
He will attempt to make an escape, “Back I shrink…” but before he can leave, he is trapped. He gets
“caught up with [his] monk’s things by mistake” and all wrapped up in his “gown and rope.” He is unable to
get away, especially after an angel confronts him.

The angel who has stopped Lippo then turns to the other characters in the painting and tells them that this
man, who is trying to get away “made you and devised you,” though, he is not like you.
Lines 376-392
The angels in the painting “come” to brother Lippo because of that and say, “Iste perfecit opus!” or “that is
the person who made this.” In this complicated narrative that the painter is weaving, his painted self is
covered by “a hundred wings” and “kirtles,” a type of dress worn by women, are thrown over him. The
angels want to play games with the painter and close to the door to the room. This risqué daydream is
interrupted by “The hothead husband!”

To escape his rage, the painter scuttles “off / To some safe bench behind.” He is still with the first angel
who spoke to him and is holding “The palm of her.” She reminds him of the “Prior’s niece” or “Saint Lucy.”

He quickly jumps out of this narrative, back into the original story he had been telling the guards. After he
paints this complex picture everything will be right with the church. The guards themselves will see the
truth of his statement in “six months hence.”

Lippo runs from the guards at this point, stating that he is not in need of help or any kind of light. The
street is very quiet as he runs and the “grey” is “beginning,” the sun is rising.

ABOUT ROBERT BROWNING

Robert Browning was born in Camberwell, London in May of 1812. His father was able to accumulate a
large library containing around 6,000 books. This would form the basis of Browning’s early education and
stimulate his interest in literature.
From early in his life Browning’s family supported his poetic aspirations and helped him financially as well
as with the publishing of his first works. He lived with his family until he met and married the fellow poet
Elizabeth Barrett. Elizabeth and Robert moved to live in Florence, Italy. They had a son in 1849 and
Browning’s rate of production dropped off significantly. Elizabeth, now known by her married name,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, died in 1861. After this, Browning and his son moved back to England.
After receiving mixed reviews from critics when he was young, Browning finally gained some critical
acclaim when he was in his 50s. His greatest work, The Ring and the Book, was published in 1868-69.
Before Browning’s death in 1889 in Venice, he lived to see the formation of the Browning Society and
received an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law from Balliol College at Oxford University. He is buried in
Westminster Abbey.
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Robert Browning (7 May 1812 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of
dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. Fra
Lippo Lippi is an 1855 dramatic monologue Throughout this poem, Browning depicts a 15th century
real-life painter. Eilippo Lippi, who faces the conflict of a religious life committed to the Church or a life of
leisure. The poem asks the question whether art should be true to life or an idealized image of life. The
poem is written in blank verse. lines that do not rhyme and mostly in jambic pentameter.

A secondary theme of the dramatic monologue is the Church's influence on art. Although Fra Lippo paints
real life pictures, it is the Church that requires him to redo much of it, instructing him to paint the soul, not
the flesh. (Paint the soul. never mind the legs and arms!). Aside from the theme of the Church and its
desires to change the way holiness is represented artistically, this poem also attempts to construct a way
of considering the secular with the religious in terms of how a "holy" person can conduct his life.
Questions of celibacy, church law, and the canon are considered as well by means of secondary
characters.
Throughout the poem, "Fra Lippo Lippi" Browning seems to be engaging in a dialogue with the Church
regarding celibacy both in the artistic and sexual sense. The feelings of the poem's narrator can easily be
seen as Browning's own critique and while the main theme concerns art, the strict sense in which the
church views artistic pursuits and products is similar to the way it requires priests to live celibate lives.
While the church's main argument is that art should be presented as something "higher" than the base
representation of the human form, this denies the essential humanity of the subject, God's people. Along
these same lines, the way the church frowns upon sexual, lustful activity on the part of its clergy by
demanding celibacy is exactly the same request as for the artist. Both demands of the church, artistic and
sexual, are idealized conceptions of how humans should be represented and both, according to the
narrator of the poem, are entirely unrealistic and misguided. Through this poem. Browning is arguing
against mandatory celibacy for priests and is suggesting, through the story and artistic struggle of Fra
Lippo Lippi, that the demands of the church go against human nature. We are all, to use Browning's word.
"beasts" thus prone to the same desires that the church wishes to "rub out".

