Pierrot (/ˈpɪəroʊ/PEER-oh,US also/ˈpiːəroʊ,ˌpiːəˈroʊ/PEE-ə-roh,PEE-ə-ROH;French:[pjɛʁo]ⓘ) is astock character ofpantomime andcommedia dell'arte whose origins date back to the late 17th-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as theComédie-Italienne. The name is adiminutive ofPierre (Peter), using the suffix-ot and derives from the ItalianPedrolino. His character 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 sadclown, often pining for love ofColumbine (who usually breaks his heart and leaves him forHarlequin). Performing unmasked, with a whitened face, he wears a loose white blouse with large buttons and wide white pantaloons. Sometimes he appears with a frilled collaret and a hat, usually with a close-fitting crown and wide round brim and, more rarely, with a conical shape like a dunce's cap.
Pierrot's character developed from that of abuffoon to become an avatar of the disenfranchised.[1] Manycultural movements found him amenable to their respective causes:Decadents turned him into a disillusioned foe of idealism;Symbolists saw him as a lonely fellow-sufferer;Modernists made him into a silent, alienated observer of the mysteries of the human condition.[2] Much of that mythic quality ("I'm Pierrot," saidDavid Bowie: "I'm Everyman")[3] still adheres to the "sad clown" in thepostmodern era.
Pierrot is sometimes said to be a French variant of the sixteenth-century ItalianPedrolino,[4] but the two types have little but their names ("Little Pete") and social stations in common.[5] Both are comic servants, but Pedrolino, as a so-called "first"Zanni, often acts with cunning and daring,[6] an engine of the plot in thescenarios where he appears.[7] Pierrot, on the other hand, as a "second"' Zanni, stands "on the periphery of the action".[8] He dispenses advice and courts his master's young daughter, Columbine, bashfully.[9]
His origins among the Italian players in France go back toMolière's peasant Pierrot inDon Juan, or The Stone Guest (1665).[10] In 1673, the Comédie-Italienne made its own contribution to the Don Juan legend with anAddendum to "The Stone Guest",[11] which included Molière's Pierrot.[12] Thereafter the character—sometimes a peasant,[13] but more often now an Italianate "second" Zanni—appeared fairly regularly in the Italians' offerings, his role always taken by one Giuseppe Giaratone (or Geratoni, fl. 1639–1697).
Among the French dramatists writing roles for Pierrot wereJean de Palaprat, Claude-Ignace Brugière de Barante,Antoine Houdar de la Motte, andJean-François Regnard.[14] They present him as an anomaly among busy social personalities around him.[15] Columbine laughs at his advances;[16] his masters who are in pursuit of pretty young wives brush off his warnings to act their age.[17] His isolation bears the pathos ofWatteau's portraits.
An Italian company was called back to Paris in 1716, and Pierrot was reincarnated by the actors Pierre-François Biancolelli (son of the Harlequin of the banished troupe of players) and, after Biancolelli abandoned the role, the celebratedFabio Sticotti (1676–1741) and his sonAntoine Jean (1715–1772).[18] But the character seems to have been regarded as unimportant by this company, since he appears infrequently in its new plays.[19]
The character appeared often in the 18th century on Parisian stages. Sometimes he spoke gibberish, sometimes the audience itself sang his lines, inscribed on placards held aloft.[20] He could appear as a valet, a cook, or an adventurer; his character is not strictly defined.[21]
In the 1720s, Pierrot came into his own. In plays such asTrophonius's Cave (1722) andThe Golden Ass (1725),[22] one meets an engaging Pierrot. The accomplished comic actor Jean-Baptiste Hamoche portrayed him with success.[23] After 1733, he rarely appears in new plays.[24]
Pierrot also appeared in the visual arts and in folksongs ("Au clair de la lune").[25] The art ofClaude Gillot (Master André's Tomb [c. 1717]), of Gillot's students Watteau (Italian Actors [c. 1719]) andNicolas Lancret (Italian Actors near a Fountain [c. 1719]), ofJean-Baptiste Oudry (Italian Actors in a Park [c. 1725]), ofPhilippe Mercier (Pierrot and Harlequin [n.d.]), and ofJean-Honoré Fragonard (A Boy as Pierrot [1776–1780]), features him prominently.
