Pierrot
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Pierrot is a stock character of pantomime and commedia dell'arte whose origins date back to the late 17th-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne. The
Paul Legrand as Pierrot, c. 1855. Photograph by Nadar.
Antoine Watteau: Italian Actors, c. 1719. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Antoine Watteau: Gilles (or Pierrot) and Four Other Characters of the Commedia dell'Arte, c. 1718. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Nicolas Lancret: Actors of the Comédie-Italienne, between 1716 and 1736. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Clown
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A clown is a person who performs physical comedy and arts in an open-ended fashion, typically while wearing distinct makeup or costuming and reversing folkway-norms. The art of performing as a clown i
Pierrot
…in contemporary popular culture—in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, screen, and concert hall—is that of the sad clown, often pining for love of Columbine (who usually breaks his heart and leaves him for Harlequin). Performing unmasked, with a whitened face, he wears a…
A typical clown of the Western "buffoon" tradition
Joseph Grimaldi as "Joey" the Clown, c. 1810
Les Rossyann, white clown and clumsy Auguste from France
G.L. Fox, the original Humpty Dumpty, c. 1860s