Pierrot
Encyclopedia
Pierrot is a stock character
of pantomime
and Commedia dell'Arte
whose origins are in the late 17th-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne
; the name is a hypocorism of Pierre (Peter), via the suffix -ot. His character in postmodern popular culture—in poetry, fiction, the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, screen, and concert hall—is that of the sad clown, pining for love of Columbine
, who usually breaks his heart and leaves him for Harlequin
. 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, more rarely with a conical shape like a dunce's cap. But most frequently, since his reincarnation under Jean-Gaspard Deburau
, he wears neither collar nor hat, only a black skullcap. The defining characteristic of Pierrot is his naïveté: he is seen as a fool, always the butt of pranks, yet nonetheless trusting.
It was a generally buffoonish Pierrot that held the European stage for the first two centuries of his history. And yet early signs of a respectful, even sympathetic attitude toward the character appeared in the plays of Jean-François Regnard
and in the paintings of Antoine Watteau
, an attitude that would deepen in the 19th century, after the Romantics
claimed the figure as their own. For Jules Janin
and Théophile Gautier
, Pierrot was not a fool but an avatar of the post-Revolutionary
People, struggling, sometimes tragically, to secure a place in the bourgeois world. And subsequent artistic/cultural movements found him equally amenable to their cause: the Decadents
turned him, like themselves, into a disillusioned disciple of Schopenhauer, a foe of Woman and of callow idealism; the Symbolists
saw him as a lonely fellow-sufferer, crucified upon the rood
of soulful sensitivity, his only friend the distant moon; the Modernists
converted him into a Whistlerian subject for canvases devoted to form and color and line. In short, Pierrot became an alter-ego of the artist, specifically of the famously alienated artist of the 19th and early 20th centuries. His physical insularity; his poignant muteness, the legacy of the great mime Deburau; his white face and costume, suggesting not only innocence but the pallor of the dead; his often frustrated pursuit of Columbine, coupled with his never-to-be vanquished unworldly naïveté—all conspired to lift him out of the circumscribed world of the Commedia dell'Arte and into the larger realm of myth. Much of that mythic quality still adheres to the "sad clown" of the postmodern era.
, often acts with cunning and daring, an engine of the plot in the scenarios where he appears. Pierrot, on the other hand, as a "second" zanni, is a static character in his earliest incarnations, standing on the periphery of the action, dispensing advice that seems to him sage, and courting—unsuccessfully—his master's young daughter, Columbine, with bashfulness and indecision.
His origins among the Italian players in France are most unambiguously traced to Molière
's character, the lovelorn peasant Pierrot, in Don Juan, or The Stone Guest (1665). In 1673, probably inspired by Molière's success, the Comédie-Italienne gave a performance of its addendum to the Don Juan legend, Sequel to "The Stone Guest", which included Molière's Pierrot. Thereafter the character—sometimes a peasant, 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), until the troupe was banished by royal decree in 1697.
Among the French dramatists who wrote for the Italians and who gave Pierrot life on their stage were Jean Palaprat
, Claude-Ignace Brugière de Barante, Antoine Houdar de la Motte
, and the most sensitive of his early interpreters, Jean-François Regnard
. He acquires there a very distinctive personality. He seems an anomaly among the busy social creatures that surround him; he is isolated, out of touch. Columbine laughs at his advances; his masters who are in pursuit of pretty young wives brush off his warnings to act their age. His is a solitary voice, and his estrangement, however comic, bears the pathos of the portraits—Watteau
's chief among them—that we will encounter in the centuries to come.
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 he quickly abandoned the role, the celebrated Fabio Sticotti (1676–1741) and his son Antoine-Jean (1715–1772). But the character seems to have been regarded as unimportant by this company, since he appears infrequently in its new plays.
His real life in the theater in the 18th century is to be found on the lesser stages of the capital, at its two great fairs, the Foires Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent
. There he appeared in the marionette theaters and in the motley entertainments—featuring song, dance, audience participation, and acrobatics—that were calculated to draw a crowd while sidestepping the regulations that ensured the Théâtre-Français a monopoly on "regular" dramas in Paris. Sometimes he spoke gibberish (in the so-called pièces à la muette); sometimes the audience itself sang his lines, inscribed on placards held aloft by hovering Cupids (in the pièces à écriteau). The result, far from "regular" drama, tended to put a strain on his character, and, as a consequence, the Pierrot of the fairgrounds is a much less nuanced and rounded type than we find in the older repertoire. This holds true even when sophisticated playwrights, such as Alain-René Lesage
and his collaborators, Dorneval and Fuzelier, began (around 1712) to contribute more "regular" plays to the Foires.
The broad satirical
streak in Lesage often rendered him indifferent to Pierrot's character altogether, and consequently, as the critic Vincent Barberet observes, "Pierrot is assigned the most diverse roles . . . and sometimes the most opposed to his personality. Besides making him a valet, a roasting specialist, a chef, a hash-house cook, an adventurer, [Lesage] just as frequently dresses him up as someone else." In not a few of the early Foire plays, Pierrot's character is therefore "quite badly defined." (For a typical farce by Lesage, see his Harlequin, King of Serendib
of 1713.) In the main, Pierrot's years at the Foires were rather degenerate ones.
An important factor that probably hastened this degeneration was the multiplicity of his fairground interpreters. One was the talented actor Jean-Baptiste Hamoche (active 1712–1718, 1721–1732), but there were also acrobats and dancers who appropriated the role, inadvertently reducing Pierrot to a generic type. The extent of that degeneration may be gauged by the fact that Pierrot came to be confused, apparently because of his manner and costume, with that much coarser character Gilles, as a famous portrait by Antoine Watteau
attests (see inset).
But the mention of Watteau should also alert us to the fact that Pierrot, along with his fellow Commedia masks, was beginning to be "poeticized" in this century—that he was beginning to be the subject, not only of poignant folksong ("Au clair de la lune", sometimes attributed to Lully
), but also of the more ambitious art of Claude Gillot
(Master André's Tomb [c. 1717]), of Gillot's students Watteau (Italian Actors [c. 1719]) and Nicolas Lancret
(Italian Actors near a Fountain [c. 1719]), of Jean-Baptiste Oudry
(Italian Actors in a Park [c. 1725]), and of Jean-Honoré Fragonard
(A Boy as Pierrot [1776–1780]). This development will accelerate in the next century.
by John Rich
entitled The Jealous Doctor; or, The Intriguing Dame, in which the role was undertaken by a certain Mr. Griffin. Thereafter, until the end of the century, Pierrot appeared fairly regularly in English pantomimes (which were originally mute harlequinade
s but later evolved into the Christmas pantomimes
of today; in the 19th century, the harlequinade was presented as a "play within a play" during the pantomime), finding his most notable interpreter in Carlo Delpini (1740–1828). His role was uncomplicated: 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." So conceived, Pierrot was easily and naturally displaced by the native English Clown
when the latter found a suitably brilliant interpreter. It did so in 1800, when "Joey" Grimaldi
made his debut.
, then a well-known site for entertainers, hawkers, and inn-keepers. Casorti's son, Giuseppe (1749–1826), had undoubtedly been impressed by the Pierrots they had seen while touring France in the late 18th century, for he assumed the role and began appearing as Pierrot in his own pantomimes, which now had a formulaic structure (Cassander, father of Columbine, and Pierrot, his dim-witted servant, undertake a mad pursuit of Columbine and her rogue lover, Harlequin). The formula has proven enduring: Pierrot is still a fixture at Bakken
, the oldest amusement park in the world, where he plays the nitwit talking to and entertaining children, and at nearby Tivoli Gardens, the second oldest, where the Harlequin and Columbine act is performed as a pantomime and ballet. Pierrot—as "Pjerrot", with his boat-like hat and scarlet grin—remains one of the parks’ chief attractions.
's The Topsy-Turvy World (1798) is an early—and highly successful—example of the introduction of the Commedia dell'Arte characters into parodic
metatheater. (Pierrot is a member of the audience watching the play.)
, who also showed strong sympathy with the lives of traveling saltimbanco
s.
When, in 1762, a great fire destroyed the Foire Saint-Germain and the new Comédie-Italienne claimed the fairs’ stage-offerings (now known collectively as the Opéra-Comique
) as their own, new enterprises began to attract the Parisian public, as little theaters sprang up along the now-defunct Boulevard du Temple. One of these was the Théâtre des Funambules
, licensed in its early years to present only mimed and acrobatic acts. This will be the home, beginning in 1816, of Jean-Gaspard Deburau
(1796–1846), the most famous Pierrot in the history of the theater, immortalized by Jean-Louis Barrault
in Marcel Carné
's film Children of Paradise
(1945).
Adopting the stage-name "Baptiste", Deburau played Pierrot, from about 1819, as the servant of the heavy father (usually Cassander), his mute acting a compound of placid grace and cunning malice. His style, according to Louis Péricaud, the chronicler of the Funambules, formed "an enormous contrast with the exhuberance, the superabundance of gestures, of leaps, that ... his predecessors had employed." He altered the costume: freeing his long neck for comic effects, he dispensed with the frilled collaret; he substituted a skullcap for a hat, thereby keeping his expressive face unshadowed; and he greatly increased the amplitude of both blouse and trousers. Most importantly, the character of his Pierrot, as it evolved gradually through the 1820s, eventually parted company almost completely with the crude Pierrots—timid, sexless, lazy, and greedy—of the earlier pantomime.