As early as 1673, just months after Pierrot had made his debut in theAddendum to "The Stone Guest",Scaramouche Tiberio Fiorilli and a troupe assembled from the Comédie-Italienne entertained Londoners with selections from their Parisian repertoire.[26] And in 1717, Pierrot's name first appears in an English entertainment: apantomime byJohn Rich entitledThe Jealous Doctor; or, The Intriguing Dame. Thereafter, until the end of the century, Pierrot appeared fairly regularly in English pantomimes (which were originally muteharlequinades; in the 19th century, the harlequinade was a "play within a play" during the pantomime), finding his most notable interpreter inCarlo Delpini (1740–1828). Delpini, according to the popular-theater historian, M. Willson Disher, "kept strictly to the idea of a creature so stupid as to think that if he raised his leg level with his shoulder he could use it as a gun."[27] Pierrot was later displaced by the Englishclown.[28]
In 1800, a troupe of Italian players led by Pasquale Casorti performed inDyrehavsbakken. Casorti's son, Giuseppe (1749–1826), began appearing as Pierrot in pantomimes, which now had a formulaic plot structure.[29] Pierrot is still a fixture atBakken, at nearbyTivoli Gardens andTivoli Friheden inAarhus.[30][31]
Ludwig Tieck'sThe Topsy-Turvy World (1798) is an early—and highly successful—example of the introduction of thecommedia dell'arte characters intoparodicmetatheater (Pierrot is a member of the audience watching the play).
The penetration of Pierrot and his companions of thecommedia into Spain is documented in a painting byGoya,Itinerant Actors (1793). It foreshadows the work of such Spanish successors asPicasso andFernand Pelez, both of whom also showed strong sympathy with the lives of travelingsaltimbancos.
TheThéâtre des Funambules was a little theater licensed in its early years to present only mimed and acrobatic acts.[32] It was the home, beginning in 1816, ofJean-Gaspard Deburau (1796–1846),[33] the most famous Pierrot ever. He was immortalized byJean-Louis Barrault inMarcel Carné's filmChildren of Paradise (1945).
Deburau, from the year 1825, was the only actor at the Funambules to play Pierrot,[34] and he did so in several types of pantomime: rustic, melodramatic, "realistic", and fantastic.[35] His style, according toLouis Péricaud, formed "an enormous contrast with the exuberance, the superabundance of gestures, of leaps, that ... his predecessors had employed".[36] He altered the costume: he dispensed with the frilled collaret, substituted a skullcap for a hat, and greatly increased the wide cut of both blouse and trousers. Deburau's Pierrot avoided the crude Pierrots—timid, sexless, lazy, and greedy—found in earlier pantomime.[37]
The Funambules Pierrot appealed to audiences in the faery-tale style which incorporate thecommedia types. The plot often hinged on Cassander's pursuit of Harlequin and Columbine, having to deal with a clever and ambiguous Pierrot. Deburau early—about 1828—caught the attention of theRomantics.[38] In 1842, Théophile Gautier published a fake review of a "Shakespeare" pantomime he claimed to have seen at the Funambules.[39] It placed Pierrot in the company of over-reachers in high literature such asDon Juan orMacbeth.
Deburau's son,Jean-Charles (or, as he preferred, "Charles" [1829–1873]), assumed Pierrot's blouse the year after his father died.[40] Another important Pierrot of mid-century was Charles-Dominique-Martin Legrand, known asPaul Legrand (1816–1898; see photo at top of page). He began appearing at the Funambules as Pierrot in 1845.[41]
Legrand left the Funambules in 1853 for theFolies-Nouvelles, which attracted the fashionable set, unlike the Funambules' working-class audiences. Legrand often appeared in realistic costume, his chalky face his only concession to tradition, leading some advocates of pantomime, such as Gautier, to lament that he was betraying the character of the type.[42] Legrand's Pierrot influenced future mimes.