The narrator of the poem by Browning, "Fra Lippo Lippi" argues that his life in cloister has been unnatural
and restraining and bemoans the lack of life he is allowed to experience (although he obviously breaks
the miles). The mandatory celibacy is made even more absurd when the Fra point out, "You should not
take a fellow eight years old/ And make him swear to never kiss the girls" (224-25). Earlier in the poem,
he speaks of this in terms of other boys that had been brought into cloister by openly saying with great
meaning. "Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici Have given their hearts to all at eight years old"
(100-101). He seems to see this celibacy as a terrible waste of youth and life-both of which he values
above all else. He seeks to represent truth through art, despite the fact that everything in his life is geared
towards a completely celibate existence-both in art, sexuality, and life. The story of his life can be
summed up in the simple phrase on line 221. "Rub all out! Well, well, there's my life in short." He has
been told to extinguish the art and the humanity, thus the keen sexual desire that longs to be free.

Browning, through the character of Fra Lippo Lippi. creates meaning of the poem by suggesting that the
unreal expectations thrust upon him by the church authority go against all that is natural in human beings,
Just as his artwork seeks to preserve the central nature of the human form, his mindset and lustful
appetites are part of this preservation of unrealistic ideals of celibacy. In mocking the demands put upon
by the church, the narrator relates these demands: "Your business is not to catch men with show. / with
homage to the perishable clay, / But life them over it, ignore it all, / Make them forger there's such a thing
as flesh" (179-182). The church's desire for unrealistic representation extends from art to the idea that
celibacy should be adhered to and they wish to make parishioners and clergy alike wipe out ideas of the
sinful flesh.

Ultimately, the whole of the poem is a criticism on mandatory celibacy, which is told through the metaphor
of art. If art, like sexual desire, cannot be expressed, then it would seem that religion is somehow a lie,
that there is always something lurking under the surface. The narrator points out not only the hypocrisy of
these celibacy rules, but the inherent flaws that exist within them, namely, that humans are creatures of
the flesh.
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INTRODUCTION

This unit brings to you a reading of Robert Browning's famous poem "Fra Lippo Lippi''. Based on the life
of a 15 century Italian painter and a Carmelite friar named Fra Fillipo de Tommaso Lippi, the poem raises
various questions on the role of art and artist in the aesthetic and spiritual life of an individual as well as
the society. The poem is a dramatic monologue where the poet tries to demarcate the differences in
attitude and philosophy of the Medieval and Renaissance artists on art. This poem is a good example of
Browning as a humorist in English poetry. This intellectually alluring poem, with references to a number of
saints and many other contemporary painters, makes a unique combination of caustic irony and cutting
laughter with the sober discussions on the nature and role of art in the individual and social lives of
Renaissance. As you read through this unit, you will understand how under the layer of the ludic (playful),
Browning beautifully presents a discussion of some of the most serious debates on the idea of art in this
poem.

READING THE POEM

Before you start reading the poem "Fra Lippo Lippi", it is important for you to have some idea about the
context of the poem. This poem is based on the life of Fra Filipo di Tommaso Lippi (1406 69), an eminent
painter of 15th century Italy, who had a major influence in the moulding of intellectual and aesthetic
environments in early Renaissance Italy. Fra Lippo Lippi was one of the early painters to break away from
the conventional forms of ecclesiastical painting practiced by the masters like Lorenzo Monaco and Fra
Angelico. You should note that the Italian Renaissance is a period of great cultural change and
achievement that began in Italy around the end of the 13" century and lasted until the 16 century. It was
the earliest manifestation of the general European Renaissance that marked a transition between
Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Although the origins of the movement is confined largely to the
literate culture of intellectual endeavour and patronage in the earlier part of the 14 century, many aspects
of Italian culture and society remained largely Medieval at that time.