Deburau seems to have had a predilection for "realistic" pantomime—a predilection that, as we will see, led eventually to calls for Pierrot's expulsion from it. But the pantomime that had the greatest appeal to his public was the "pantomime-arlequinade-féerie", sometimes "in the English style" (i.e., with a prologue in which characters were transformed into the Commedia types). The action unfolded in fairy-land, peopled with good and bad spirits who both advanced and impeded the plot, which was interlarded with comically violent (and often scabrous) mayhem. As in the Bakken pantomimes, that plot hinged upon Cassander's pursuit of Harlequin and Columbine—but it was complicated, in Baptiste's interpretation, by a clever and ambiguous Pierrot. Baptiste's Pierrot was both a fool and no fool; he was Cassandre's valet but no one's servant. He was an embodiment of comic contrasts, showing
As the Gautier citations suggest, Deburau early—about 1828—caught the attention of the Romantics
, and soon he was being celebrated in the reviews of Charles Nodier
(Gautier's praise would follow), in an article by Charles Baudelaire
on "The Essence of Laughter" (1855), and in the poetry of Théodore de Banville
. A pantomime produced at the Funambules in 1828, The Gold Dream, or Harlequin and the Miser, was widely thought to be the work of Nodier, and both Gautier and Banville wrote Pierrot playlets that were eventually produced on other stages—Posthumous Pierrot (1847) and The Kiss (1887), respectively.
, Symbolist, and early Modernist
art and literature. In that year, Gautier, drawing upon Deburau's newly acquired audacity as a Pierrot, as well as upon the Romantics’ store of Shakespearean plots and of Don-Juanesque legend, published a "review" of a pantomime he claimed to have seen at the Funambules.
In "Shakespeare at the Funambules", Gautier summarized and analyzed an unnamed pantomime of unusually somber events: Pierrot murders an old-clothes man for garments to court a duchess, then is skewered in turn by the sword with which he stabbed the peddler when the latter's ghost lures him into a dance at his wedding. The pantomime under "review" was a fabrication (though it inspired a hack to turn it into an actual pantomime, The Ol’ Clo's Man [1842], in which Deburau probably appeared—and also inspired Barrault's wonderful recreation of it in Children of Paradise). But it importantly marked a turning-point in Pierrot's career: henceforth Pierrot could bear comparisons with the serious over-reachers of high literature, like Don Juan or Macbeth; he could be a victim—even unto death—of his own cruelty and daring.
When Gustave Courbet
drew a crayon illustration for The Black Arm (1856), a pantomime by Fernand Desnoyers written for another mime, Paul Legrand (see next section), the Pierrot who quakes with fear as a black arm snakes up from the ground before him is clearly a child of the Pierrot in The Ol’ Clo's Man. So, too, are Honoré Daumier
's Pierrots: creatures often suffering a harrowing anguish. In 1860, Deburau was directly credited with inspiring such anguish, when, in a novella called Pierrot by Henri Rivière, the mime-protagonist blames his real-life murder of a treacherous Harlequin on Baptiste's "sinister" cruelties. Among the most celebrated of pantomimes in the latter part of the century would appear sensitive moon-mad souls duped into criminality—usually by love of a fickle Columbine—and so inevitably marked for destruction (Paul Margueritte
's Pierrot, Murderer of His Wife [1881]; the mime Séverin's Poor Pierrot [1891]; Catulle Mendès
’ Ol’ Clo's Man [1896], modeled on Gautier's "review").
(or, as he preferred, "Charles" [1829–1873]), assumed Pierrot's blouse the year after his father's death, and he was praised for bringing Baptiste's agility to the role. (Nadar's photographs of him in various poses are some of the best to come out of his studio—if not some of the best of the era.)
But the most important Pierrot of mid-century was Charles-Dominique-Martin Legrand, known as Paul Legrand
(1816–1898; see illustration at top of page). In 1839, Legrand made his debut at the Funambules as the lover Leander in the pantomimes, and when he began appearing as Pierrot, in 1845, he brought a new sensibility to the character. A mime whose talents were dramatic rather than acrobatic, Legrand helped steer the pantomime away from the old fabulous and knockabout world of fairy-land and into the realm of sentimental—often tearful—realism. In this he was abetted by the novelist and journalist Champfleury
, who set himself the task, in the 1840s, of writing "realistic" pantomimes. Among the work he produced were Marquis Pierrot (1847), which offers a plausible explanation for Pierrot's powdered face (he begins working-life as a miller's assistant), and the Pantomime of the Attorney (1865), which casts Pierrot in the prosaic role of an attorney's clerk.
Legrand left the Funambules in 1853 for what was to become his chief venue, the Folies-Nouvelles, which attracted the fashionable and artistic set, unlike the Funambules’ working-class children of paradise. Such an audience was not averse to pantomimic experiment, and at mid-century "experiment" very often meant Realism
. (The pre-Bovary
Gustave Flaubert
wrote a pantomime for the Folies-Nouvelles, Pierrot in the Seraglio [1855], which was never produced.) Legrand often appeared in realistic costume, his chalky face his only concession to tradition, leading some advocates of pantomime, like Gautier, to lament that he was betraying the character of the type.
But it was the Pierrot as conceived by Legrand that had the greatest influence on future mimes. Charles himself eventually capitulated: it was he who played the Pierrot of Champfleury's Pantomime of the Attorney. Like Legrand, Charles's student, the Marseilles mime Louis Rouffe (1849–1885), rarely performed in Pierrot's costume, earning him the epithet "l'Homme Blanc" ("The White Man"). His successor Séverin (1863–1930) played Pierrot sentimentally, as a doom-laden soul, a figure far removed from the conception of Deburau père. And one of the last great mimes of the century, Georges Wague (1875–1965), though he began his career in Pierrot's costume, ultimately dismissed Baptiste's work as puerile and embryonic, averring that it was time for Pierrot's demise in order to make way for "characters less conventional, more human." Marcel Marceau
's Bip seems a natural, if deliberate, outgrowth of these developments, walking, as he does, a concessionary line between the early fantastic domain of Deburau's Pierrot and the so-called realistic world.
In the 1880s and ‘90s, the pantomime reached a kind of apogee, and Pierrot became ubiquitous. Moreover, he acquired a counterpart, Pierrette, who rivaled Columbine for his affections. (She seems to have been especially endearing to Xavier Privas, hailed in 1899 as the "prince of songwriters": several of his songs ["Pierrette Is Dead", "Pierrette's Christmas"] are devoted to her fortunes.) A Cercle Funambulesque was founded in 1888, and Pierrot (sometimes played by female mimes, such as Félicia Mallet) dominated its productions until its demise in 1898. Sarah Bernhardt
even donned Pierrot's blouse for Jean Richepin
's Pierrot the Murderer (1883).
But French mimes and actors were not the only figures responsible for Pierrot's ubiquity: the English Hanlon brothers (sometimes called the Hanlon-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 twentieth century with their pantomimic sketches and extravaganzas featuring riotously nightmarish Pierrots. The Naturalists
—Emile Zola
especially, who wrote glowingly of them—were captivated by their art. Edmond de Goncourt
modeled his acrobat-mimes in his The Zemganno Brothers (1879) upon them; J.-K. Huysmans (whose Against Nature [1884] would become Dorian Gray
's bible) and his friend Léon Hennique wrote their pantomime Skeptical Pierrot (1881) after seeing them perform at the Folies Bergère. (And, in turn, Jules Laforgue
wrote his pantomime Pierrot the Cut-Up [Pierrot fumiste, 1882] after reading the scenario by Huysmans and Hennique.) It was in part through the enthusiasm that they excited, coupled with the Impressionists
’ taste for popular entertainment, like the circus and the music-hall, as well as the new bohemianism that then reigned in artistic quarters like Montmartre
(and which was celebrated by such denizens as Adolphe 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.
Visual arts, fiction, poetry, music, and film
He invaded the visual arts—not only in the work of Willette, but also in the illustrations and posters of Jules Chéret
; in the engravings of Odilon Redon
(The Swamp Flower: A Sad Human Head [1885]); and in the canvases of Georges Seurat (Pierrot with a White Pipe [Aman-Jean] [1883]; The Painter Aman-Jean as Pierrot [1883]), Léon Comerre (Pierrot [1884]), Henri Rousseau
(A Carnival Night [1886]), Paul Cézanne
(Pierrot and Harlequin [1888]), Fernand Pelez
(Grimaces and Miseries a.k.a. The Saltimbanques [1888]), Pablo Picasso
(Pierrot and Columbine [1900]), and Guillaume Seignac (Pierrot's Embrace [1900]). The mime "Tombre" of Jean Richepin's novel Nice 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). 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 journal The Pierrot, which appeared between 1888 and 1889, then again in 1891.) In the realm of song, Claude Debussy
set both Verlaine's "Pantomime" and Banville's "Pierrot" (1842) to music in 1881 (not published until 1926)—the only precedents among works by major composers being the "Pierrot" section of Telemann's Burlesque 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), and the "Pierrot" section of Robert Schumann
's Carnival (1835). 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's The Nightmare [1896], The Magician [1898]; Alice Guy's Arrival of Pierrette and Pierrot [1900], Pierrette's Amorous Adventures [1900]; Ambroise-François Parnaland's Pierrot's Big Head/Pierrot's Tongue [1900], Pierrot-Drinker [1900]), but also in Emile Reynaud's Praxinoscope
production of Poor Pierrot
(1892), the first animated movie and the first hand-colored one. (View Poor Pierrot.)
depicted a grinning Pierrot who is witness to an unromantic backstage scene (Blowing Cupid's Nose [1881]) and James Ensor
painted Pierrots (and other masks) obsessively, sometimes rendering them prostrate in the ghastly light of dawn (The Strange Masks [1892]), sometimes isolating Pierrot in their midst, his head drooping in despondency (Pierrot's Despair [1892]), sometimes augmenting his company with a smiling, stein-hefting skeleton (Pierrot and Skeleton in Yellow [1893]). Their countryman the poet Albert Giraud
also identified intensely with the zanni: the fifty rondels
of his Pierrot lunaire
(Moonstruck Pierrot [1884]) would inspire several generations of composers (see Pierrot lunaire below), and his verse-play Pierrot-Narcissus (1887) offered a definitive portrait of the solipsistic poet-dreamer. The title of choreographer Joseph Hansen
's 1884 ballet, Macabre Pierrot, created in collaboration with the poet Théo Hannon, summed up one of the chief strands of the character's persona for many artists of the era.