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In the 1880s and 1890s, the pantomime reached a type of apogee, and Pierrot became ubiquitous.[43] Moreover, he acquired a female counterpart, Pierrette, who rivaled Columbine for his affections. ACercle Funambulesque was founded in 1888, and Pierrot (sometimes played by female mimes, such asFélicia Mallet) dominated its productions until its demise in 1898.[44]Sarah Bernhardt even donned Pierrot's blouse forJean Richepin'sPierrot the Murderer (1883).
But French mimes and actors were not the only figures responsible for Pierrot's ubiquity: the English Hanlon brothers (sometimes called theHanlon-Lees), gymnasts and acrobats who had been schooled in the 1860s in pantomimes from Baptiste's repertoire, traveled (and dazzled) the world well into the 20th century with their pantomimic sketches and extravaganzas featuring riotously nightmarish Pierrots. TheNaturalists—Émile Zola especially, who wrote glowingly of them—were captivated by their art.[45]Edmond de Goncourt modeled his acrobat-mimes in hisThe Zemganno Brothers (1879) upon them;J.-K. Huysmans (whoseAgainst Nature [1884] would becomeDorian Gray's bible) and his friendLéon Hennique wrote their pantomimePierrot the Skeptic (1881) after seeing them perform at the Folies Bergère (and, in turn,Jules Laforgue wrote his pantomimePierrot the Cut-Up [Pierrot fumiste, 1882][46] after reading the scenario by Huysmans and Hennique).[47] It was in part through the enthusiasm that they excited, coupled with theImpressionists' taste for popular entertainment, such as the circus and the music-hall, as well as the new bohemianism that then reigned in artistic quarters such asMontmartre (and which was celebrated by such denizens asAdolphe Willette, whose cartoons and canvases are crowded with Pierrots)—it was through all this that Pierrot achieved almost unprecedented currency and visibility towards the end of the century.
He invaded the visual arts[48]—not only in the work of Willette, but also in the illustrations and posters ofJules Chéret;[49] in the engravings ofOdilon Redon (The Swamp Flower: A Sad Human Head [1885]); and in the canvases ofGeorges Seurat (Pierrot with a White Pipe [Aman-Jean] [1883];The Painter Aman-Jean as Pierrot [1883]),Léon Comerre (Pierrot [1884],Pierrot Playing the Mandolin [1884]),Henri Rousseau (A Carnival Night [1886]),Paul Cézanne (Mardi gras [Pierrot and Harlequin] [1888]),Fernand Pelez (Grimaces and Miseries a.k.a.The Saltimbanques [1888]),Pablo Picasso (Pierrot and Columbine [1900]),Guillaume Seignac (Pierrot's Embrace [1900]),Théophile Steinlen (Pierrot and the Cat [1889]), andÉdouard Vuillard (The Black Pierrot [c. 1890]). The mime "Tombre" ofJean Richepin's novelNice People (Braves Gens [1886]) turned him into a pathetic and alcoholic "phantom";Paul Verlaine imagined him as a gormandizing naïf in "Pantomime" (1869), then, like Tombre, as a lightning-lit specter in "Pierrot" (1868, pub. 1882).[50]Laforgue put three of the "complaints" of his first published volume of poems (1885) into "Lord" Pierrot's mouth—and dedicated his next book,The Imitation of Our Lady the Moon (1886), completely to Pierrot and his world (Pierrots were legion among the minor, now-forgotten poets: for samples, see Willette's journalThe Pierrot, which appeared between 1888 and 1889, then again in 1891). In the realm of song,Claude Debussy set both Verlaine's "Pantomime" andBanville's "Pierrot" (1842) to music in 1881 (not published until 1926)—the only precedents among works by major composers being the "Pierrot" section ofTelemann'sBurlesque Overture (1717–22),Mozart's 1783 "Masquerade" (in which Mozart himself took the role of Harlequin and his brother-in-law,Joseph Lange, that of Pierrot),[51] and the "Pierrot" section ofRobert Schumann'sCarnival (1835).[52] Even the embryonic art of the motion picture turned to Pierrot before the century was out: he appeared, not only in early celluloid shorts (Georges Méliès'sA Nightmare [1896],The Magician [1898];Alice Guy'sArrival of Pierrette and Pierrot [1900],Pierrette's Amorous Adventures [1900]; Ambroise-François Parnaland'sPierrot's Big Head/Pierrot's Tongue [1900],Pierrot-Drinker [1900]), but also inEmile Reynaud'sPraxinoscope production ofPoor Pierrot (1892), the first animated movie and the first hand-colored one.