In "Fra Lippo Lippi". Browning uses the historical figure in order to compare the writers and artists of his
time with the artist of the 15 century. "Fra Lippo Lippi" is one of the many poems, where Browning seeks
to examine the condition of contemporary poetry and art. The poem starts with Lippi addressing the civil
guards who have arrested the painter-monk in a drunken state in the dead of night on his way home after
visiting one of his mistresses. The poem constitutes of Lippi's monologue. Lippi, while justifying his
unsaintly behaviour, bursts out his discontentment against the prevalent conventions of arts and
aesthetics and pours forth a spirited explanation of his views. The guards, who have found the monk
loitering in his neighbourhood at an alley's end/Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar, are
necessarily surprised at this unexpected disposition of a friar. Lippi introduces himself as the artist who is
patronized by Cosimo de Medici, an influential political leader of Florence and a great patron of art in his
time. As the guards recognise the artist, their attitude gradually changes and Lippi comes to ease and
starts his conversation with the guards. However, by the very nature of a dramatic monologue, what you
will get of the conversation is only the dialogues of Lippi. It is only from Lippi's dialogues that you will
gather your ideas of the speeches made by the other characters.

Lippi asserts that, despite his social identity as a monk, he prefers to indulge in the life of sensuality:
"...flesh and blood, That's all I'm made off" He does not want to deprive his body of the pleasures
demands; so when he saw some people enjoying themselves in the carnival night, he stole himself from
his work and participated in the merrymaking when the guards caught sight of him. Now Lippi opens up
the story of his life-how he has become a monk not by his choice but by circumstances.
Lippi lost his parents when he was a baby: he somehow survived on the streets for one or two years
when somebody took him to the monastery. For the starving boy, the food and shelter that the church
offered was the only source of life. Therefore, for the sake of his daily bread, he renounced the life of
sensuality at the age of eight years.

"So, boy, you're minded," quoth the good fat father

Wiping his own mouth, 't was refection-time --
"To quit this very miserable world?
Will you renounce"... "the mouthful of bread?" thought I;
By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me:
I did renounce the world, its pride and greed,
Palace, farm, villa, shop and banking-house,
Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici
Have given their hearts to all at eight years old."
(Lines 93-101)

Lippi so emphatically tries to justify his transgressive sexuality:

"You should not take a fellow eight years old

And make him swear never to kiss the girls"
(Lines 224-225)

At the monastery, the friars tried to teach him Latin, but it proved to be a useless project. He found no
interest in the learning of Latin and comprehending the abstract ideas that literature in Latin referred to.
His life as a street urchin has sharpened his senses and his knowledge of life; as such, the physical world
around him seemed more appealing for him. The faces of people on the streets. the animals, the shapes
and colour of things have taught him to find meanings in the earthly objects and to think beyond what is
visible

Lippi gradually turns his discussions on to his experiences and reflections over his practice of painting,
From his childhood, he developed the skills of drawing figures familiar to him and later started drawing the
figures of people around him. The poem thematically centres round the discussion of art that Lippi starts
here. The figures that he painted impress the people in his community. Everyone is pleasingly amazed at
his talent; and this show of talent gains him a higher place at the monastery However, his tendency to
depict reality as it visibly is comes into conflict with the stated religious goals of the Church. The subjects
of Lippi's paintings were drawn from the life he had seen and experienced. The friars fear that their
parishioners may be distracted by witnessing people they know. depicted within the painting. Therefore,
the Prior reminds Lippi:

"Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all!

Faces, arms, legs and bodies like the true
As much as pea and pea! it's devil's-game!
Your business is not to catch men with show,
With homage to the perishable clay,
But lift them over it, ignore it all,
Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh.
Your business is to paint the souls of men."
(Lines 175-183)
The conflict between Lippi and the Prior echoes a few primary debates about the nature and purpose of
art: is the primary purpose art-and, here, Lippi's art-to instruct, or to delight. If it is to instruct, is it better to
provide men with ordinary scenes to which they can relate, or to offer them celestial visions to which they
can aspire? Lippi vigorously rejects what the Prior claims to be the desired nature of art. While the friars
plead him to renounce sensuality in his arts, he indulges himself deeply in depicting sensuous bodies in
his paintings. Lippi portrays Prior's niece, who is actually Lippi's mistress, as the seductive Salome. In
fact, as Lippi tries to assert, the objections from the Church authorities come not from any real religious
concern, but from a concern for their own reputation. Lippi has appeared too close to the truthful depiction
of the actual characters of persons around him.