, Aubrey Beardsley
's drawings attested profound kinship with the figure; Olive Custance
(who would marry Oscar Wilde
's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas
) published the poem "Pierrot" in 1897; and Ernest Dowson
wrote the verse-play Pierrot of the Minute (1897, illustrated by Beardsley), to which the composer Sir Granville Bantock would later contribute an orchestral prologue (1908). One of the gadflies of Aestheticism, W. S. Gilbert
, introduced Harlequin and Pierrot as love-struck twin brothers into Eyes and No Eyes, or The Art of Seeing
(1875), for which Thomas German Reed
wrote the music. And he ensured that neither character, contrary to many an Aesthetic Pierrot, would be amorously disappointed.
In a more bourgeois vein, Ethel Wright painted Bonjour, Pierrot! (a greeting to a dour clown sitting disconsolate with his dog) in 1893. And the Pierrot of popular taste also spawned a uniquely English entertainment. In 1891, the singer and banjoist Clifford Essex returned from France enamored of the Pierrots he had seen there and resolved to create a troupe of English Pierrot entertainers. Thus were born the seaside Pierrots
(in conical hat
s and sometimes black or colored costume) who, as late as the 1950s, sang, danced, juggled, and joked on the piers of Brighton and Margate and Blackpool. Obviously inspired by these troupes were the Will Morris Pierrots, named after their Birmingham founder. They originated in the Smethwick area in the late 1890s and played to large audiences in many parks, theaters, and pubs in the Midlands. It was doubtless these popular entertainers who inspired the academic Walter Westley Russell
to commit The Pierrots (c. 1900) to canvas.
Pierrot and Pierrette (1896) was a specimen of early English film from the director Birt Acres
. For an account of the English mime troupe The Hanlon Brothers, see France above.
introduced the femme-fatale of his first "Lulu" play, Earth Spirit
(1895), in a Pierrot costume; and when the Austrian composer Alban Berg
drew upon the play for his opera Lulu
(unfinished; first perf. 1937), he retained the scene of Lulu's meretricious pierroting. In a similarly (and paradoxically) revealing spirit, the painter Paul Hoecker put cheeky young men into Pierrot costumes to ape their complacent burgher elders, smoking their pipes (Pierrots with Pipes [c. 1900]) and swilling their champagne (Waiting Woman [c. 1895]). (See also Pierrot lunaire below.)
(1892) by Leoncavallo is close enough to a Pierrot to deserve a mention here. Much less well-known is the musical "mimodrama" of Vittorio Monti
, Noël de Pierrot a.k.a. A Clown's Christmas (1900), its score set to a pantomime by Fernand Beissier, one of the founders of the Cercle Funambulesque. (Monti would go on to claim his rightful fame by celebrating another spiritual outsider, much akin to Pierrot—the gypsy. His Csárdás [c. 1904], like Pagliacci
, has found a secure place in the standard musical repertoire.)
(1894-98), which featured a story about Pierrot by the aesthete Percival Pollard
in its second number, was soon host to Beardsley-inspired Pierrots drawn by E.B. Bird and Frank Hazenplug. (The Canadian poet Bliss Carman
should also be mentioned for his contribution to Pierrot's dissemination in mass-market publications like Harper's
.) Like most things associated with the Decadence, such exotica discombobulated the mainstream American public, who regarded the little magazines in general as "freak periodicals" and declared, through one of their mouthpieces, Munsey's Magazine
, that "each new representative of the species is, if possible, more preposterous than the last."
The fin-de-siècle world in which this Pierrot resided was clearly at odds with the reigning American Realist and Naturalist aesthetic (though such figures as Ambrose Bierce
and John LaFarge
were mounting serious challenges to it). It is in fact jarring to find the champion of American prose Realism, William Dean Howells
, introducing Pastels in Prose (1890), a volume of French prose-poems
translated by Stuart Merrill
and containing a Paul Margueritte
pantomime, The Death of Pierrot, with words of warm praise (and even congratulations to each poet for failing “to saddle his reader with a moral”). So uncustomary was the French Aesthetic viewpoint that, when Pierrot made an appearance in an eponymous pantomime (1893) by Alfred Thompson, set to music by the American composer Laura Sedgwick Collins
, The New York Times covered it as an event, even though it was only a student production. It was found to be “pleasing” because, in part, it was “odd”. Not until the first decade of the next century, when the great (and popular) fantasist Maxfield Parrish
worked his magic on the figure, would Pierrot be comfortably naturalized in America.
a.k.a. Harlequinade (1900), its libretto and choreography by Marius Petipa
, its music by Riccardo Drigo
, its dancers the members of St. Petersburg's Imperial Ballet
. It would set the stage for the later and greater triumphs of Pierrot in the productions of the Ballets Russes
.
, often doom-ridden soul (Richepin, Beardsley); the clumsy, though ardent, lover, who wins Columbine's heart, or murders her in frustration (Margueritte); the cynical and misogynous dandy
, 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.
In this section, with the exception of productions by the Ballets Russes
(which will be listed alphabetically by title) and of musical settings of Pierrot lunaire (which will be discussed under a separate heading), all works are identified by artist; all artists are grouped by nationality, then listed alphabetically. Multiple works by artists are listed chronologically.
, Goleminov
, Hopper
, Miró, Picasso—as well as in the work of their younger followers, such as Gerard Dillon, Indrek Hirv, and Roger Redgate
. And when film arrived at a pinnacle of auteurism
in the 1950s and '60s, aligning it with the earlier Modernist aesthetic, some of its most celebrated directors—Bergman
, Fellini, Godard
—turned naturally to Pierrot.
But Pierrot's most prominent place in the late 20th century, as well as in the early 21st, has been in popular, not High Modernist, art. As the entries below tend to testify, Pierrot is most visible (as in the 18th century) in unapologetically popular genres—in circus acts and street-mime sketches, TV programs and Japanese anime
, comic books and graphic novel
s, children's books and "young adult" fiction (especially fantasy and, in particular, vampire fiction), Hollywood films, and pop and rock music. He generally assumes one of three avatars: the sweet and innocent child (as in the children's books), the poignantly lovelorn and ineffectual being (as, notably, in the Jerry Cornelius
novels of Michael Moorcock
), or the somewhat sinister and depraved outsider (as in David Bowie
's various experiments, or Rachel Caine
's vampire novels, or the S&M lyrics of the English rock group Placebo
).
The format of the lists that follow is the same as that of the previous section, except for the Western pop-music singers and groups. These are listed alphabetically by first name, not last (e.g., "Stevie Wonder", not "Wonder, Stevie").
Instrumental
Opera
See also Pierrot lunaire below.
(born Emile Albert Kayenbergh) as Pierrot lunaire: Rondels bergamasques
in 1884 quickly attracted composers to set them to music, especially after they were translated, somewhat freely, into German (1892) by the poet and dramatist Otto Erich Hartleben
. (Hartleben later went on to write his own Pierrot poems.) The best known of these settings is the atonal song-cycle derived from twenty-one of the poems (in Hartleben's translation) by Arnold Schoenberg
in 1912: Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds Pierrot lunaire
(Thrice-Seven Poems from Albert Giraud's Pierrot lunaire—Schoenberg was numerologically superstitious). But the poems have dense histories as songs and sets of songs both before and after Schoenberg's landmark Opus 21. The bullet-point that follows lists early 20th-century musical settings chronologically and notes how many poems were set by each composer (all are in the Hartleben translations) and for which instruments.
As an homage to Schoenberg, the English composers Peter Maxwell Davies
and Harrison Birtwistle
founded The Pierrot Players in 1967; they performed under that name until 1970. The similarly inspired Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien, founded in Vienna by flautist Silvia Gelos and pianist Gustavo Balanesco, is still performing internationally.
In 1987, the Arnold Schoenberg Institute in Los Angeles commissioned the settings of the remaining twenty-nine poems that Schoenberg had neglected, using his original scoring, by sixteen American composers: Milton Babbitt
, Leslie Bassett
, Susan Morton Blaustein
, Paul Cooper, Miriam Gideon
, John Harbison
, Donald Harris, Richard Hoffmann, Karl Kohn
, William Kraft
, Ursula Mamlok
, Steve Mosco, Marc Neikrug, Mel Powell
, Roger Reynolds
, and Leonard Rosenman
. The settings were given their premieres between 1988 and 1990 in four concerts sponsored by the Institute. (The director of the Institute, Leonard Stein, added a setting of his own to the final concert of the project.)
Schoenberg's Pierrot has kindled inspiration not only among fellow composers but also among choreographers and singer-performers. Dancers who have staged Pierrot lunaire have included the Russian-born American Adolph Bolm
(1926), the American Glen Tetley
(1962), the German Marco Goecke (2010) and the French Kader Belarbi (2011). The theatrical/operatic possibilities of Schoenberg's score have been realized by at least two major ensembles: the Opera Quotannis
, which staged a version of Pierrot lunaire (with singer Christine Schadeberg) at the New School for Social Research in 1995 and, more recently, the internationally acclaimed contemporary music sextet eighth blackbird
, which premiered a "cabaret opera" dramatizing the Schoenberg cycle in 2009. Its percussionist, Matthew Duvall, played Pierrot, and, in addition to the remaining five musicians and a singer/speaker, Lucy Shelton, the production included a dancer, Elyssa Dole. The work, which will be toured in 2012 to mark the centennial of Schoenberg's composition of Pierrot lunaire, was conceived, directed, and choreographed by Mark DeChiazza. (View excerpts.)
Schoenberg has also attracted at least one parodist: in 1924, Hans Eisler published Palmström (Studies on 12-tone Rows), in which a Sprechstimme vocalist, singing texts by Christian Morgenstern
, parodies the musical lines of Pierrot to the accompaniment of flute (or piccolo), clarinet, violin (or viola), and violincello.
In 2001 and 2002, the British composer Roger Marsh set all fifty French poems for a (mostly) a cappella
group of singers. Sometimes they sing in French accompanied by a narrator, whose English translations are woven into the music; sometimes they sing in both French and English; sometimes they speak the poems in both languages (in various combinations). The few songs entirely in French are intended to be glossed by action in performance. Instruments occasionally brought in, usually solo, are violin, cello, piano, organ, bells, and beatbox. The English texts were derived from literal translations of Giraud's poems by Kay Bourlier.