In Belgium,Félicien Rops depicted a grinning Pierrot who witnesses an unromantic backstage scene (Blowing Cupid's Nose [1881]).James Ensor painted Pierrots obsessively, in various poses from prostrate to bowing his head in despondency, sometimes even with a smiling skeleton. The Belgian poet and dramatistAlbert Giraud also identified with the Zanni: the fiftyrondels of hisPierrot lunaire (Moonstruck Pierrot, 1884) inspired generations of composers (seePierrot lunaire below), and his verse-playPierrot-Narcissus (1887) offered a definitive portrait of the poet-dreamer. The choreographerJoseph Hansen staged the balletMacabre Pierrot in 1884 in collaboration with the poetThéo Hannon.
Pierrot figured prominently in the drawings ofAubrey Beardsley, and various writers referenced him in their poetry.[53][54][55] Ethel Wright paintedBonjour, Pierrot! (a greeting to a dour clown sitting disconsolate with his dog) in 1893. The Pierrot of popular taste also spawned a uniquely English entertainment. In 1891, the singer and banjoistClifford Essex, resolved to create a troupe of English Pierrot entertainers,[56] and called them theseaside Pierrots who, as late as the 1950s, performed on the piers ofBrighton,Margate, andBlackpool.[57] They inspired the Will Morris Pierrots, named after theirBirmingham founder. They originated in theSmethwick area in the late 1890s and played to large audiences inthe Midlands.Walter Westley Russell committed these performers to canvas inThe Pierrots (c. 1900).
Pierrot's mask claimed the attention of the great theater innovatorEdward Gordon Craig.[58] Craig's involvement with the figure grew with time. In 1897, Craig, dressed as Pierrot, gave a quasi-impromptu stage-reading ofHans Christian Andersen's story "What the Moon Saw" as part of a benefit performance for theater artists in need.[59]
Although he lamented that "the Pierrot figure was inherently alien to the German-speaking world", the playwrightFranz Blei introduced him enthusiastically into his playletThe Kissy-Face: A Columbiade (1895), and his fellow-AustriansRichard Specht andRichard Beer-Hofmann made an effort to naturalize Pierrot—in their playsPierrot-Hunchback (1896) andPierrot-Hypnotist (1892, first pub. 1984), respectively—by linking his fortunes with those ofGoethe's Faust.[60] Still others among their countrymen simply sidestepped the issue of naturalization:Hermann Bahr took his inspiration for hisPantomime of the Good Man (1893) directly from his encounter with the exclusively FrenchCercle Funambulesque; Rudolf Holzer set the action of hisPuppet Loyalty (1899), unapologetically, in a fabulous Paris; andKarl Michael von Levetzow settled hisTwo Pierrots (1900) in the birthplace of Pierrot's comedy, Italy.[61]
In Germany,Frank Wedekind introduced thefemme-fatale of his first "Lulu" play,Earth Spirit (1895), in a Pierrot costume. In a similar spirit, the painterPaul Hoecker put cheeky young men into Pierrot costumes to ape their complacent burgher elders inPierrots with Pipes (c. 1900) and swilling champagne inWaiting Woman (c. 1895).
Canio's Pagliaccio in the famousopera (1892) byLeoncavallo is close enough to a Pierrot to deserve a mention here. Much less well-known is the work of two other composers—Mario Pasquale Costa andVittorio Monti. Costa's pantomimeL'Histoire d'un Pierrot (Story of a Pierrot), which debuted in Paris in 1893, was so admired in its day that it eventually reached audiences on several continents, was paired withCavalleria Rusticana by New York's Metropolitan Opera Company in 1909, and was premiered as a film byBaldassarre Negroni in 1914.[62] Its libretto, like that of Monti's "mimodrama"Noël de Pierrot a.k.a.A Clown's Christmas (1900), was written by Fernand Beissier, one of the founders of theCercle Funambulesque.[63] (Monti would go on to acquire his own fame by celebrating another spiritual outsider much akin to Pierrot—theGypsy. HisCsárdás [c. 1904], likePagliacci, has found a secure place in the standard musical repertoire).