Browning, through this debate between the Prior and Lippi, tries to reinforce the irony implicated in the
gap between appearance and reality. The recurrent reference to the niece of the Prior serves Browning as
a key structural element on this purpose. The niece first appears in the poem when the monks, marvelling
over Lippi's ability to draw lifelike figures, notice a figure like her. "That woman's like the Prior's niece who
comes/To care about his asthma: the life!" (170-171) The Prior vigorously rejects his paintings and
advises him to concentrate on the soul of men:

"Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms!

Rub all out, try at it a second time.
Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts,
She's just my niece... Herodias, I would say -
Who went and danced and got men's heads cut off!
Have it all out! "Now, is this sense, I ask?
A fine way to paint soul, by painting body
So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further."
(Lines 193-198)

The diction and punctuation of this passage shows some amount of change of tone, as dramatised by
Lippi, descriptive of the Prior's reaction to the discovery of his niece in the painting. He is annoyed at
seeing his niece in such a sensuous disposition in the painting, whereas Lippi maintains that the beautiful
creations of God, like the niece, should be given due respect in artistic creations, which will further open
the doors for understanding the grandeur of soul. "If you get simple beauty and not else, / You get about
the best thing that God invents: (217-218)

LET US KNOW

The dramatic monologue that you are reading here tries to reconstruct the ethos of the Renaissance through
the worldviews of a painter. Inspired by Vasari's Lives, Browning's Fra Lippo Lippi comes out as a complete
embodiment of the Renaissance spirit. He is a bohemian artist who takes pleasure in depicting the sensuous and
beautiful objects around him in his painting-an act that he perceives as the interpretations of the works of
God for men. Contrasting sharply with the medieval outlook towards art, he holds that the portrayal of human
forms and bodies is a superior path leading to God than the mere portrayal of the soul.

Every appearance of the Prior's niece heightens the implicit irony of the gap between appearance and
reality to a newer level. The significance of the niece in the poem is not fully revealed until. in his final
mention of her, Lippi hints at an illicit relationship where she is involved:
"The hothead husband! Thus I scuttle off
To some safe bench behind, not letting go
The palm of her, the little lily thing
That spoke the good word for me in the nick,
Like the Prior's niece... Saint Lucy, would say
And so all's saved for me, and for the church,
A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence!"
(Lines 383-387)

This is an outrageous passage, which is one of the most Chaucerian things that Browning ever wrote.
The prior's niece is representative of both sensual and earthily beauty which is intricately combined with
illicit love. She exposes the blindness of the Prior in who fails to appreciate the place of beauty in art. Her
portrayal by Lippo ridicules the Prior and the monastic order by hinting at their hypocrisy and pretensions
in life.

Browning's Lippi comes out as a confusing, ambiguous and deceptive character. He is a heretic who
blasphemes and visits brothels and a devout and serious artist who believes that all good art has a
religious purpose. He believes that a painter should paint "God's works", and to overlook even the
minutest truth of nature is a "crime" (295), Departing radically from many of his contemporary artists and
teachers, Lippi refuses to follow the monastic ideal of painting. He does not think of ignoring the body, or
what others think of the "perishable clay", in order to get to the souls of his subjects (180). Radically
enough, Lippi believes that a painter can best represent the soul by concentrating on the body in its
utmost detail: "the value and significance of flesh I can't unlearn".