Giraud's original texts also stand behind the Seven Pierrot Miniatures (2010) by the Scottish composer Helen Grime
, though hers cannot be called "settings", since voice and words are absent. The seven poems she selected—"The Clouds", "Decor", "Absinthe", "Suicide", "The Church", "Sunset", and "The Harp", none used by Schoenberg—were merely "points of departure" for her suite for mixed ensemble.
The painters Paul Klee
, Theodor Werner, Marc Chagall
and Fernando Botero
have all produced a Pierrot Lunaire (in 1924, 1942, 1969, and 2007, respectively). And Pierrot Lunaire is a very familiar figure in popular art: Brazilian, Italian
, and Russian rock groups have called themselves Pierrot Lunaire. The Soft Machine
, a British group, included the song "Thank You Pierrot Lunaire" in its 1969 album Volume Two. And in issue #676 of DC Comics
, Batman R.I.P.: Midnight in the House of Hurt (2008), Batman
acquired a new nemesis, who shadowed him for seven more issues: his name was Pierrot Lunaire.
Stock character
A Stock character is a fictional character based on a common literary or social stereotype. Stock characters rely heavily on cultural types or names for their personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics. In their most general form, stock characters are related to literary archetypes,...
of pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
and Commedia dell'Arte
Commedia dell'arte
Commedia dell'arte is a form of theatre characterized by masked "types" which began in Italy in the 16th century, and was responsible for the advent of the actress and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios. The closest translation of the name is "comedy of craft"; it is shortened...
whose origins are in the late 17th-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne
Comédie-Italienne
Over time, there have been several buildings and several theatrical companies named the "Théâtre-Italien" or the "Comédie-Italienne" in Paris. Following the times, the theatre has shown both plays and operas...
; the name is a hypocorism of Pierre (Peter), via the suffix -ot. His character in postmodern popular culture—in poetry, fiction, the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, screen, and concert hall—is that of the sad clown, pining for love of Columbine
Columbina
Columbine is a fictional character in the Commedia dell'Arte. She is Harlequin's mistress, a comic servant playing the tricky slave type, and wife of Pierrot...
, who usually breaks his heart and leaves him for Harlequin
Harlequin
Harlequin or Arlecchino in Italian, Arlequin in French, and Arlequín in Spanish is the most popularly known of the zanni or comic servant characters from the Italian Commedia dell'arte and its descendant, the Harlequinade.-Origins:...
. 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, more rarely with a conical shape like a dunce's cap. But most frequently, since his reincarnation under Jean-Gaspard Deburau
Jean-Gaspard Deburau
Jean-Gaspard Deburau, sometimes Debureau —born Jan Kašpar Dvořák—was a celebrated Bohemian-French mime...
, he wears neither collar nor hat, only a black skullcap. The defining characteristic of Pierrot is his naïveté: he is seen as a fool, always the butt of pranks, yet nonetheless trusting.
It was a generally buffoonish Pierrot that held the European stage for the first two centuries of his history. And yet early signs of a respectful, even sympathetic attitude toward the character appeared in the plays of Jean-François Regnard
Jean-François Regnard
Jean-François Regnard , "the most distinguished, after Molière, of the comic poets of the seventeenth century", was a dramatist, born in Paris, who is equally famous now for the travel diary he kept of a voyage in 1681....
and in the paintings of Antoine Watteau
Antoine Watteau
Jean-Antoine Watteau was a French painter whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement...
, an attitude that would deepen in the 19th century, after the Romantics
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
claimed the figure as their own. For Jules Janin
Jules Janin
Jules Gabriel Janin was a French writer and critic.-Biography:Born in Saint-Étienne , Janin's father was a lawyer, and he was educated first at St. Étienne, and then at the lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris...
and Théophile Gautier
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
, Pierrot was not a fool but an avatar of the post-Revolutionary
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
People, struggling, sometimes tragically, to secure a place in the bourgeois world. And subsequent artistic/cultural movements found him equally amenable to their cause: the Decadents
Decadent movement
The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
turned him, like themselves, into a disillusioned disciple of Schopenhauer, a foe of Woman and of callow idealism; the Symbolists
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
saw him as a lonely fellow-sufferer, crucified upon the rood
Rood
A rood is a cross or crucifix, especially a large one in a church; a large sculpture or sometimes painting of the crucifixion of Jesus.Rood is an archaic word for pole, from Old English rōd "pole", specifically "cross", from Proto-Germanic *rodo, cognate to Old Saxon rōda, Old High German ruoda...
of soulful sensitivity, his only friend the distant moon; the Modernists
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
converted him into a Whistlerian subject for canvases devoted to form and color and line. In short, Pierrot became an alter-ego of the artist, specifically of the famously alienated artist of the 19th and early 20th centuries. His physical insularity; his poignant muteness, the legacy of the great mime Deburau; his white face and costume, suggesting not only innocence but the pallor of the dead; his often frustrated pursuit of Columbine, coupled with his never-to-be vanquished unworldly naïveté—all conspired to lift him out of the circumscribed world of the Commedia dell'Arte and into the larger realm of myth. Much of that mythic quality still adheres to the "sad clown" of the postmodern era.
Origins: 17th century
He is sometimes said to be a French variant of the 16th-century Italian Pedrolino, but the two types have little but their names ("Little Pete") and social stations in common. Both are comic servants, but Pedrolino, as a so-called first zanniZanni
Zanni or Zani is a character type of Commedia dell'arte best known as an astute servant and trickster. The Zanni comes from the countryside. The Zanni is known to be a “dispossessed immigrant worker”. "Immigrant" in Italy at the time of the city-states, did not necessarily mean someone from...
, often acts with cunning and daring, an engine of the plot in the scenarios where he appears. Pierrot, on the other hand, as a "second" zanni, is a static character in his earliest incarnations, standing on the periphery of the action, dispensing advice that seems to him sage, and courting—unsuccessfully—his master's young daughter, Columbine, with bashfulness and indecision.
His origins among the Italian players in France are most unambiguously traced to Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
's character, the lovelorn peasant Pierrot, in Don Juan, or The Stone Guest (1665). In 1673, probably inspired by Molière's success, the Comédie-Italienne gave a performance of its addendum to the Don Juan legend, Sequel to "The Stone Guest", which included Molière's Pierrot. Thereafter the character—sometimes a peasant, 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), until the troupe was banished by royal decree in 1697.
Among the French dramatists who wrote for the Italians and who gave Pierrot life on their stage were Jean Palaprat
Jean Palaprat
Jean Palaprat , was a French lawyer and playwright.Palaprat was born in Toulouse. He mostly co-authored plays with David-Augustin de Brueys; many were premièred at the Comédie-Française and Théâtre-Français in Paris. Their plays were published posthumously in Les Œuvres de théâtre de Messieurs...
, Claude-Ignace Brugière de Barante, Antoine Houdar de la Motte
Antoine Houdar de la Motte
Antoine Houdar de la Motte was a French author.He was born and died in Paris. In 1693 his comedy, Les Originaux, was a complete failure, and so depressed the author that he contemplated joining the Trappists. Four years later he began writing texts for operas and ballets, e.g...
, and the most sensitive of his early interpreters, Jean-François Regnard
Jean-François Regnard
Jean-François Regnard , "the most distinguished, after Molière, of the comic poets of the seventeenth century", was a dramatist, born in Paris, who is equally famous now for the travel diary he kept of a voyage in 1681....
. He acquires there a very distinctive personality. He seems an anomaly among the busy social creatures that surround him; he is isolated, out of touch. Columbine laughs at his advances; his masters who are in pursuit of pretty young wives brush off his warnings to act their age. His is a solitary voice, and his estrangement, however comic, bears the pathos of the portraits—Watteau
Antoine Watteau
Jean-Antoine Watteau was a French painter whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement...
's chief among them—that we will encounter in the centuries to come.
France
His real life in the theater in the 18th century is to be found on the lesser stages of the capital, at its two great fairs, the Foires Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent
Théâtre de la foire
Théâtre de la foire is the collective name given to the theatre put on at the annual fairs at Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent in Paris.-Foire Saint-Germain:The earliest references to the annual fair date to 1176...
. There he appeared in the marionette theaters and in the motley entertainments—featuring song, dance, audience participation, and acrobatics—that were calculated to draw a crowd while sidestepping the regulations that ensured the Théâtre-Français a monopoly on "regular" dramas in Paris. Sometimes he spoke gibberish (in the so-called pièces à la muette); sometimes the audience itself sang his lines, inscribed on placards held aloft by hovering Cupids (in the pièces à écriteau). The result, far from "regular" drama, tended to put a strain on his character, and, as a consequence, the Pierrot of the fairgrounds is a much less nuanced and rounded type than we find in the older repertoire. This holds true even when sophisticated playwrights, such as Alain-René Lesage
Alain-René Lesage
Alain-René Lesage was a French novelist and playwright. Lesage is best known for his comic novel The Devil upon Two Sticks , his comedy Turcaret , and his picaresque novel Gil Blas .-Youth and education:Claude Lesage, the father of the novelist, held the united...
and his collaborators, Dorneval and Fuzelier, began (around 1712) to contribute more "regular" plays to the Foires.
The broad satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
streak in Lesage often rendered him indifferent to Pierrot's character altogether, and consequently, as the critic Vincent Barberet observes, "Pierrot is assigned the most diverse roles . . . and sometimes the most opposed to his personality. Besides making him a valet, a roasting specialist, a chef, a hash-house cook, an adventurer, [Lesage] just as frequently dresses him up as someone else." In not a few of the early Foire plays, Pierrot's character is therefore "quite badly defined." (For a typical farce by Lesage, see his Harlequin, King of Serendib
Arlequin roi de Serendib
Arlequin roi de Serendib is a three-act farce by Alain-René Lesage. It was first performed at the Foire Saint-Germain in 1713.-Plot summary:After being marooned on the island of Serendib, Pierrot and Mezzetin are separated from Arlequin...
of 1713.) In the main, Pierrot's years at the Foires were rather degenerate ones.
