In his dramatic monologue "Fra Lippo Lippi," Robert Browning makes use of his knowledge of art to reveal the conflict of the flesh and the spirit in Fra Lippi's life as well as in his work. The friar, in his human weakness, has sought companionship late at night in an alley, and is caught by the city watchmen:

. . .I've been three weeks shut within my mew, a-painting for the great man, saints and saint And saints again. I could not paint all night-- There came a hurry of feet and little feet, A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song,-- (ll. 47-52)

The sound of little feet, the snatches of song when spring has come, and the nights of carnival beckon to Fra Lippi and he abandons his studio for the alley "where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar" (l. 6). Browning sets the scene, revealing the situation in a few lines, and Lippi tells the story of his life:

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. . . . (ll. 81-85)

Such a beginning, starving in the street, would certainly impress upon the little orphan the needs of the flesh. And his first meeting with the priest who took him into the monastery did little to dispel his conviction that fleshly demands are more imperative than those of the spirit:

While I stood munching my first bread that month: "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! (ll. 92-97)

Thus at eight years old the starveling renounces the world and all its works, and thinks it a very good bargain, since in exchange he receives "the good bellyful,/The warm serge . . ./ and day- long blessed idleness" instead of the skins, rinds, shucks, and rubbish for which he had to scavenge on the street.

Those years on the street also taught him to be a keen observer:

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. (ll. 124-26)

The priest find that, although no scholar, young Lippi can draw to the very life the faces and scenes of the town. The Prior admonishes Lippi to use his art to paint the soul:

Your business is to paint the souls of men. . . 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 heads 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. (ll. 183--194)

But Lippi cannot be Giotti. He believes that line and color can assist the eye, and lead the observer to the soul, but poor art puts up a barrier:

. . . 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! . . . (ll.98-101)

The beauty and the wonder and the power, The shape of things, their colours, lights and shades, Changes, surprises--and God made it all! (ll. 283--285)

Lippi has suffered from the demands of the flesh, and gloried in its pleasures; it has brought him to the realization that it is the creations of God that one comes to know the Creator:

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. (ll. 215--220)

Lippi resolves the conflict between the needs of the flesh and the demands of the soul by interpreting God through his art. The song on this page is:"Unchained Melody">

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