I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!

You need not clap your torches to my face.

Zooks, what’s to blame? You think you see a monk!

What, ‘tis past midnight, and you go the rounds,

And here you catch me at an alley’s end

Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar?

The Carmine’s my cloister: hunt it up,

Do,—harry out, if you must show your zeal,

Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole,

And nip each softling of a wee white mouse,

Weke, weke, that’s crept to keep him company!

Aha, you know your betters! Then, you’ll take

Your hand away that’s fiddling on my throat,

And please to know me likewise. Who am I?

Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend

Three streets off—he’s a certain . . . how d’ye call?

Master—a …Cosimo of the Medici,

I’ the house that caps the corner. Boh! You were best!

Remember and tell me, the day you’re hanged,

How you affected such a gullet’s-gripe!

But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves

Pick up a manner nor discredit you:

Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets

And count fair price what comes into their net?

He’s Judas to a tittle, that man is!

Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends.

Lord, I’m not angry! Bid your hang-dogs go

Drink out this quarter-florin to the health

Of the munificent House that harbours me

(And many more beside, lads! More beside!)

And all’s come square again. I’d like his face—

His, elbowing on his comrade in the door

With the pike and lantern,—for the slave that holds

John Baptist’s head a-dangle by the hair

With one hand (“Look you, now,” as who should say)

And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped!

It’s not your chance to have a bit of chalk,

A wood-coal or the like? Or you should see!

Yes, I’m the painter, since you style me so.

What, brother Lippo’s doings, up and down,

You know them and they take you? Like enough!

I saw the proper twinkle in your eye—

‘Tell you, I liked your looks at very first.

Let’s sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch.

Here’s spring come, and the nights one makes up bands

To roam the town and sing out carnival,

And I’ve been three weeks shut within my mew,

A-painting for the great man, saints and saints

And saints again. I could not paint all night—

Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air.

There came a hurry of feet and little feet,

A sweep of lute strings, laughs, and whifts of song, —

Flower o’ the broom,

Take away love, and our earth is a tomb!

Flower o’ the quince,

I let Lisa go, and what good in life since?

Flower o’ the thyme—and so on. Round they went.

Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter

Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight,—three slim shapes,

And a face that looked up . . . zooks, sir, flesh and blood,

That’s all I’m made of! Into shreds it went,

Curtain and counterpane and coverlet,

All the bed-furniture—a dozen knots,

There was a ladder! Down I let myself,

Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped,

And after them. I came up with the fun

Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met,—

Flower o’ the rose,

If I’ve been merry, what matter who knows?

And so as I was stealing back again

To get to bed and have a bit of sleep

Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work

On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast

With his great round stone to subdue the flesh,

You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see!

Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head—

Mine’s shaved—a monk, you say—the sting ‘s in that!

If Master Cosimo announced himself,

Mum’s the word naturally; but a monk!

Come, what am I a beast for? Tell us, now!

I was a baby when my mother died

And father died and left me in the street.

I starved there, God knows how, a year or two

On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks,

Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day,

My stomach being empty as your hat,

The wind doubled me up and down I went.

Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand,

(Its fellow was a stinger as I knew)

And so along the wall, over the bridge,

By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there,

While I stood munching my first bread that month:

“So, boy, you’re minded,” quoth the good fat father

Wiping his own mouth, ‘twas 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.

Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure,

‘Twas not for nothing—the good bellyful,

The warm serge and the rope that goes all round,

And day-long blessed idleness beside!

“Let’s see what the urchin’s fit for”—that came next.

Not overmuch their way, I must confess.

Such a to-do! They tried me with their books:

Lord, they’d have taught me Latin in pure waste!

Flower o’ the clove.

All the Latin I construe is, “amo” I love!

But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets

Eight years together, as my fortune was,

Watching folk’s faces to know who will fling

The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires,

And who will curse or kick him for his pains,—

Which gentleman processional and fine,

Holding a candle to the Sacrament,

Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch

The droppings of the wax to sell again,

Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped,—

How say I?—nay, which dog bites, which lets drop

His bone from the heap of offal in the street,—

Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike,

He learns the look of things, and none the less

For admonition from the hunger-pinch.

I had a store of such remarks, be sure,

Which, after I found leisure, turned to use.