An important factor that probably hastened this degeneration was the multiplicity of his fairground interpreters. One was the talented actor Jean-Baptiste Hamoche (active 1712–1718, 1721–1732), but there were also acrobats and dancers who appropriated the role, inadvertently reducing Pierrot to a generic type. The extent of that degeneration may be gauged by the fact that Pierrot came to be confused, apparently because of his manner and costume, with that much coarser character Gilles, as a famous portrait by Antoine Watteau
Antoine Watteau
Jean-Antoine Watteau was a French painter whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement...
attests (see inset).
But the mention of Watteau should also alert us to the fact that Pierrot, along with his fellow Commedia masks, was beginning to be "poeticized" in this century—that he was beginning to be the subject, not only of poignant folksong ("Au clair de la lune", sometimes attributed to Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...
), but also of the more ambitious art of Claude Gillot
Claude Gillot
Claude Gillot was a French painter, best known as the master of Watteau and Lancret. He had Watteau as an apprentice between 1703 and 1708....
(Master André's Tomb [c. 1717]), of Gillot's students Watteau (Italian Actors [c. 1719]) and Nicolas Lancret
Nicolas Lancret
Nicolas Lancret , French painter, was born in Paris, and became a brilliant depicter of light comedy which reflected the tastes and manners of French society under the regent Orleans....
(Italian Actors near a Fountain [c. 1719]), of Jean-Baptiste Oudry
Jean-Baptiste Oudry
Jean-Baptiste Oudry was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly well known for his naturalistic pictures of animals and his hunt pieces depicting game.-Biography:...
(Italian Actors in a Park [c. 1725]), and of Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Jean-Honoré Fragonard was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings , of which only five...
(A Boy as Pierrot [1776–1780]). This development will accelerate in the next century.
England
Before turning to that century, however, we should note that it was in this, the eighteenth, that Pierrot began to be naturalized in other countries. As early as 1673, just months after Pierrot had made his debut in the Sequel to "The Stone Guest", Scaramouche Tiberio Fiorilli and a troupe assembled from the Comédie-Italienne entertained Londoners with selections from their Parisian repertoire. And in 1717, Pierrot's name first appears in an English entertainment: a pantomimePantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
by John Rich
John Rich (producer)
John Rich was an important director and theatre manager in 18th century London. He opened the New Theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields and then the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden and began putting on ever more lavish productions...
entitled The Jealous Doctor; or, The Intriguing Dame, in which the role was undertaken by a certain Mr. Griffin. Thereafter, until the end of the century, Pierrot appeared fairly regularly in English pantomimes (which were originally mute harlequinade
Harlequinade
Harlequinade is a comic theatrical genre, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts". It developed in England between the 17th and mid-19th centuries...
s but later evolved into the Christmas pantomimes
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
of today; in the 19th century, the harlequinade was presented as a "play within a play" during the pantomime), finding his most notable interpreter in Carlo Delpini (1740–1828). His role was uncomplicated: 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." So conceived, Pierrot was easily and naturally displaced by the native English Clown
Clown
Clowns are comic performers stereotypically characterized by the grotesque image of the circus clown's colored wigs, stylistic makeup, outlandish costumes, unusually large footwear, and red nose, which evolved to project their actions to large audiences. Other less grotesque styles have also...
when the latter found a suitably brilliant interpreter. It did so in 1800, when "Joey" Grimaldi
Joseph Grimaldi
Joseph Grimaldi , was an English actor and comedian who is perhaps best known for his invention of the modern day whiteface clown. He chiefly appeared at Drury Lane in pantomime where his greatest success was appearing in Harlequin and Mother Goose; or the Golden Egg and followed with a successful...
made his debut.
Denmark
A more long-lasting development occurred in Denmark. In that same year, 1800, a troupe of Italian players led by Pasquale Casorti began giving performances in DyrehavsbakkenDyrehavsbakken
Dyrehavsbakken , commonly referred to as Bakken , is the world's oldest operating amusement park. It is located near Klampenborg but belongs under Lyngby-Taarbæk Kommune, Denmark about 10 km north of Copenhagen...
, then a well-known site for entertainers, hawkers, and inn-keepers. Casorti's son, Giuseppe (1749–1826), had undoubtedly been impressed by the Pierrots they had seen while touring France in the late 18th century, for he assumed the role and began appearing as Pierrot in his own pantomimes, which now had a formulaic structure (Cassander, father of Columbine, and Pierrot, his dim-witted servant, undertake a mad pursuit of Columbine and her rogue lover, Harlequin). The formula has proven enduring: Pierrot is still a fixture at Bakken
Dyrehavsbakken
Dyrehavsbakken , commonly referred to as Bakken , is the world's oldest operating amusement park. It is located near Klampenborg but belongs under Lyngby-Taarbæk Kommune, Denmark about 10 km north of Copenhagen...
, the oldest amusement park in the world, where he plays the nitwit talking to and entertaining children, and at nearby Tivoli Gardens, the second oldest, where the Harlequin and Columbine act is performed as a pantomime and ballet. Pierrot—as "Pjerrot", with his boat-like hat and scarlet grin—remains one of the parks’ chief attractions.
Germany
Ludwig TieckLudwig Tieck
Johann Ludwig Tieck was a German poet, translator, editor, novelist, writer of Novellen, and critic, who was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.-Early life:...
's The Topsy-Turvy World (1798) is an early—and highly successful—example of the introduction of the Commedia dell'Arte characters into parodic
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
metatheater. (Pierrot is a member of the audience watching the play.)
Spain
The penetration of Pierrot and his companions of the Commedia into Spain is documented in a painting by Goya, Itinerant Actors (1793). It foreshadows the work of such Spanish successors as Picasso and Fernand PelezFernand Pelez
Fernand Pelez was a French painter of Spanish origin who worked in Paris. Pelez portrayed social issues in a realistic style.- Biography :...
, who also showed strong sympathy with the lives of traveling saltimbanco
Saltimbanco
Saltimbanco is the oldest major touring show of Cirque du Soleil that remains active in some form. Saltimbanco ran from 1992 to 2006 in its original form, performed under a large circus tent called the Grand Chapiteau; its last performance in that form was in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on December 10,...
s.
Pantomime of Deburau at the Théâtre des Funambules
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...
) as their own, new enterprises began to attract the Parisian public, as little theaters sprang up along the now-defunct Boulevard du Temple. One of these was the Théâtre des Funambules
Théâtre des Funambules
The Théâtre des Funambules was a former theater located on the boulevard du Temple in Paris, sometimes called the Boulevard du Crime. It was located between the prominent Théâtre de la Gaîté, and the much smaller Théâtre des Délassements-Comiques.Originally an informal venue for acrobatics and...
, licensed in its early years to present only mimed and acrobatic acts. This will be the home, beginning in 1816, of Jean-Gaspard Deburau
Jean-Gaspard Deburau
Jean-Gaspard Deburau, sometimes Debureau —born Jan Kašpar Dvořák—was a celebrated Bohemian-French mime...
(1796–1846), the most famous Pierrot in the history of the theater, immortalized by Jean-Louis Barrault
Jean-Louis Barrault
Jean-Louis Barrault was a French actor, director and mime artist, training that served him well when he portrayed the 19th-century mime Jean-Gaspard Deburau in Marcel Carné's 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis .Jean-Louis Barrault studied with Charles Dullin in whose troupe he acted...
in Marcel Carné
Marcel Carné
-Biography:Born in Paris, France, the son of a cabinet maker whose wife died when their son was five, Carné began his career as a film critic, becoming editor of the weekly publication, Hebdo-Films, and working for Cinémagazine and Cinémonde between 1929 and 1933. In the same period he worked in...
's film Children of Paradise
Children of Paradise
Les Enfants du Paradis, released as Children of Paradise in North America, is a 1945 French film by French director Marcel Carné, made during the German occupation of France during World War II...
(1945).
Adopting the stage-name "Baptiste", Deburau played Pierrot, from about 1819, as the servant of the heavy father (usually Cassander), his mute acting a compound of placid grace and cunning malice. His style, according to Louis Péricaud, the chronicler of the Funambules, formed "an enormous contrast with the exhuberance, the superabundance of gestures, of leaps, that ... his predecessors had employed." He altered the costume: freeing his long neck for comic effects, he dispensed with the frilled collaret; he substituted a skullcap for a hat, thereby keeping his expressive face unshadowed; and he greatly increased the amplitude of both blouse and trousers. Most importantly, the character of his Pierrot, as it evolved gradually through the 1820s, eventually parted company almost completely with the crude Pierrots—timid, sexless, lazy, and greedy—of the earlier pantomime.
With him [wrote the poet and journalist Théophile GautierThéophile GautierPierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
after Deburau's death], the role of Pierrot was widened, enlarged. It ended by occupying the entire piece, and, be it said with all the respect due to the memory of the most perfect actor who ever lived, by departing entirely from its origin and being denaturalized. Pierrot, under the flour and blouse of the illustrious Bohemian, assumed the airs of a master and an aplomb unsuited to his character; he gave kicks and no longer received them; Harlequin now scarcely dared brush his shoulders with his bat; Cassander would think twice before boxing his ears.
Deburau seems to have had a predilection for "realistic" pantomime—a predilection that, as we will see, led eventually to calls for Pierrot's expulsion from it. But the pantomime that had the greatest appeal to his public was the "pantomime-arlequinade-féerie", sometimes "in the English style" (i.e., with a prologue in which characters were transformed into the Commedia types). The action unfolded in fairy-land, peopled with good and bad spirits who both advanced and impeded the plot, which was interlarded with comically violent (and often scabrous) mayhem. As in the Bakken pantomimes, that plot hinged upon Cassander's pursuit of Harlequin and Columbine—but it was complicated, in Baptiste's interpretation, by a clever and ambiguous Pierrot. Baptiste's Pierrot was both a fool and no fool; he was Cassandre's valet but no one's servant. He was an embodiment of comic contrasts, showing
imperturbable sang-froid [again the words are Gautier's], artful foolishness and foolish finesse, brazen and naïve gluttony, blustering cowardice, skeptical credulity, scornful servility, preoccupied insouciance, indolent activity, and all those surprising contrasts that must be expressed by a wink of the eye, by a puckering of the mouth, by a knitting of the brow, by a fleeting gesture.
