Andrea del Sarto

Robert Browning writes in “Andrea del Sarto,”, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,/Or what’s a heaven for?” I love the interjection “Ah,” a word that usually might express relief or comfort. But I think it is here an expression of resignation: Andrea del Sarto has reached only so far as what he could grasp, and in that grasp has given up the passion that would fuel his art. In fact, del Sarto is referred to as the perfect artist; his technique is flawless, but he laments that his work lacks the passion that would make whatever flaws exist inconsequential. Del Sarto has opted in his work for money, has stolen money from King Francis and purchased a house for his less than attentive wife, and become, as he says of himself, not an artist but merely a craftsman. But in the poem del Sarto acknowledges that though his technique was perfect, his paintings do not achieve the status of great art. He recognizes the flaws in the painting of Raphael but sees in it as well the passion which del Sarto lacks and that makes Raphael and Michelangelo the greater artist. He acknowledges that the so-called flaws in their works are not evidence of incompetence and lack of skill but of the artist’s continued effort to paint what resides in the heart and soul. “Beside, incentives come from the soul’s self;/The rest avail not.” The rewards come from the effort and not the product that must always reveal, well, not imperfections, but evidence of the reaching beyond what can be grasped. “Andrea del Sarto” is a poem about failure—the painter has grasped and not reached. But ironically, failure is evidence of success and that the artist has reached beyond his grasp; Andrea del Sarto has failed because he has succeeded in grasping.
           I am intrigued with Browning’s assertion that a person’s reach should be beyond what can be grasped or what is “a heaven for.” Heaven is for those who tried and failed: I am reminded of Tennyson’s Ulysses, who urges his men “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” Browning writes not the achievement of the Heaven, but rather, of a heaven. Not the capitalized final goal but the lower-case place where one acts n Desire and passion. Individuals must seek their own satisfaction, follow their own passion—a heaven that they would recognize and not the Heaven that is imposed on them. Del Sarto has attempted to blame God for his decisions: “Love,” he says to his wife, Lucrezia, “we are in God’s hands,” and God, he accuses, has laid the fetter by which man is bound. I went as far as God had planned, del Sarto says. But he knows that he has failed and though he has produced ‘perfect’ art he has not fulfilled his passion. Nor made true art. Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp . . . and del Sarto had ceased reaching. He knows what he has done—and has not done. “I am judged./There burns a truer light of God in them,/In their vexed, beating, stuffed and stopped-up brain,/ Heart, or whate’er else, than goes on to prompt/This low-pulsed forthright craftsman’s hand of mind.” Del Sarto says that their work shows imperfections but though “Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, /Reach many a time a heaven that’s shut to me . . .” 
           I wonder if I have had a truer light of God burn in me. If my reach has exceeded my grasp.