I drew men’s faces on my copy-books,

Scrawled them within the antiphonary’s marge,

Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes,

Found eyes and nose and chin for A’s and B’s,

And made a string of pictures of the world

Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun,

On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked black.

“Nay,” quoth the Prior, “turn him out, d’ye say?

In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark.

What if at last we get our man of parts,

We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese

And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine

And put the front on it that ought to be!”

And hereupon he bade me daub away.

Thank you! My head being crammed, the walls a blank,

Never was such prompt disemburdening.

First, every sort of monk, the black and white,

I drew them, fat and lean: then, folk at church,

From good old gossips waiting to confess

Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends,—

To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot,

Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there

With the little children round him in a row

Of admiration, half for his beard and half

For that white anger of his victim’s son

Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm,

Signing himself with the other because of Christ

(Whose sad face on the cross sees only this

After the passion of a thousand years)

Till some poor girl, her apron o’er her head,

(Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve

On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf,

Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers

(The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone.

I painted all, then cried “’Tis ask and have;

Choose, for more’s ready!”—laid the ladder flat,

And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall.

The monks closed in a circle and praised loud

Till checked, taught what to see and not to see,

Being simple bodies,—“That’s the very man!

Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog!

That woman’s like the Prior’s niece who comes

To care about his asthma: it’s the life!’’

But there my triumph’s straw-fire flared and funked;

Their betters took their turn to see and say:

The Prior and the learned pulled a face

And stopped all that in no time. “How? What’s here?

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—

Man’s soul, and it’s a fire, smoke . . . no, it’s not . . .

It’s vapour done up like a new-born babe—

(In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth)

It’s . . . well, what matters talking, it’s the soul!

Give us no more of body than shows soul!

Here’s Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God,

That sets us praising—why not stop with him?

Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head

With wonder at lines, colours, and what not?

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

And can’t fare worse! Thus, yellow does for white

When what you put for yellow’s simply black,

And any sort of meaning looks intense

When all beside itself means and looks nought.

Why can’t a painter lift each foot in turn,

Left foot and right foot, go a double step,

Make his flesh liker and his soul more like,

Both in their order? Take the prettiest face,

The Prior’s niece . . . patron-saint—is it so pretty

You can’t discover if it means hope, fear,

Sorrow or joy? Won’t beauty go with these?

Suppose I’ve made her eyes all right and blue,

Can’t I take breath and try to add life’s flash,

And then add soul and heighten them three-fold?

Or 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’s somewhat: and you’ll find the soul you have missed,

Within yourself, when you return him thanks.

“Rub all out!” Well, well, there’s my life, in short,

And so the thing has gone on ever since.

I’m grown a man no doubt, I’ve broken bounds:

You should not take a fellow eight years old

And make him swear to never kiss the girls.

I’m my own master, paint now as I please—

Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house!

Lord, it’s fast holding by the rings in front—

Those great rings serve more purposes than just

To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse!

And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes

Are peeping o’er my shoulder as I work,

The heads shake still—“It’s art’s decline, my son!

You’re not of the true painters, great and old;

Brother Angelico’s the man, you’ll find;

Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer:

Fag on at flesh, you’ll never make the third!”

Flower o’ the pine,

You keep your mistr … manners, and I’ll stick to mine!

I’m not the third, then: bless us, they must know!

Don’t you think they’re the likeliest to know,

They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage,

Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint

To please them—sometimes do and sometimes don’t;

For, doing most, there’s pretty sure to come

A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints—

A laugh, a cry, the business of the world—

(Flower o’ the peach

Death for us all, and his own life for each!)

And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over,

The world and life’s too big to pass for a dream,

And I do these wild things in sheer despite,

And play the fooleries you catch me at,

In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grass

After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so,

Although the miller does not preach to him

The only good of grass is to make chaff.

What would men have? Do they like grass or no—

May they or mayn’t they? All I want’s the thing

Settled for ever one way. As it is,

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.

You understand me: I’m a beast, I know.

But see, now—why, I see as certainly

As that the morning-star’s about to shine,

What will hap some day. We’ve a youngster here

Comes to our convent, studies what I do,

Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop:

His name is Guidi—he’ll not mind the monks—

They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk—

He picks my practice up—he’ll paint apace.