As the Gautier citations suggest, Deburau early—about 1828—caught the attention of the Romantics
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, and soon he was being celebrated in the reviews of Charles Nodier
Charles Nodier
Jean Charles Emmanuel Nodier , was a French author who introduced a younger generation of Romanticists to the conte fantastique, gothic literature, vampire tales, and the importance of dreams as part of literary creation, and whose career as a librarian is often underestimated by literary...
(Gautier's praise would follow), in an article by Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
on "The Essence of Laughter" (1855), and in the poetry of Théodore de Banville
Théodore de Banville
Théodore Faullain de Banville was a French poet and writer.-Biography:Banville was born in Moulins in Allier, Auvergne, the son of a captain in the French navy. His boyhood, by his own account, was cheerlessly passed at a lycée in Paris; he was not harshly treated, but took no part in the...
. A pantomime produced at the Funambules in 1828, The Gold Dream, or Harlequin and the Miser, was widely thought to be the work of Nodier, and both Gautier and Banville wrote Pierrot playlets that were eventually produced on other stages—Posthumous Pierrot (1847) and The Kiss (1887), respectively.
"Shakespeare at the Funambules" and aftermath
In 1842, Deburau was inadvertently responsible for translating Pierrot into the realm of tragic myth, heralding the isolated and doomed figure—often the fin-de-siècle artist's alter-ego—of DecadentDecadent movement
The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
, Symbolist, and early Modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
art and literature. In that year, Gautier, drawing upon Deburau's newly acquired audacity as a Pierrot, as well as upon the Romantics’ store of Shakespearean plots and of Don-Juanesque legend, published a "review" of a pantomime he claimed to have seen at the Funambules.
In "Shakespeare at the Funambules", Gautier summarized and analyzed an unnamed pantomime of unusually somber events: Pierrot murders an old-clothes man for garments to court a duchess, then is skewered in turn by the sword with which he stabbed the peddler when the latter's ghost lures him into a dance at his wedding. The pantomime under "review" was a fabrication (though it inspired a hack to turn it into an actual pantomime, The Ol’ Clo's Man [1842], in which Deburau probably appeared—and also inspired Barrault's wonderful recreation of it in Children of Paradise). But it importantly marked a turning-point in Pierrot's career: henceforth Pierrot could bear comparisons with the serious over-reachers of high literature, like Don Juan or Macbeth; he could be a victim—even unto death—of his own cruelty and daring.
When Gustave Courbet
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...
drew a crayon illustration for The Black Arm (1856), a pantomime by Fernand Desnoyers written for another mime, Paul Legrand (see next section), the Pierrot who quakes with fear as a black arm snakes up from the ground before him is clearly a child of the Pierrot in The Ol’ Clo's Man. So, too, are Honoré Daumier
Honoré Daumier
Honoré Daumier was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, whose many works offer commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century....
's Pierrots: creatures often suffering a harrowing anguish. In 1860, Deburau was directly credited with inspiring such anguish, when, in a novella called Pierrot by Henri Rivière, the mime-protagonist blames his real-life murder of a treacherous Harlequin on Baptiste's "sinister" cruelties. Among the most celebrated of pantomimes in the latter part of the century would appear sensitive moon-mad souls duped into criminality—usually by love of a fickle Columbine—and so inevitably marked for destruction (Paul Margueritte
Paul Margueritte
Paul Margueritte, , as his brother Victor Margueritte, was born in Algeria, the son of General Jean Auguste Margueritte , who was mortally wounded in the Battle of Sedan. An account of his life was published by Paul Margueritte as Mon père . The names of the two brothers are generally associated,...
's Pierrot, Murderer of His Wife [1881]; the mime Séverin's Poor Pierrot [1891]; Catulle Mendès
Catulle Mendès
Catulle Mendès was a French poet and man of letters.Of Portuguese Jewish extraction, he was born in Bordeaux. He early established himself in Paris and promptly attained notoriety by the publication in the Revue fantaisiste of his Roman d'une nuit, for which he was condemned to a month's...
’ Ol’ Clo's Man [1896], modeled on Gautier's "review").
Pantomime after Baptiste: Charles Deburau, Paul Legrand, and their successors
Deburau's son, Jean-CharlesCharles Deburau
Jean-Charles Deburau was an important French mime, the son and successor of the legendary Jean-Gaspard Deburau, who was immortalized as Baptiste the Pierrot in Marcel Carné's film Children of Paradise...
(or, as he preferred, "Charles" [1829–1873]), assumed Pierrot's blouse the year after his father's death, and he was praised for bringing Baptiste's agility to the role. (Nadar's photographs of him in various poses are some of the best to come out of his studio—if not some of the best of the era.)
But the most important Pierrot of mid-century was Charles-Dominique-Martin Legrand, known as Paul Legrand
Paul Legrand
Paul Legrand , born Charles-Dominique-Martin Legrand, was a highly regarded and influential French mime who turned the Pierrot of his predecessor, Jean-Gaspard Deburau, into the tearful, sentimental character that is most familiar to post-nineteenth-century admirers of the figure...
(1816–1898; see illustration at top of page). In 1839, Legrand made his debut at the Funambules as the lover Leander in the pantomimes, and when he began appearing as Pierrot, in 1845, he brought a new sensibility to the character. A mime whose talents were dramatic rather than acrobatic, Legrand helped steer the pantomime away from the old fabulous and knockabout world of fairy-land and into the realm of sentimental—often tearful—realism. In this he was abetted by the novelist and journalist Champfleury
Champfleury
Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson , who wrote under the name Champfleury, was a French art critic and novelist, a prominent supporter of the Realist movement in painting and fiction.In 1843 Fleury-Husson moved to Paris...
, who set himself the task, in the 1840s, of writing "realistic" pantomimes. Among the work he produced were Marquis Pierrot (1847), which offers a plausible explanation for Pierrot's powdered face (he begins working-life as a miller's assistant), and the Pantomime of the Attorney (1865), which casts Pierrot in the prosaic role of an attorney's clerk.
Legrand left the Funambules in 1853 for what was to become his chief venue, the Folies-Nouvelles, which attracted the fashionable and artistic set, unlike the Funambules’ working-class children of paradise. Such an audience was not averse to pantomimic experiment, and at mid-century "experiment" very often meant Realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
. (The pre-Bovary
Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life...
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
wrote a pantomime for the Folies-Nouvelles, Pierrot in the Seraglio [1855], which was never produced.) Legrand often appeared in realistic costume, his chalky face his only concession to tradition, leading some advocates of pantomime, like Gautier, to lament that he was betraying the character of the type.
But it was the Pierrot as conceived by Legrand that had the greatest influence on future mimes. Charles himself eventually capitulated: it was he who played the Pierrot of Champfleury's Pantomime of the Attorney. Like Legrand, Charles's student, the Marseilles mime Louis Rouffe (1849–1885), rarely performed in Pierrot's costume, earning him the epithet "l'Homme Blanc" ("The White Man"). His successor Séverin (1863–1930) played Pierrot sentimentally, as a doom-laden soul, a figure far removed from the conception of Deburau père. And one of the last great mimes of the century, Georges Wague (1875–1965), though he began his career in Pierrot's costume, ultimately dismissed Baptiste's work as puerile and embryonic, averring that it was time for Pierrot's demise in order to make way for "characters less conventional, more human." Marcel Marceau
Marcel Marceau
Marcel Marceau was an internationally acclaimed French actor and mime most famous for his persona as Bip the Clown.-Early years:...
's Bip seems a natural, if deliberate, outgrowth of these developments, walking, as he does, a concessionary line between the early fantastic domain of Deburau's Pierrot and the so-called realistic world.
France
Popular and literary pantomimeSarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
even donned Pierrot's blouse for Jean Richepin
Jean Richepin
Jean Richepin , French poet, novelist and dramatist, the son of an army doctor, was born at Médéa, French Algeria.At school and at the École Normale Supérieure he gave evidence of brilliant, if somewhat undisciplined, powers, for which he found physical vent in different directions—first as a...
's Pierrot the Murderer (1883).
But French mimes and actors were not the only figures responsible for Pierrot's ubiquity: the English Hanlon brothers (sometimes called the Hanlon-Lees
Hanlon-Lees
A group of pre-Vaudevillian acrobats founded in the early 1840s, the Hanlon-Lees were world-renowned practitioners of "entortillation" – that is, tumbling, juggling, and an early form of "knockabout" comedy A group of pre-Vaudevillian acrobats founded in the early 1840s, the Hanlon-Lees were...
), gymnasts and acrobats who had been schooled in the 1860s in pantomimes from Baptiste's repertoire, traveled (and dazzled) the world well into the twentieth century with their pantomimic sketches and extravaganzas featuring riotously nightmarish Pierrots. The Naturalists
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
—Emile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
especially, who wrote glowingly of them—were captivated by their art. Edmond de Goncourt
Edmond de Goncourt
Edmond de Goncourt , born Edmond Louis Antoine Huot de Goncourt, was a French writer, literary critic, art critic, book publisher and the founder of the Académie Goncourt.-Biography:...
modeled his acrobat-mimes in his The Zemganno Brothers (1879) upon them; J.-K. Huysmans (whose Against Nature [1884] would become Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine...