Lippi has no aspirations beyond simple mimesis of the world as he understands, while the Prior has no
respect for the importance of the ordinary objects of life. Lippi believes that meaning is always private and
can be derived only from the mundane. With this argument, he can easily disarm the worldly-wise guards
like the Prior by rationalizing away moral scruples and averting a sexual dilemma. With sexually
suggestive archetypes and rhetorical ploys, Lippi manipulates the unreconciled sensual and ethical
concerns. While he "interprets God (311), he creates Him in his own image, blurring distinctions between
conscience and convenience. Radically enough, he reads Scriptural lessons to fit sexual inferences: The
monk parodies the Prior's ridiculous hypocrisy in the very language of his opponent's windy and dogmatic
manner.
"You tell too many lies and hurt yourself:
You don't like what you only like too much,
You do like what, if given you at your word.
You find abundantly detestable.
For me, I think I speak as I was taught,
I always see the garden and God there
A-making man's wife: and, my lesson learned,
The value and significance of flesh.
I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards."
(Lines 261-269)

This sharp satire immediately followed by the deeply felt solemn pronouncement "I always see the garden
and God there / A. making man's wife." is the kind of truth that is perfectly accessible to and apprehended
by the monk. His vision of God creating Eve rises instinctively, and releases that incorruptible and
childlike impulse to glorify God and His creation. Lippi is presented as one of the most genuinely religious
sensualists who ever found a place in English literature.
MAJOR THEMES

Although the poem revolves around the single most dominant theme of an individual's reaction against
certain set conventions of the society, we may also think of the following points as major themes in the
poem "Fra Lippo Lippi.

Renaissance Arts and Paintings:

"Fra Lippo Lippi" is one of the poems that display Browning's abiding interest in the Renaissance
civilization. The speaker Fillippo Lippi is a Florentine painter and monk. He is on the pavement outside the
Medici-Riccardi palace. He is painting an altarpiece for Cosimo Medici and by referring to the characters
of the Carmine and San Lorenzo, the poem shows its background of the Renaissance Italy. Most of the
material for the poem comes from the account of Fillippo Lippi in Giorgio Vasari's book Live of the
Painters.

With the story of a painter's life, the poet tries to express his own philosophy of art and aesthetics. The
poem chiefly demarcates the conflict between Medieval and Renaissance viewpoints on arts and the role
of the artist. The early days of Renaissance art saw a gradual shift from the ecclesiastical order to a
secular worldview. The first art of Renaissance retained a great deal of faith and superstition, the
philosophy, theology of the middle ages. The Medieval painting gave themselves chiefly to the
representation of the soul upon the face, and the inspired human body under the influence of religious
passion. At this time, painting dedicated its works to the representation of the heavenly life, either on
earth in the stories of the gospels and in the lives of the saints, or in the circles of heaven. The expression
of secular passion on the face, figures encaged in their social life and war and trade, were never regarded
as worthy of representation.

Gradually, in harmony with the changes in social and literary life, the art of Renaissance took a turn from
the representation of the soul to the representation of the body, with all its beauty and vigour, engaged in
its natural movements. This type of painting shows an acute blending of the reality and symbolism. The
poem thus tries to reconstruct a particular historical ethos prevalent in the socio-cultural life of
Renaissance Italy.

Art and Morality:

The poem "Fra Lippo Lippi" raises several important questions regarding the role of art in society and its
connection with morality. As you look at the history of literature and art, you will find that the question of
morality in connection with artistic representations has always been a site for never ending debates
among thinkers. You will find reference to these debates in classical Greek texts like Plato's Republic and
Aristotle's Poetics. Through Lippi's life and paintings, Browning tries to raise the same question again.