I hope so—though I never live so long,

I know what’s sure to follow. You be judge!

You speak no Latin more than I, belike;

However, you’re my man, you’ve seen the world

—The beauty and the wonder and the power,

The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades,

Changes, surprises,—and God made it all!

—For what? Do you feel thankful, ay or no,

For this fair town’s face, yonder river’s line,

The mountain round it and the sky above,

Much more the figures of man, woman, child,

These are the frame to? What’s it all about?

To be passed over, despised? Or dwelt upon,

Wondered at? Oh, this last of course!—you say.

But why not do as well as say,—paint these

Just as they are, careless what comes of it?

God’s works—paint any one, and count it crime

To let a truth slip. Don’t object, “His works

Are here already; nature is complete:

Suppose you reproduce her—(which you can’t)

There’s no advantage! You must beat her, then.”

For, don’t you mark? We’re made so that we love

First when we see them painted, things we have passed

Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;

And so they are better, painted—better to us,

Which is the same thing. Art was given for that;

God uses us to help each other so,

Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now,

Your cullion’s hanging face? A bit of chalk,

And trust me but you should, though! How much more,

If I drew higher things with the same truth!

That were to take the Prior’s pulpit-place,

Interpret God to all of you! Oh, oh,

It makes me mad to see what men shall do

And we in our graves! This world’s no blot for us,

Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good:

To find its meaning is my meat and drink.

“Ay, but you don’t so instigate to prayer!”

Strikes in the Prior: “when your meaning’s plain

It does not say to folk—remember matins,

Or, mind you fast next Friday!” Why, for this

What need of art at all? A skull and bones,

Two bits of stick nailed crosswise, or, what’s best,

A bell to chime the hour with, does as well.

I painted a Saint Laurence six months since

At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style:

“How looks my painting, now the scaffold’s down?”

I ask a brother: “Hugely,” he returns—

“Already not one phiz of your three slaves

Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side,

But’s scratched and prodded to our heart’s content,

The pious people have so eased their own

With coming to say prayers there in a rage:

We get on fast to see the bricks beneath.

Expect another job this time next year,

For pity and religion grow I’ the crowd—

Your painting serves its purpose!” Hang the fools!

—That is—you’ll not mistake an idle word

Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, God wot,

Tasting the air this spicy night which turns

The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine!

Oh, the church knows! Don’t misreport me, now!

It’s natural a poor monk out of bounds

Should have his apt word to excuse himself:

And hearken how I plot to make amends.

I have bethought me: I shall paint a piece

… There’s for you! Give me six months, then go, see

Something in Sant’ Ambrogio’s! Bless the nuns!

They want a cast o’ my office. I shall paint

God in the midst, Madonna and her babe,

Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood,

Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet

As puff on puff of grated orris-root

When ladies crowd to Church at midsummer.

And then I’ the front, of course a saint or two—

Saint John’ because he saves the Florentines,

Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white

The convent’s friends and gives them a long day,

And Job, I must have him there past mistake,

The man of Uz (and Us without the z,

Painters who need his patience). Well, all these

Secured at their devotion, up shall come

Out of a corner when you least expect,

As one by a dark stair into a great light,

Music and talking, who but Lippo! I!—

Mazed, motionless, and moonstruck—I’m the man!

Back I shrink—what is this I see and hear?

I, caught up with my monk’s-things by mistake,

My old serge gown and rope that goes all round,

I, in this presence, this pure company!

Where’s a hole, where’s a corner for escape?

Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing

Forward, puts out a soft palm—“Not so fast!”

—Addresses the celestial presence, “nay—

He made you and devised you, after all,

Though he’s none of you! Could Saint John there draw—

His camel-hair make up a painting brush?

We come to brother Lippo for all that,

Iste perfecit opus! So, all smile—

I shuffle sideways with my blushing face

Under the cover of a hundred wings

Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you’re gay

And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut,

Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops

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, I would say.

And so all’s saved for me, and for the church

A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence!

Your hand, sir, and good-bye: no lights, no lights!

The street’s hushed, and I know my own way back,

Don’t fear me! There’s the grey beginning. Zooks!

Analysis

“Fra Lippo Lippi” stands as one of Browning’s most sophisticated dramatic monologues because it works
on so many different levels. It is a discourse on the purpose of art, on the responsibility of the artist, the
limits of subjectivity, the inadequacy of moral shapes and strictures, and lastly a triumph of dramatic
voice.

