Write a note on Brownings attitude to art and life. Robert Browning in his dramatic monologue s is particularly interested in the study of the psychological conflicts of men and women. In many of his poems, he has dealt with the Italian Renaissance artists who evaluated their lives in terms of success and failure. In Brownings treatment artists are presented as the conscience of an age. To him. Artists symbolize the voice of humanity, expressing their inner thoughts in their works as well as reflecting their souls. Browning also deals with the problem of art itself hown one should make a synthesis between the fleshy and spiritual impulses in the work of art. The most famous poems in which he deals with art and artist or the life of the artists are Fra Lippo Lippi, Andrea De Sarto, My Last Duchess, Abt Volger, and A Grammarian Funeral. Fra LippoLippi is one of Brownings happiest expressions of his belief in art and the joy of living. Fra Lippo was an artist who had to work in a monastery to paint the faces of the Saints and Angels. He tells the watchman who captivates him that the function of the artist is not to ignore the body and concentrate on souls, but to give equal importance that it deserves. He believes that an artist should paint all of gods works and consider it a crime to allow any truth escapes him. This world is not meant to be despised and ignored as shameful and meaningless .So Fra Lippo says:This world is no blot for usNor blank-it means intensity it means good.It is a gist of Brownings philosophy. According to him, it is right to enjoy this world, for God has given it to us. But the religious father of the monastery ordered him to paint only the soul of man and not his body. They advised Lippo to discard the world. But Fra Lippo believes that this world is not meant to be scorned as a disgrace and meaningless.In Fra Lippo Lippi, Browning uses his knowledge of early Italian painting to illustrate an enduring problem...
