Not only did the nobility love dressing up and playing theatre. Like many of his
contemporaries, painter Jean-Antoine Watteau did, too. He was particularly taken with the
characters in Italian improvised comedy, Commedia dell'arte. They brought welcome diversion
and pleasure to the poor as well. Commedia dell'arte originated around 1550 in Lombardy,
evolving as street theatre in which improvised pieces based on stock situations were
performed by troupes of specially trained actors. All that was prearranged were synopses
of the plot and the sequence of scenes. Consisting mainly of clowning and jokes, the
dialogue was entirely improvised. Although a couple in love belonged to the stock
repertoire, the other characters were burlesque types, instantly recognisable because
they always appeared in the same masks and costumes: Pantalone - an elderly Venetian
merchant, the doctor, a scholar of Bologna and Arlecchmo, and his crafty man-servant,
whose awkward and melancholy side soon became personified as a separate character
called Pedrolino.
After commedia dell'arte had become established in France at courts, fairs
and in the streets, Pedrolino changed into a pitiable fool, who might be called
either Pierrot or Gilles, This character represented the rejected lover, who was
always sad. He was characterised by a distinctive white, wide-sleeved costume, a
white mask and a wide white beret. Did Watteau paint his Gilles as a portrait of an
actor famous for playing the part of Gilles or Pierrot? Was this life-sized painting
possibly hung in front of a cafe, or theatre in which the actor in question may have
appeared in the role? Be that as it may, the melancholy clown, mocked, ridiculed and
despised for his asinine helplessness, was a favourite with Watteau for the sole
reason that he was so wretchedly sad, The mournful clown appears several times in
his work. Is this a biographical clue? The painter knew all too well what it was
like to have only himself for company. His final years were marred by disease and melancholy bfore he died of tuberculosis at age thirty-seven.
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