Fra Lippo Lippi's life as a painter and his painting would violate all the established norms of the
relationship between art and morality. Making a sharp contrast to the medieval attitude of looking at art as
a means to the realisation of God. Lippi paintings aim at gratifying the beauty of the mundane and
phenomenal world with all its sensuousness. Instead of drawing 'inspired' faces, the characters in his
paintings show secular expressions caught in their social lives. Instead of aiming at religious preaching
and reflecting the soul, his paintings try to focus on gratifying the beauty of the naked human bodies.
Browning shows Fra Lippo as a realist who deviated from the religious idealism of the earlier painters.
The Church authorities criticized his paintings because they did not express religious feelings.
The Question of Realism:
Browning, through the characterisation of Lippi, tries to give vent to the concern for Realism. Throughout
the poem, Browning is constantly making the monk, almost poignantly, attempting to represent the
everyday and mundane phenomena expressed in: "A laugh, a cry, the business of the world," "this fair
town's face.../The mountain round it and the sky above". This tendency has indissolubly linked Victorian
poetry with that conception of the world, which was called Realism in the Middle Ages. In this sense, Lippi
is instinctively. and essentially a "realist." He looks for a "meaning" behind the "world" ("To find its
meaning is my meat and drink"). By defining everything as the creations of God ("God made it all!"), Lippi
tries to attribute the highest value to the objects he perceives around him. Lippo defends his realism by
declaring that one way of worshipping God is to take pleasure in the visible world, which God has created.
Whereas, Lippo is orthodox in his theology, the austere Prior, with his pretensions to sainthood, stands
convicted of a radical perversion of the realist philosophy. In orde discharge their pious 'rage' the Prior
and his disciples have scratched and prodded' Lippi's painting of the human forms. Their holy concepts
have hardened into mere externalisms and they fail to find out the hidden meanings of the world. Because
their 'simplistic theology is rooted in a defective formalism, it is not, ironically, the ascetic Prior or his
followers but the high-spirited realist. Lippi, who is able to discover the religious meanings.

Human Nature and Significance of the Flesh:

The transitional phase between Medieval and Renaissance painting, or in other words, the beginning of
Renaissance influenced Browning. This attitude is characteristic of Browning's worldview and perception
to life; his keenest sympathies always lie with the young rather than the old. "Fra Lippo Lippi" is
representative of this attitude adopted by the poet. With the coming of the Renaissance, 'the value and
significance of flesh' received greater appreciation and the depiction of human form was held no longer
an impediment to spiritual progress. Through this poem, Browning expresses his sympathy with
humanism and realism of Renaissance art, its protest against the asceticism of the Middle Ages, its
conviction that the world is too big to pass for a dream. Through artistic recreation of the world of nature,
Fra Lippo Lippi tries to pave a way to God. He is delighted to express the sensuous beauty of the world of
which God is a part, the creator. This is in direct contrast to the medieval ascetic viewpoint, which holds
that the artist should never try to recreate nature. To recreate nature is like trying to compete with God.
However, Lippi holds that recreating is a means of interpretation; he believes that his task as a painter is
to interpret the works of God for men: "This world is no blot for us, Nor blank; it means intensely. and
means good: / To find its meaning is my meat and drink."

BORROWING'S POETIC STYLE

Browning was never considered a great poet by his contemporaries because his subjects were often
obscure and lay beyond the tastes and cognitions of the great bulk of his contemporary readers. His
extremely condensed and rugged expression maintains subtle links between the ideas and the manner
through which he expresses them in his poetry. His treatment of the themes is often difficult and obscure
though the keynote of his teaching is a wise and noble optimism. Browning is one of the greatest
humourists of English poetry. His peculiar style of humour gives him a unique space in English literature.
His humour covers a wide range of subjects starting from plain and pure fun to laughter from extremely
sarcastic and critical expressions. In "Fra Lippo Lippi", composed in blank verse, we find the simplest
humour and pure laughter occasionally infused with biting wit and stinging irony. However, the very nature
of the character of Lippo Lippi, as a bohemian sensualist caught, compressed but not contained in the life
of a monk, has conditioned such a restless and irrepressibly comic composition of the poem.
Though the story of Fra Lippo Lippi has been taken from Vasari's Lives, Browning's portrayal of the
painter can claim complete originality. What the historical fact has served Browning is to act merely as
materials for his artistic creations. Browning, with the help of his jovial tone accompanied by its heart
humour and high spirits and the breathless speed of the verse has rendered the painter to the life.

The style used by Browning in this poem is that of a dramatic monologue that Browning is famous for.
You are already told that this style involves a speaker and an implied auditor, and the speaker subtly
conveys meaning as well as directly revealing meaning. This poem, like many of his monologues, show
an intricate mingling of the colloquial and the unusual that results in an effect of grotesqueness that adds
life and a kind of humour to his characters. The cadences that he employs in the poem may not be as
colloquial as they seem, but the artificial and archaic nature of the expressions distanced his character
(Lippo Lippi) from Browning's own time. This distancing gives an effect of an age and of individuality
suggesting that this particular accent authentically belongs to the man at a particular moment of history in
this place. Browning's use of double rhymes, used almost in a comic way, helped him to avail such effect.

