From the Commedia dell’Arte to Punch and Judy 1

Stage plays have been the source for many paintings, from the development of the professional theatre across Europe in the mid-sixteenth century in what soon became known as the commedia dell’arte, also Italian comedy in English. Unlike the scripted plays of William Shakespeare, this comedy theatre relied on a mixture of improvisation, stereotype characters, and prepared jokes. It has long been popular in the Venice Carnival, and spread throughout much of Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when it peaked.

This weekend I look first at paintings of its main tradition, and tomorrow at its relative the Punch and Judy show.

One of the keys to the success of the Commedia is its use of costume to identify its best-known characters. This ensured audiences recognised the role of each actor as soon as they walked onto the stage, and proves ideal for paintings too. Among the best-known and most enduring are:

Harlequin (Arlecchino), a servant wearing a colourful jacket and trousers,
Pulcinella, a servant wearing a baggy white outfit,
Pantalone, an older wealthy man wearing a dark cape and red trousers,
Colombine (Colombina), a maidservant wearing either black and white, or similar colourful dress to Harlequin,
Pierrot, a servant and sad clown, wearing a voluminous white costume with large buttons,
Scaramouche (Scaramuccio), a freed servant and skilled swordsman,
Brighella, an evil servant often paired with Harlequin, wearing a costume trimmed in green,
The Doctor (Il Dottore), a pedant from Bologna who claims to know everything.

These became increasingly stereotypical over time.

Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602–1660), The Rehearsal, or A Scene from the Commedia dell’Arte (1630-40), oil on canvas, 58.4 x 116 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Michelangelo Cerquozzi’s Rehearsal, or A Scene from the Commedia dell’Arte from 1630-40 is an early record, showing more traditional costumes. At the left is a small group containing Scaramouche, Harlequin and possibly Brighella, and at the right are the Doctor and Pierrot, perhaps.

Perhaps the greatest master to develop a particular affection for the Commedia was the French Rococo painter Antoine Watteau. He developed this by 1705, when he had been taken on as an assistant to Claude Gillot.

Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), The Foursome (c 1713), oil on canvas, 49.5 x 64.9 cm, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA. Wikimedia Commons.

Watteau’s Foursome from about 1713 shows a Pierrot figure standing with his back to the viewer as he talks to two ladies in fashionable dress.

Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), Pleasures of Love (c 1718-19), oil on canvas, 60 x 75 cm, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

In his fête galante, Pleasures of Love from about 1718-19, Watteau brings together his novel sub-genre with a Pierrot figure playing a guitar to serenade the ladies in the foreground.

Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), The Italian Comedians (c 1720), oil on canvas, 128.9 x 93.3 cm, Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA. Wikimedia Commons.

Watteau’s Italian Comedians from about 1720 shows five figures who have just finished performing in a park on the outskirts of Paris. Pierrot, in his baggy white suit, holds his hat ready for donations from the audience. Brighella wears a green-gold suit and cape, and Mezzetin plays his guitar while Harlequin peers over his shoulder. At the far right is Scaramouche, in a Spanish costume of black with a white ruff.

Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), The Italian Comedians (c 1720), oil on canvas, 63.8 x 76.2 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.

From the same time, and under the same title, Watteau’s stage scene of Italian Comedians puts Pierrot centre-stage, and marked the artist’s last performance of this theme.

Francisco Goya (1746–1828), The Strolling Players (1793), oil on tinplate, 43 x 32 cm, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Wikimedia Commons.

At the end of the eighteenth century, Francisco Goya recorded this troupe of itinerant Strolling Players (1793) on the bank of the River Manzanares in Madrid, with a packed audience behind its stage. At the left is Harlequin in his distinctive dress, with a grubby Pierrot towards the centre.

Costumes from the Commedia also became popular wear for masked balls.

Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904), The Duel After the Ball (copy) (1857), oil on canvas, 39.1 x 56.3 cm, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD. Wikimedia Commons.

If the story behind Gérôme’s Duel After the Ball (1857) is to be believed, on leaving a masked (fancy dress) ball in the winter of 1856-7, an elected official and a former police commissioner fought a duel in a copse in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris. One was dressed as Pierrot, the other as Harlequin. Pierrot was wounded as a result, and the incident became notorious because of the personalities involved, and their comic costumes.

Pierrot leans, as white as his costume, collapsed against one of his team, his face suggesting shock if not imminent death from a wound bleeding onto his chest. His limp right arm still bears his sword, which now drags on the ground. Two other friends are visibly distressed at his condition and trying to console him.

Harlequin, with his second, walks off into the distance at the right. His sword is abandoned on the snowy ground, near four feathers that have dropped from the American Indian headdress of his second. In the murky distance there is a hackney cab, ready to take the combatants away, and a couple walking along the edge of the copse.

Gérôme stages this theatrically, with the absurd grim humour of the participants’ costumes and the comedy of Pierrot and Harlequin.

Stereotypes from the Commedia continue to appear sporadically in more modern paintings, including those of Ukrainian artist Abraham Mintchine who migrated to Paris in 1925.

Abraham Mintchine (1898–1931), Pierrot (1928), oil, 92 x 60 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

Mintchine’s Pierrot (1928) is rich in symbols. Against a hilly landscape background, a figure dressed as this character from the Commedia wears a winged cap suggestive of the god Mercury. Resting in front of him are three large seashells.

Abraham Mintchine (1898–1931), Child with Harlequin (date not known), oil on panel, 54 x 40 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

His undated Child with Harlequin shows a child holding a doll dressed in a Harlequin costume with a black mask.

Abraham Mintchine (1898–1931), Self-Portrait as Harlequin (1931), oil on canvas, 73 x 50.2 cm, The Tate Gallery, London. Wikimedia Commons.

Mintchine’s Self-Portrait as Harlequin is thought to have been painted shortly before his death in early 1931, and shows another variant of the costume, this time with an exuberant ruff and a starched white linen hat, similar to those worn by Breton women.

Further reading

Wikipedia
Judith Chaffee’s Commedia website