Robert Browning defines his poetry in terms of painting. He describes the poet’s role as that of a painter who makes the reader see: “I only make men and women speak, giving you truth broken into prismatic hues, and fear the pure white light, even if it is in me” (qtd. in Griffin and Minchin 57). Browning “Fra Lippo Lippi” and “Andrea del Sarto” seems most evocative when he is describing the process by which a painter comes to complete his work. Browning “get[s] into the souls of his characters and show us how they felt what they felt, and why they did what they did” (Smith 10). Browning succeeds to revive the Italian Renaissance artist evaluating their lives in terms of success and failure. Artists are the voice of society, expressing their thoughts in their works besides their soul. He turns to his knowledge of early Italian painting to illustrate the problems in reconciling the two opposing forces in art – the flesh and the spirit.

2.1.1 Fra Lippo Lippi realism or idealism in art / the flesh or the soul

Poetry as an art form could manage subjects as religious dignity and idealized passion based on murder, hatred and madness and love. The length of the time period and location gives Browning the chance to critique and explore contemporary issues without fear of alienating his reader. He has the ability to create various characters or take them from real life, group them with consummate effect, place them in a dramatic situation, brighten tragedy with jollity, mellow