The poem "Fra Lippo Lippi" provides a beautiful example of the poet's mastery over engaging in deep
philosophical debates through plain and humorous expression. The poem is a dramatic monologue where the
poet dramatises the tension between Medieval asceticism and Renaissance aesthetics on the idea of art.
Through the portrayal of Fra Lippo Lippi as a bohemian, unsaintly, sensuous monk. the poet creates cutting
laughter in his attempt to expose and critique the hypocrisy, prejudices and pretensions of the medieval
clergy. The poet celebrates Renaissance humanism and Renaissance where, with stark contrast to the medieval
attitude, importance is given on the portrayal of the body in all its beauty.
__________________________________________________________________________________
MOTIFS

Medieval and Renaissance European Settings:

Browning set many of his poems in medieval and Renaissance Europe, most often in Italy. He drew on
his extensive knowledge of art, architecture, and history to fictionalize actual events, and to channel the
voices of actual historical figures, and the Renaissance painters. The remoteness of the time period and
location allowed Browning to critique and explore contemporary issues without fear of alienating his
readers. Directly invoking contemporary issues might seem didactic and moralizing in a way that poems
set in the thirteenth, fourteenth. and fifteenth centuries would not.

Psychological Portraits:
Dramatic monologues feature a solitary speaker addressing at least one silent, usually unnamed person,
and they provide interesting snapshots of the speakers and their personalities. Unlike soliloquies, in
dramatic monologues the characters are always speaking directly to listeners. Browning's characters are
usually crafty, intelligent, argumentative, and capable of lying. Indeed, they often leave out more of a story
than they actually tell. In order to fully understand the speakers and their psychologies, readers must
carefully pay attention to word choice, to logical progression, and to the use of figures of speech,
including any metaphors or analogies. For instance, the speaker of "My Last Duchess" essentially
confesses to murdering his wife, even though he never expresses his guilt outright. Rather than state the
speaker's madness, Browning conveys it through both what the speaker says and how the speaker
speaks.
Grotesque Images:

Unlike other Victorian poets. Browning filled his poetry with images of ugliness. violence, and the bizarre.
His contemporaries, such as Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Gerard Manley Hopkins, in contrast, mined the
natural world for lovely images of beauty. Browning's use of the grotesque links him to novelist Charles
Dickens, who filled his fiction with people from all strata of society, including the aristocracy and the very
poor. Like Dickens, Browning created characters who were capable of great evil. Although "Fra Lippo
Lippi'' takes place during the Renaissance in Florence, at the height of its wealth and power, Browning
sets the poem in a back alley beside a brothel, not in a palace or a garden. Browning was instrumental in
helping readers and writers understand that poetry as an art form could handle subjects both lofty, such
as religious splendor and idealized passion, and base, such as murder, hatred, and madness, subjects
that had previously only been explored in novels.
____________________________________________________________________________________
THE NATURE OF ART IN BROWNING'S "FRA LIPPO LIPPI:" SHOULD ART
BE REALISTIC OR IDEALISTIC?

In "Foxx Lippo Lippi," Robert Browning analyzes the nature of ant. He presents the question of whether
art should be realistic and mirror nature or idealistic and instructive. The persona, an Italian painter and
monk, is telling his life's story to a couple of guards who found him wandering the streets at midnight. Fra
Lippo Lippi explains that he wants to paint real people in his religious paintings, yet the church leaders
want him to paint people that one can surely recognize as people. They want him to focus on the soul."
not on the body and, thus, paint people who do not look like people. This struggle between realism and
idealism is por trayed through the poem.