Browning was inspired to write this poem after reading about Filippo Lippi in Vasari’s Lives of the Artists,
a compendium of Renaissance painters. Vasari identifies Lippi as the first realist painter, and Browning
was attracted to the idea of Lippi being a ground breaker in terms of artistic style. At the time Lippi was
painting, art was expected to conform to certain religious principles and to pursue shadowy, moral
forms rather than delve into the intricacies of life as it is. Browning would have been attracted to this
idea as a writer of complicated psychology in the midst of the Victorian era, which again pushed the idea
that art should have a moral purpose.
Probably the most resonant theme in the poem is Lippo’s dialectic on the purpose of art. Basically, his
dilemma comes down to two competing philosophies: where he wants to paint life as it is, thereby
revealing its wondrous complexity, his superiors want him to paint life through a moral lens, to use his
painting as an inspirational tool. Lippo proposes in several places the importance of "realism" as a
painting style. The best argument for it can be found in the speaker himself, who frequently reveals his
love of life. Notice the many times he breaks into song in the poem, which suggests his whimsical
nature. His ability to use details in characterizing people (like when he talks of begging from a variety of
different individuals) shows that he has an eye for the myriad distinctions in the world. As a realist, Lippo
believes art should aspire to capture the beauty God has made in hopes of evoking responses from its
audience. Further, he suggests that humans have a tendency to overlook the details of their lives, to
ignore “things we have passed perhaps a hundred times.” When a painter presents the same objects
through art, a person is able to suddenly appreciate them in a new light, therefore appreciating God’s
beauty as it was meant to be appreciated. As evidence of the effectiveness of his philosophy, Lippo cites
the common monks who loved his paintings and enjoyed recognizing their world in his depictions.

As a counter to this philosophy, Lippo’s superiors believe art should “instigate to prayer.” They eschew
anything that reminds the viewer of the body, instead insisting that art should represent the soul and
thereby inspire man to be better than he is. The Prior needs art to remind man of his religious instincts,
suggesting that anything that focuses on the body must be impure. Lippo wants to reveal the irony of
this philosophy – he suggests that trying to improve on God’s beauty (which he captures through
realism) is antithetical to the purpose of trying to bring an audience closer to God. He suggests time and
time again that because life is full of complexity, contradiction, and wonder, representing it as it is will
only stress those qualities, whereas the attempt to “transcend” through art will ironically simplify art
into a pure, moral purpose that encourages people to “fast next Friday.” Lippo asks, “What need of art
at all?” if its purpose is merely to encourage piety. When Lippo paints a saint, he paints a saint, not what
the saint represents, since in attempting to do the latter, he would no longer capture the contradictions
and intricacies of the saint.

The poem also considers an artist’s responsibility, especially when he is doing something new (as
Browning certainly thought he was doing with his own work). When Lippo lists as some of his sample
subjects “the breathless fellow at the altar-foot/Fresh from his murder,” the irony of a murderer in
church calls to mind some of Browning’s dramatic monologues like “Porphyria’s Lover.” The poem
ultimately suggests that an artist must be responsible to only one thing: himself. Lippo paints as his
masters demand because he must survive, and he learned early on in life that by pretending to be
something, he could stay fed instead of remaining hungry. In the same way that he pretended to
renounce the world to get bread, so does he continue to paint in a way he does not admire, all the while
growing bitter that he is not adequately expressing his view that good painting should evoke questions
and wonder. When he sketches his plan for a final painting at the end of ’he poem, he is expressing an
idea of how to feed both desires: he will paint what the Church wants but also include himself, thereby
making a subversive comment and negating the moral purpose for which the painting ostensibly is
meant.
It Is in terms of this idea that the poem has a bigger purpose than just being about art. Instead, it
contemplates the limits of subjectivity. Basically, what Lippo’s masters want is for him to attempt a holy
subjectivity, to capture the essence of his subjects rather than their objective facts (which are defined by
their specific physical characteristics, for instance). This would conform to the Romantic tradition of
poetry in which Browning writes; by focusing on the subjective experience of nature, a Romantic poet
aims to transcend its physical limitations and reveal something greater. Browning, who was often
criticized for his objective focus on trying to represent characters outside his own mind rather than
“putting himself” into a poem, is making a challenge to this criticism. Lippo wants us to see that his
impulse to paint ‘objectively’ – to paint the world as it appears – does not necessarily mean he eschews
this subjective transcendence. One can capture the subjective wonder of life by painting the objective,
because it is only through the body that we can even attempt to glimpse the soul. He suggests that
attempting to paint the ‘subjective’ is to guess at God’s meaning, when God has only given us the
objective. In essence, what Lippo (and Browning) are saying is that to reproduce the world as he sees it
is always to be both objective and subjective. By extension, Browning suggests that, for example, the
duke in “My Last Duchess” indeed represents Browning himself, as well as humankind in general.
However, Browning can go no further than representing psychological realism as he observes it, because
to pretend to have a facility for that is to be dishonest – all we have are our eyes and senses, and an
artist should revel in the freedom and wonder of that. The mention of Hulking Tom only suggests that
artists should be ground breakers – in the same way Lippo has moved art to a new place, so will Hulking
Tom, for the world changes and artists need to continually mark those changes without having to
conform to illogical demands.