's bible) and his friend Léon Hennique wrote their pantomime Skeptical Pierrot (1881) after seeing them perform at the Folies Bergère. (And, in turn, Jules Laforgue
Jules Laforgue
Jules Laforgue was an innovative Franco-Uruguayan poet, often referred to as a Symbolist poet. Critics and commentators have also pointed to Impressionism as a direct influence and his poetry has been called "part-symbolist, part-impressionist".-Life:...
wrote his pantomime Pierrot the Cut-Up [Pierrot fumiste, 1882] after reading the scenario by Huysmans and Hennique.) It was in part through the enthusiasm that they excited, coupled with the Impressionists
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
’ taste for popular entertainment, like the circus and the music-hall, as well as the new bohemianism that then reigned in artistic quarters like Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
(and which was celebrated by such denizens as Adolphe Willette
Adolphe Willette
Adolphe-Léon Willette was a French painter, illustrator, caricaturist, and lithographer. Willette ran as an "anti-semitic" candidate in the 19th arrondisement of Paris for the 1889 elections.-Biography:...
, 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.
Visual arts, fiction, poetry, music, and film
He invaded the visual arts—not only in the work of Willette, but also in the illustrations and posters of Jules Chéret
Jules Chéret
Jules Chéret was a French painter and lithographer who became a master of Belle Époque poster art. He has been called the father of the modern poster. -Biography:...
; in the engravings of Odilon Redon
Odilon Redon
Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.-Life:...
(The Swamp Flower: A Sad Human Head [1885]); and in the canvases of Georges Seurat (Pierrot with a White Pipe [Aman-Jean] [1883]; The Painter Aman-Jean as Pierrot [1883]), Léon Comerre (Pierrot [1884]), Henri Rousseau
Henri Rousseau
Henri Julien Félix Rousseau was a French Post-Impressionist painter in the Naïve or Primitive manner. He was also known as Le Douanier , a humorous description of his occupation as a toll collector...
(A Carnival Night [1886]), Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
(Pierrot and Harlequin [1888]), Fernand Pelez
Fernand Pelez
Fernand Pelez was a French painter of Spanish origin who worked in Paris. Pelez portrayed social issues in a realistic style.- Biography :...
(Grimaces and Miseries a.k.a. The Saltimbanques [1888]), Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
(Pierrot and Columbine [1900]), and Guillaume Seignac (Pierrot's Embrace [1900]). The mime "Tombre" of Jean Richepin's novel Nice People (Braves Gens [1886]) turned him into a pathetic and alcoholic "phantom"; Paul Verlaine
Paul Verlaine
Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.-Early life:...
imagined him as a gormandizing naïf in "Pantomime" (1869), then, like Tombre, as a lightning-lit specter in "Pierrot" (1868, pub. 1882). 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
L'Imitation de Notre-Dame la Lune
L'Imitation de Notre-Dame la Lune is a collection of poems by French poet Jules Laforgue. It is dedicated to Gustave Kahn and "to the memory of little Salammbô, priestess of Tanit." It contains the following twenty-two poems:* "Un mot au Soleil pour commencer"* "Litanies des premiers quartiers...
(1886), completely to Pierrot and his world. (Pierrots were legion among the minor, now-forgotten poets: for samples, see Willette's journal The Pierrot, which appeared between 1888 and 1889, then again in 1891.) In the realm of song, Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
set both Verlaine's "Pantomime" and Banville's "Pierrot" (1842) to music in 1881 (not published until 1926)—the only precedents among works by major composers being the "Pierrot" section of Telemann's Burlesque Overture (1717-22), Mozart's 1783 "Masquerade" (in which Mozart himself took the role of Harlequin and his brother-in-law, Joseph Lange
Joseph Lange
Joseph Lange was an actor and amateur painter of the 18th century. Through his marriage to Aloysia Weber, he was the brother-in-law of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.-Life:...
, that of Pierrot), and the "Pierrot" section of Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
's Carnival (1835). 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's The Nightmare [1896], The Magician [1898]; Alice Guy's Arrival of Pierrette and Pierrot [1900], Pierrette's Amorous Adventures [1900]; Ambroise-François Parnaland's Pierrot's Big Head/Pierrot's Tongue [1900], Pierrot-Drinker [1900]), but also in Emile Reynaud's Praxinoscope
Praxinoscope
The praxinoscope was an animation device, the successor to the zoetrope. It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud. Like the zoetrope, it used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder...
production of Poor Pierrot
Pauvre Pierrot
Pauvre Pierrot is an 1892 French short animated film directed by Charles-Émile Reynaud. It consists of 500 individually painted images and lasts about 15 minutes....
(1892), the first animated movie and the first hand-colored one. (View Poor Pierrot.)
Belgium
Thus far the discussion has focused on the French pierrotistes, but Pierrot's popularity was by no means confined to France. Wherever "decadence" had taken hold, there he could be found. In Belgium, where the Decadents and Symbolists were as numerous as their French counterparts, Félicien RopsFélicien Rops
Félicien Rops was a Belgian artist, and printmaker in etching and aquatint.-Early life:Rops was born in Namur as the only son to Nicholas Rops and Sophie Maubile. He was educated at the University of Brussels...
depicted a grinning Pierrot who is witness to an unromantic backstage scene (Blowing Cupid's Nose [1881]) and James Ensor
James Ensor
James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was a Flemish-Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life...
painted Pierrots (and other masks) obsessively, sometimes rendering them prostrate in the ghastly light of dawn (The Strange Masks [1892]), sometimes isolating Pierrot in their midst, his head drooping in despondency (Pierrot's Despair [1892]), sometimes augmenting his company with a smiling, stein-hefting skeleton (Pierrot and Skeleton in Yellow [1893]). Their countryman the poet Albert Giraud
Albert Giraud
Albert Giraud , was a Belgian poet who wrote in French.-Biography:Giraud was born Emile Albert Kayenbergh in Leuven, Belgium. He studied law at the University of Louvain. He left university without a degree and took up journalism and poetry...
also identified intensely with the zanni: the fifty rondels
Rondel (poem)
A rondel is a verse form originating in French lyrical poetry, later used in the verse of other languages as well, such as English and Romanian. It is a variation of the rondeau consisting of two quatrains followed by a quintet or a sestet...
of his Pierrot lunaire
Pierrot lunaire (book)
Pierrot lunaire: rondels bergamasques is a collection of fifty poems published in 1884 by the Belgian poet Albert Giraud , who is usually associated with the Symbolist Movement. The protagonist of the cycle is Pierrot, the comic servant of the French Commedia dell'Arte and, later, of Parisian...
(Moonstruck Pierrot [1884]) would inspire several generations of composers (see Pierrot lunaire below), and his verse-play Pierrot-Narcissus (1887) offered a definitive portrait of the solipsistic poet-dreamer. The title of choreographer Joseph Hansen
Joseph Hansen (dancer)
Joseph Hansen was a Belgian dancer and choreographer.-Life:Ballet director at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels from 1865 à 1871, he was its ballet master from 1871 to 1875, putting on the first production of Coppélia on 29 November 1871. He held the same role at the Opéra de Paris during the...
's 1884 ballet, Macabre Pierrot, created in collaboration with the poet Théo Hannon, summed up one of the chief strands of the character's persona for many artists of the era.
England
In the England of the Aesthetic MovementAestheticism
Aestheticism was a 19th century European art movement that emphasized aesthetic values more than socio-political themes for literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design...
, Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A....
's drawings attested profound kinship with the figure; Olive Custance
Olive Custance
Olive Eleanor Custance was a British poet. She was part of the aesthetic movement of the 1890s, and a contributor to The Yellow Book....
(who would marry Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas , nicknamed Bosie, was a British author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde...
) published the poem "Pierrot" in 1897; and Ernest Dowson
Ernest Dowson
Ernest Christopher Dowson , born in Lee, London, was an English poet, novelist and writer of short stories, associated with the Decadent movement.- Biography :...
wrote the verse-play Pierrot of the Minute (1897, illustrated by Beardsley), to which the composer Sir Granville Bantock would later contribute an orchestral prologue (1908). One of the gadflies of Aestheticism, W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
, introduced Harlequin and Pierrot as love-struck twin brothers into Eyes and No Eyes, or The Art of Seeing
Eyes and No Eyes
Eyes and No Eyes, or The Art of Seeing is a one-act musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music originally by Thomas German Reed that premiered on July 5, 1875 at St. George's Hall in London and ran for only a month. The original music was lost, and twenty years later new...
(1875), for which Thomas German Reed
Thomas German Reed
Thomas German Reed was an English composer and theatrical manager best known for creating the German Reed Entertainments, a genre of musical plays that made theatre-going respectable at a time when the stage was considered disreputable...
wrote the music. And he ensured that neither character, contrary to many an Aesthetic Pierrot, would be amorously disappointed.
In a more bourgeois vein, Ethel Wright painted Bonjour, Pierrot! (a greeting to a dour clown sitting disconsolate with his dog) in 1893. And the Pierrot of popular taste also spawned a uniquely English entertainment. In 1891, the singer and banjoist Clifford Essex returned from France enamored of the Pierrots he had seen there and resolved to create a troupe of English Pierrot entertainers. Thus were born the seaside Pierrots
Concert Party (entertainment)
A concert party, also called a Pierrot troupe, is the collective name for a group of entertainers, or Pierrots, popular in Britain during the first half of the 20th century. The variety show given by a Pierrot troupe was called a Pierrot show...
(in conical hat
Pointed hat
Pointed hats have been a distinctive item of headgear of a wide range of cultures throughout history. Though often suggesting an ancient Indo-European tradition, they were also traditionally worn by women of Lapland, the Japanese, the Mi'kmaq people of Atlantic Canada, and the Huastecs of Veracruz...
s and sometimes black or colored costume) who, as late as the 1950s, sang, danced, juggled, and joked on the piers of Brighton and Margate and Blackpool. Obviously inspired by these troupes were the Will Morris Pierrots, named after their Birmingham founder. They originated in the Smethwick area in the late 1890s and played to large audiences in many parks, theaters, and pubs in the Midlands. It was doubtless these popular entertainers who inspired the academic Walter Westley Russell
Walter Westley Russell
Sir Walter Westley Russell CVO RA was a British painter and art teacher. He became a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1926 and served as Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools from 1927 to 1942.-Life and career:...
to commit The Pierrots (c. 1900) to canvas.
