Old Pictures in Florence by Robert Browning
Looking down on Florence, a speaker imagines neglected painters' ghosts watching their works decay and defends their attempts to depict human hopes and fears against the ideal perfection of Greek sculpture. He complains that his devotion has brought him no discoveries of lost paintings, especially a rumored Giotto panel found by someone else. He then imagines a free Florence renewing its art and completing Giotto's bell-tower with a spire.
By Robert Browning · Genre: Poetry, Art criticism, Philosophical Poetry · 3,477 words
First lines
The morn when first it thunders in March, / The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say: / As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch / Of the villa-gate this warm March day, / No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled / In the valley beneath where, white and wide / And washed by the morning water-gold, / Florence lay out on the mountain-side.
River and bridge and street and square / Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, / Through the live translucent bath of air, / As the sights in a magic crystal ball. / And of all I saw and of all I praised, / The most to praise and the best to see, / Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised: / But why did it more than startle me?
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Old Pictures in Florence is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Browning, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Robert Browning
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Poetry, Art criticism, Philosophical Poetry
- Length: 3,477 words
- Structure: 1 section, 36 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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- Work identity for Old Pictures in Florence by Robert Browning
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Poetry — Thirty-six rhymed eight-line stanzas carry the speaker's view of Florence, appeals to dead painters, and imagined completion of the bell-tower.
- Art criticism — The speaker compares Greek sculpture with early Italian painting, defends imperfect attempts to depict inner life, and attacks the neglect and destruction of artworks.
- Philosophical Poetry — The comparison of perfected statues with unfinished human beings develops an argument about growth, eternity, and the value of artistic striving.
Tags
early Italian painting · fresco preservation · Greek sculpture · art collecting · artistic development · republicanism · bell-tower architecture