Pierrot

A clown in white stands stiffly facing us, arms hanging, while his fellow actors chat behind him and ignore him. Watteau painted him life size, the only such figure in his work. Nobody agrees what his face is saying.

The story behind the painting

Little is certain about the painting's origin. It is generally dated to the 1710s: Wikipedia gives 1718 to 1719, Wikidata 1718. It was not included in the Recueil Jullienne, the great 18th century print catalogue of Watteau's work, and it is not mentioned in writing until 1826. Some scholars think it began as a shop sign, perhaps one of two commissioned by the retired actor Belloni, who was known for playing Pierrot. Long called Gilles, after a similar comic figure, it is now known by its proper name.

What to look for

The canvas is 184.5 by 149.5 cm, and Pierrot is Watteau's only life size figure. He stands in white theatrical clothes: a jacket with huge sleeves, comically short trousers and an oversized ruff. His stiff, frontal pose may come from costume prints, which showed full length figures against bare backgrounds. Behind him, in a park with pines, poplars and a statue of a satyr, four actors relax. The man on the donkey is probably the Doctor, a regular in Watteau's work; the man in red may be the Captain or Mezzetin.

Meaning and intent

His expression is the most debated part of the work. Some see stupidity, others melancholy, poignancy or reverie. Erwin Panofsky and others saw Pierrot as a melancholic self reflection of Watteau, and the picture became the image of the sad clown. Donald Posner disagreed: in Watteau's time Pierrot was simple minded, not sensitive, and the sad lonely clown was a 19th century idea. Either way, the relaxed, rhythmic poses of the actors below make him look frozen, and their indifference isolates him both in space and in feeling.

Legacy

In the early 19th century a dealer who could not sell the painting chalked on it: How happy Pierrot would be, if he had the gift of pleasing you. Vivant Denon, Napoleon's director of museums, then bought it. Louis La Caze acquired it in 1845 and left it to the Louvre in 1869. It influenced Paul Verlaine's Fêtes galantes, Picasso and Henri Rousseau, and helped inspire the 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis. Museums still measure their own paintings of the clown against this one.