The portrait andgenre painterVittorio Matteo Corcos producedPortrait of Boy in Pierrot Costume in 1897.
In 1895, the playwright and futureNobel laureateJacinto Benavente wrote rapturously in his journal of a performance of theHanlon-Lees,[64] and three years later he published his only pantomime:The Whiteness of Pierrot. A truefin de siècle mask, Pierrot paints his face black to commit robbery and murder; then, after restoring his pallor, he hides himself, terrified of his own undoing, in a snowbank—forever. Thus does he forfeit his union with Columbine (the intended beneficiary of his crimes) for a frosty marriage with the moon.[65]
Pierrot and his fellow masks were late in coming to the United States, which, unlike England, Russia, and the countries of continental Europe, had had no early exposure to commedia dell'arte.[66] TheHanlon-Lees made their first U.S. appearance in 1858, and their subsequent tours, well into the 20th century, of scores of cities throughout the country accustomed their audiences to their fantastic, acrobatic Pierrots.[67] But the Pierrot that would leave the deepest imprint upon the American imagination was that of the French and EnglishDecadents, a creature who quickly found his home in the so-calledlittle magazines of the 1890s (as well as in the poster-art that they spawned). One of the earliest and most influential of these in America,The Chap-Book (1894–98), which featured a story about Pierrot by the aesthetePercival Pollard in its second number,[68] was soon host to Beardsley-inspired Pierrots drawn by E.B. Bird and Frank Hazenplug[69] (the Canadian poetBliss Carman should also be mentioned for his contribution to Pierrot's dissemination in mass-market publications such asHarper's).[70] Like most things associated with the Decadence, such exotica discombobulated the mainstream American public, which regarded the little magazines in general as "freak periodicals" and declared, through one of its mouthpieces,Munsey's Magazine, that "each new representative of the species is, if possible, more preposterous than the last".[71] And yet the Pierrot of that species was gaining a foothold elsewhere. The composersAmy Beach andArthur Foote devoted a section to Pierrot (as well as to Pierrette, his Decadent counterpart) in two ludic pieces for piano—Beach'sChildren's Carnival (1894) and Foote'sFive Bagatelles (1893).
The fin de siècle world in which this Pierrot resided was clearly at odds with the reigning American Realist and Naturalist aesthetic (although such figures asAmbrose Bierce andJohn LaFarge were mounting serious challenges to it). It is in fact jarring to find the champion of American prose Realism,William Dean Howells, introducingPastels in Prose (1890), a volume of Frenchprose-poems containing aPaul Margueritte pantomime,The Death of Pierrot,[72] with words of warm praise (and even congratulations to each poet for failing "to saddle his reader with a moral").[73] So uncustomary was the French Aesthetic viewpoint that, when Pierrot made an appearance inPierrot the Painter (1893),[74] a pantomime byAlfred Thompson, set to music by the American composerLaura Sedgwick Collins,The New York Times covered it as an event, although it was only a student production. It was found to be "pleasing" because, in part, it was "odd".[75] Not until the first decade of the next century, when the great (and popular) fantasistMaxfield Parrish worked his magic on the figure, would Pierrot be comfortably naturalized in America.