However, what really pushes an artist away from this recognition are moral expectations and strictures,
which this poem criticizes in Browning’s usual ironic fashion. The scene in which Lippo is first brought to
the convent is hilarious. As he stuffs his mouth full of bread, the “good fat father” asks the 8-year-old
boy if he will “quit this very miserable world?” Having known the pains of near-starvation, the boy
knows better than the “fat father” the pains of the world, but is taking great joy in the simplicity of
bread. He ironically promises to renounce the world so that he can easily taste the world’s riches
through a life of monastic “idleness,” and this irony is reflected in the demands the Prior will later make
of Lippo’s paintings. The Prior wants Lippo to continually renounce the world in his art, to ignore the
body in favor the soul, but all the while we are to remember that this is a silly irony. When the Prior
suggests that art should inspire people to pray, to fast, and to fulfill their religious duties, there is an
implication of a hierarchy that must be maintained by stressing those duties, all of which has to do with
the material and physical world. These moral expectations are encouraged because they maintain the
material world’s chain of command, and for an artist like Lippo, such a philosophy is necessarily a
limitation on art.

It Is for these reasons that Lippo encourages the police prelate to let him go. He stresses that they, as
subordinates to superiors, should not simply enforce laws because those laws exist, but instead should
recognize that man is a “beast” with beastly (sexual) desires. It is easy to see in Lippo’s defense an
amusing attempt to rationalize his release, but it also ties into the poem’s main themes.
Ultimately, the poem is most effective in its masterful use of voice. Written in blank verse, it attempts to
capture the rhythms of human speech rather than conforming to any strict poetic meter. Lippo’s
objective in the early part of the poem is simply to be released, and he accomplishes this through his
humorous name-dropping and defenses of his behavior. However, he quickly falls into his life story,
which suggests the extent of his psychological repression. There is obviously nothing this simple
policeman can do to help Lippo’s situation, but his insistence on speaking at such length to the man only
stresses how terribly he has been caught in a system unable to reveal his unique gifts. In a sense,
Browning’s use of voice makes Lippo’s point: by objectively capturing a character outside of himself,
Browning is able to engage in his own subjective hang-ups and fascinations about art, life, and humanity.
To paint a man as he might be (as Browning has done with Lippo), with his imperfections intact, is to
suggest wonderful possibilities.

Finally, the poem’s final image offers a great allegory worthy of dissection. As mentioned above, Lippo’s
inclusion of his own image in an otherwise pious painting merely stresses the unavoidable collision
between subjectivity and objectivity. He will give them what they want but surreptitiously put himself in
it anyway. The woman who praises him is often linked to the muse, she who revels in his ability to push
boundaries and capture inspiration. From this perspective, the “hothead of a husband” must be the
world and its moral strictures, coming in to force the muse to stay within the lines. Interestingly enough,
when this conflict happens, Lippo hides himself behind a bench to watch it play out, suggesting that it is
this very conflict – between unfettered artistry and the demands of the world – that fuel an artist’s
creativity. Once the fight between husband and angel is complete, Lippo will have seen enough turmoil
to have inspired his next painting.