Lippi helseves that art should be a representation of the natural world and, thus, be realistic. When the
church leaders give him the chance to paint he is thrilled "Thank you! my head being crammed the walls a
blank,/ Never was such prompt disembordening" (143-144). He begins to paint church patrons in a
realistic manner. The simple. monks are amazed at Lippi's ability to portray seal people through his work
Yet, "The Prior and the learned pulled a face / And stopped that in no time" (174-175). They are
dissatisfied with the realistic work and want Lippi to point saints that evoke an ethereal surrealism instead:

Faces, a legs and bodies like the true

[...]It's devil's game!
Your business is not to catch men with show.
With homage the perishable clay.
But lift them over it all.
Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh.
Your business is to point the souls of men---
(177-183)

In depicting real people and showing too much of the physical, the Prior thinks Lippi is overlooking the
soul and, thus, not using art so clovate the subject. For the church leaders, the role of the religious artist
is to make the viewer forget the temptations of the flesh: the artist is supposed to offer something that is
above the human, material world. The Prior wants Lippi to show only as much of the corporeal form as
needed in representing the soul: "Give us no more of hody than shows soul!" (L 188). The human form
then becomes something one must hide, that is degraded, and is secondary to the soul. The Prior wants
Lippi to represent the soul in his work, yet he has a difficult time explaining the exact nature of the soul.
Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke… no it's not....
It vapour done up like a new-bom babe---
(In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth)
It's well what matters talking, it's the soul!
(184-187)

He has no definition but simply avows a soul is a soul. The Prior does not explain what a soul is, and Lippi
has no idea how to represent it according to the Prior's wishes.

Lippi is appalled that the church leaders do not share his love of the physical form. He is a naturalistic
artist who wants to truthfully represent what he sees around him. He holds a mirror up to study nature, as
verisimilitude is his ultimate goal:

A fine way to paint soul, by painting body

So ill, the eye can stop thaze, must go further
And can't fare worse! Thus, yellow does for white
When what you put for yellow's simply black,
YAnd my sort of meaning looks intense
When all beside itself means sed looks nought.
(199-204)

He has no patience for the Prior's approach to painting. In trying to paint as if ignoring the body and the
real world, Lippi suggests that the painter is offering only a vague idea of soul and describes his own style
of painting as actually enhancing the image of the soul: "Can I take breath and try to ack life's flash. / And
then add soul and heighten them three-fold?" (213-214). When you offer a true representation of the
body, you are making it easier for a viewer to see the soul of the person: "Make his flesh liker and his soul
more like" (207).

Lippi goes a step further by saying that the artist does not have to represent the soul at all. but instead
can depict beauty of any kind:

Say there's beauty with no soul at all ---

(I never saw it--- put the case the same---)
If you get simple beauty and nought else,
You get about the best thing God invents:
That somewhat and you'll find the soul you have missed.
Within yourself, when you return him thanks
(215-220)

God created all things. Thus, in reproducing something that God cre ated, the artist is actually dong what
the church leaders want him to do: representing something that evokes reverence and worship within the
observer. However, the paint might be moot because Lippi claims that he has never seen beauty without
a soul.

In discussing the nature of art, Lippi offers the reader the perspective that realistic art should be used to
promote religious aims instead of the idealistic and that the Prior wants. First, the church leaders,
particularly the Phior, are discredited as authorities on att, As is the common reading, the Prior's niece is
in fact his mistress and not his niece, which compromises the Price as a religious authority figure. Further,
he cannot explain what soul is, so he cannot know how it should be represented.
Because we cannot see or even prove the soul's existence, Lippi suggests we should instead represent
the human form realistically because it is God's creation.

Another question to ponder is whether art should be used for religious or didactic purposes. Art, any kind
of art, can have dramatic, didactic effect. Lippi does not suggest art should not be used for religious
reasons, but he also does not state that art should be used only for didactic purposes. The main
argument in the poem is that in creating art that is realistic, the artist is connecting with a sense of
spirituality, or soul, more than if he were to simply use an idealistic approach.

An interesting point is that Browning, in creating the poem, has created a piece of realistic art that is at the
same time didactic. The poem lays out Lippi's explicit argument that realistic art brings the viewer closer
to God's creation and, thus, closer to God, but Browning's implicit argument goes further. The poem is a
piece of art that is realistic, for the reader can imagine an actual painter who was upset with church
officials under these circumstances. Yet, Browning also is presenting an argument beyond Lippi's and in
doing so is showing or teaching if you wish, the reader that art should be realistic. In a remarkable
rhetorical move, Brownings own realistic art as didactic as well.