Of course, writers from the United States living abroad—especially in Paris or London—were aberrantly susceptible to the charms of the Decadence. Such a figure wasStuart Merrill, who consorted with the FrenchSymbolists and who compiled and translated the pieces inPastels in Prose. Another wasWilliam Theodore Peters, an acquaintance ofErnest Dowson and other members of theRhymers' Club and a driving force behind the conception and theatrical realization of Dowson'sPierrot of the Minute (1897; seeEngland above). Of the three books that Peters published before his death (of starvation)[76] at the age of forty-two, hisPosies out of Rings: And Other Conceits (1896) is most notable here: in it, four poems and an "Epilogue" for the aforementioned Dowson play are devoted to Pierrot (from the mouth of Pierrotloquitur: "Although this pantomime of life is passing fine,/Who would be happy must not marry Columbine").[77]
Another pocket of North-American sympathy with the Decadence—one manifestation of what the Latin world calledmodernismo—could be found in the progressive literary scene of Mexico, its parent country, Spain, having been long conversant with the commedia dell'arte. In 1897,Bernardo Couto Castillo, another Decadent who, at the age of twenty-two, died even more tragically young than Peters, embarked on a series of Pierrot-themed short—"Pierrot Enamored of Glory" (1897), "Pierrot and His Cats" (1898), "The Nuptials of Pierrot" (1899), "Pierrot's Gesture" (1899), "The Caprices of Pierrot" (1900)—culminating, after the turn of the century (and in the year of Couto's death), with "Pierrot-Gravedigger" (1901).[78] For the Spanish-speaking world, according to scholar Emilio Peral Vega, Couto "expresses that first manifestation of Pierrot as an alter ego in a game of symbolic otherness ...".[79]
Inspired by the FrenchSymbolists, especially Verlaine,Rubén Darío, the Nicaraguan poet widely acknowledged as the founder of Spanish-American literarymodernism (modernismo), placed Pierrot ("sad poet and dreamer") in opposition to Columbine ("fatal woman", the arch-materialistic "lover of rich silk garments, golden jewelry, pearls and diamonds")[80] in his 1898 prose-poemThe Eternal Adventure of Pierrot and Columbine.
In the last year of the century, Pierrot appeared in a Russian ballet,Harlequin's Millions a.k.a.Harlequinade (1900), its libretto and choreography byMarius Petipa, its music byRiccardo Drigo, its dancers the members of St. Petersburg'sImperial Ballet. It would set the stage for the later and greater triumphs of Pierrot in the productions of theBallets Russes.
The Pierrot bequeathed to the 20th century had acquired a rich and wide range of personae. He was the naïve butt of practical jokes and amorous scheming (Gautier); the prankish but innocent waif (Banville, Verlaine, Willette); the narcissistic dreamer clutching at the moon, which could symbolize many things, from spiritual perfection to death (Giraud, Laforgue, Willette, Dowson); the frail,neurasthenic, often doom-ridden soul (Richepin, Beardsley); the clumsy, although ardent, lover, who wins Columbine's heart,[81] or murders her in frustration (Margueritte); the cynical and misogynisticdandy, sometimes dressed in black (Huysmans/Hennique, Laforgue); the Christ-like victim of the martyrdom that is Art (Giraud, Willette, Ensor); the androgynous and unholy creature of corruption (Richepin, Wedekind); the madcap master of chaos (the Hanlon-Lees); the purveyor of hearty and wholesome fun (the English pier Pierrots)—and various combinations of these. Like the earlier masks of commedia dell'arte, Pierrot now knew no national boundaries. Thanks to the international gregariousness of modernism, he would soon be found everywhere.[82]
Pierrot played a seminal role in the emergence ofmodernism in the arts. He was a key figure in every art form except architecture.
T. S. Eliot's "breakthrough work",[83] "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915), owed its existence to the poems ofJules Laforgue, whose"ton 'pierrot'"[84] informed all of Eliot's early poetry.[85] (Laforgue, he said, "was the first to teach me how to speak, to teach me the poetic possibilities of my own idiom of speech.")[86] Prufrock is a Pierrot transplanted to America.[87]
Another prominent Modernist,Wallace Stevens, was undisguised in his identification with Pierrot in his earliest poems and letters—an identification that he later complicated and refined through such avatars as Bowl (inBowl, Cat and Broomstick [1917]), Carlos (inCarlos Among the Candles [1917]), and, most importantly, Crispin (in "The Comedian as the Letter C" [1923]).[88]
William Faulkner began his career as a chronicler of Pierrot's amorous disappointments and existential anguish in such little-known works as his playThe Marionettes (1920) and the verses of hisVision in Spring (1921), works that were an early and revealing declaration of the novelist's "fragmented state"[89] (some critics have argued that Pierrot stands behind the semi-autobiographicalNick Adams of Faulkner's fellow-Nobel laureateErnest Hemingway,[90] and another contends thatJames Joyce'sStephen Dedalus, again an avatar of his own creator, also shares the same parentage).[91]
In music, historians of modernism generally placeArnold Schoenberg's 1912 song-cyclePierrot lunaire at the very pinnacle of high-modernist achievement.[92]
In ballet,Igor Stravinsky'sPetrushka (1911), in which the traditionallyPulcinella-like clown wears the heart of Pierrot,[93] is often argued to have attained the same stature.[94]
As for the drama, Pierrot was a regular fixture in the plays of theLittle Theatre Movement (Edna St. Vincent Millay'sAria da Capo [1920], Robert Emmons Rogers'Behind a Watteau Picture [1918], Blanche Jennings Thompson'sThe Dream Maker [1922]),[95] which nourished the careers of such important Modernists asEugene O'Neill,Susan Glaspell, and others.
Students of modernist painting and sculpture are familiar with Pierrot (in many different attitudes, from the ineffably sad to the ebulliently impudent) through the masterworks of his acolytes, includingPablo Picasso,Juan Gris,Georges Rouault,Salvador Dalí,Max Beckmann,August Macke,Paul Klee, andJacques Lipchitz. The list is extensive. SeeVisual arts inCultural references to Pierrot for more.
In film, a beloved early comic hero was theLittle Tramp ofCharlie Chaplin, who conceived the character, in Chaplin's words, as "a sort of Pierrot".[96]
As the diverse incarnations of the 19th-century Pierrot would predict, the hallmarks of the modernist Pierrot are his ambiguity and complexity.
One of his earliest appearances was inAlexander Blok'sThe Puppet Show (1906), called by one theater-historian "the greatest example of the harlequinade in Russia".[97]Vsevolod Meyerhold, who both directed the first production and took on the role, dramatically emphasized the multifacetedness of the character: according to one spectator, Meyerhold's Pierrot was "nothing like those familiar, falsely sugary, whining Pierrots. Everything about him is sharply angular; in a hushed voice he whispers strange words of sadness; somehow he contrives to be caustic, heart-rending, gentle: all these things yet at the same time impudent."[98]
The fifty poems that were published byAlbert Giraud (born Emile Albert Kayenbergh) asPierrot lunaire: Rondels bergamasques in 1884 were set to music several times. The best known version is byArnold Schoenberg, i.e., his Opus 21:Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert GiraudsPierrot lunaire (Thrice-Seven Poems from Albert Giraud's Pierrot lunaire—Schoenberg was numerologically superstitious). This led, among other things, to ensemble groups' appropriating Pierrot's name, such as the EnglishPierrot Players (1967–70).[99] The Pierrot behind those cycles has invaded worlds well beyond those of composers, singers, and ensemble-performers. Theatrical groups such as theOpera Quotannis have brought Pierrot'sPassion to the dramatic stage; dancers such asGlen Tetley have choreographed it; poets such asWayne Koestenbaum have derived original inspiration from it.[100] It has been translated into still more distant media by painters, such asPaul Klee; fiction-writers, such as Helen Stevenson; filmmakers, such asBruce LaBruce; and graphic-novelists, such as Antoine Dodé.[101] A passionately sinister Pierrot Lunaire has even shadowed DC Comics'Batman.[102] Pierrot is aptly honored in the title of a song by the British rock-groupThe Soft Machine: "Thank You Pierrot Lunaire" (1969).[103]
Pierrot appears among the revelers at various international carnivals. His name suggests kinship with the Pierrot Grenade ofTrinidad and Tobago Carnival, being a satire on the richer and more respectable Pierrot. Pierrot Grenade was a finely dressed masquerader and deeply supreme scholar/jester proud of his ability to spell any word in his own fashion and quoting Shakespearean characters as Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony, and Othello at length.
In one of the few extant contemporary illustrations involving Pedrolino—i.e., the frontispiece of Giulio Cesare Croce'sPedrolino's Great Victory against the Doctor Gratiano Scatolone, for Love of the Beautiful Franceschina (1621)—the Zanni is shown thrashingil Dottore rather savagely (and, as the title indicates, victoriously). Such aggressive ferocity is almost never to be seen, early or late, in the behavioral repertoire of Pierrot. Pierrot can be murderous (see"Shakespeare at the Funambules" and aftermath below), but he is very rarely pugnacious (as he is in the pantomimes of theHanlon-Lees).
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