Pierrot and Pierrette (1896) was a specimen of early English film from the director Birt Acres
Birt Acres
Birt Acres was a photographer and film pioneer.Born in Richmond, Virginia to English parents, he invented the first British 35 mm moving picture camera, the first daylight loading home movie camera and projector, Birtac, was the first travelling newsreel reporter in international film history and...
. For an account of the English mime troupe The Hanlon Brothers, see France above.
Germany
In Germany, Frank WedekindFrank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
introduced the femme-fatale of his first "Lulu" play, Earth Spirit
Earth Spirit (play)
Earth Spirit is a play by the German dramatist Frank Wedekind. It forms the first part of his pairing of 'Lulu' plays , both of which depict a society "riven by the demands of lust and greed". In German folklore an erdgeist is a gnome, first described in Goethe's Faust...
(1895), in a Pierrot costume; and when the Austrian composer Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
drew upon the play for his opera Lulu
Lulu (opera)
Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Composition history:...
(unfinished; first perf. 1937), he retained the scene of Lulu's meretricious pierroting. In a similarly (and paradoxically) revealing spirit, the painter Paul Hoecker put cheeky young men into Pierrot costumes to ape their complacent burgher elders, smoking their pipes (Pierrots with Pipes [c. 1900]) and swilling their champagne (Waiting Woman [c. 1895]). (See also Pierrot lunaire below.)
Italy
Canio's Pagliaccio in the famous operaPagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
(1892) by Leoncavallo is close enough to a Pierrot to deserve a mention here. Much less well-known is the musical "mimodrama" of Vittorio Monti
Vittorio Monti
Vittorio Monti was an Italian composer, violinist, and conductor.Monti was born in Naples, where he studied violin and composition at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella...
, Noël de Pierrot a.k.a. A Clown's Christmas (1900), its score set to a pantomime by Fernand Beissier, one of the founders of the Cercle Funambulesque. (Monti would go on to claim his rightful fame by celebrating another spiritual outsider, much akin to Pierrot—the gypsy. His Csárdás [c. 1904], like Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
, has found a secure place in the standard musical repertoire.)
North America
Pierrot and his fellow masks were but imperfectly known in America, which, unlike England, Russia, and the countries of continental Europe, had had no early exposure to Commedia dell'Arte. The Pierrot to whom America was first aggressively introduced was that of the French and English Decadents, a creature who quickly found his home in the so-called little magazines of the 1890s (as well as in the poster-art that they spawned). The earliest and most influential of these, The Chap-BookThe Chap-Book
The Chap-Book was an American literary magazine between 1894 and 1898. It is often classified as one of the "little magazines" of the 1890s....
(1894-98), which featured a story about Pierrot by the aesthete Percival Pollard
Percival Pollard
Joseph Percival Pollard was an American literary critic, novelist and short story writer.-Biography:...
in its second number, was soon host to Beardsley-inspired Pierrots drawn by E.B. Bird and Frank Hazenplug. (The Canadian poet Bliss Carman
Bliss Carman
Bliss Carman FRSC was a Canadian poet who lived most of his life in the United States, where he achieved international fame. He was acclaimed as Canada's poet laureate during his later years....
should also be mentioned for his contribution to Pierrot's dissemination in mass-market publications like Harper's
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
.) Like most things associated with the Decadence, such exotica discombobulated the mainstream American public, who regarded the little magazines in general as "freak periodicals" and declared, through one of their mouthpieces, Munsey's Magazine
Munsey's Magazine
Munsey's Weekly, later known as Munsey's Magazine was a thirty-six page quarto magazine founded by Frank A. Munsey in 1889. Munsey aimed at "a magazine of the people and for the people, with pictures and art and good cheer and human interest throughout". John Kendrick Bangs was the editor. The...
, that "each new representative of the species is, if possible, more preposterous than the last."
The fin-de-siècle world in which this Pierrot resided was clearly at odds with the reigning American Realist and Naturalist aesthetic (though such figures as Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...
and John LaFarge
John LaFarge
John La Farge was an American painter, muralist, stained glass window maker, decorator, and writer.-Biography:...
were mounting serious challenges to it). It is in fact jarring to find the champion of American prose Realism, William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells was an American realist author and literary critic. Nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters", he was particularly known for his tenure as editor of the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novel The Rise of...
, introducing Pastels in Prose (1890), a volume of French prose-poems
Prose poetry
Prose poetry is poetry written in prose instead of using verse but preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery and emotional effects.-Characteristics:Prose poetry can be considered either primarily poetry or prose, or a separate genre altogether...
translated by Stuart Merrill
Stuart Merrill
Stuart Fitzrandolph Merrill was an American poet, born in Hempstead, New York, who wrote mostly in the French language. He belonged to the Symbolist school. His principal books of poetry were Les Gammes . Les Fastes , and Petits Poèmes d'Automne .-Life:Merrill was the product of a conservative,...
and containing a Paul Margueritte
Paul Margueritte
Paul Margueritte, , as his brother Victor Margueritte, was born in Algeria, the son of General Jean Auguste Margueritte , who was mortally wounded in the Battle of Sedan. An account of his life was published by Paul Margueritte as Mon père . The names of the two brothers are generally associated,...
pantomime, The Death of Pierrot, with words of warm praise (and even congratulations to each poet for failing “to saddle his reader with a moral”). So uncustomary was the French Aesthetic viewpoint that, when Pierrot made an appearance in an eponymous pantomime (1893) by Alfred Thompson, set to music by the American composer Laura Sedgwick Collins
Laura Sedgwick Collins
Laura Sedgwick Collins was an American musician, composer and actress.-Biography:Laura Sedgwick was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. She graduated from the Lyceum School of Acting in New York City and performed in theaters in New York and Brooklyn...
, The New York Times covered it as an event, even though it was only a student production. It was found to be “pleasing” because, in part, it was “odd”. Not until the first decade of the next century, when the great (and popular) fantasist Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish was an American painter and illustrator active in the first half of the twentieth century. He is known for his distinctive saturated hues and idealized neo-classical imagery.-Life:...
worked his magic on the figure, would Pierrot be comfortably naturalized in America.
Russia
In the last year of the century, Pierrot appeared in a Russian ballet, Harlequin's MillionsLes Millions d'Arlequin
Les millions d'Arlequin is a ballet in two acts with libretto and choreography by Marius Petipa and music by Riccardo Drigo. First presented at the Imperial Theatre of the Hermitage by the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia on Friday,...
a.k.a. Harlequinade (1900), its libretto and choreography by Marius Petipa
Marius Petipa
Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa was a French ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer. Petipa is considered to be the most influential ballet master and choreographer of ballet that has ever lived....
, its music by Riccardo Drigo
Riccardo Drigo
Riccardo Eugenio Drigo , a.k.a. Richard Drigo was an Italian composer of ballet music and Italian Opera, a theatrical conductor, and a pianist....
, its dancers the members of St. Petersburg's Imperial Ballet
Mariinsky Ballet
The Mariinsky Ballet is a classical ballet company based at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in the 18th century and originally known as the Imperial Russian Ballet, the Mariinsky Ballet is one of the world's leading ballet companies...
. It would set the stage for the later and greater triumphs of Pierrot in the productions of the Ballets Russes
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...
.
Early 20th century
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, neurasthenicNeurasthenia
Neurasthenia is a psycho-pathological term first used by George Miller Beard in 1869 to denote a condition with symptoms of fatigue, anxiety, headache, neuralgia and depressed mood...
, often doom-ridden soul (Richepin, Beardsley); the clumsy, though ardent, lover, who wins Columbine's heart, or murders her in frustration (Margueritte); the cynical and misogynous dandy
Dandy
A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance in a cult of Self...
, 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.
In this section, with the exception of productions by the Ballets Russes
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...
(which will be listed alphabetically by title) and of musical settings of Pierrot lunaire (which will be discussed under a separate heading), all works are identified by artist; all artists are grouped by nationality, then listed alphabetically. Multiple works by artists are listed chronologically.
Plays, playlets, pantomimes, and revues
- American (U.S.A.)—Clements, Colin Campbell: Pierrot in Paris (1923); Faulkner, WilliamWilliam FaulknerWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
: The Marionettes (1920, pub. 1977); Hughes, Glenn: Pierrot's Mother (1923); Johnstone, Will B.Will B. JohnstoneWill B. Johnstone was an American writer, cartoonist, and lyricist. He wrote for the Marx Brothers and penned several popular songs, including a version of How Dry I Am....
: I'll Say She IsI'll Say She IsI'll Say She Is is a stage revue written by brothers Will B. Johnstone and Tom Johnstone and starring the Marx Brothers and Lotta Miles.-Background:...
(1924 revueRevueA revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
featuring the Marx BrothersMarx BrothersThe Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...
and two "breeches"Breeches roleA breeches role is a role in which an actress appears in male clothing .In opera it also refers to any male character that is sung and acted by a female singer...
Pierrots; music by Tom Johnstone); Macmillan, Mary Louise: Pan or Pierrot: A MasqueMasqueThe masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
(1924); Millay, Edna St. VincentEdna St. Vincent MillayEdna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...
: Aria da Capo (1920); Renaud, Ralph E.: Pierrot Meets Himself (1933); Rogers, Robert Emmons: Behind a Watteau Picture (1918); Shephard, Esther: Pierrette's Heart (1924). - Austrian—Noetzel, Hermann: Pierrot's Summer Night (1924); Schnitzler, ArthurArthur SchnitzlerDr. Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.- Biography :Arthur Schnitzler, son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter , was born in Praterstraße 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian...
: The Transformations of Pierrot (1908), The Veil of Pierrette (1910; with music by Ernö DohnányiErno DohnányiErnő Dohnányi was a Hungarian conductor, composer, and pianist. He used the German form of his name Ernst von Dohnányi for most of his published compositions....
; see also "Stuppner" among the Italian composers under Western classical music (instrumental) below); Schreker, FranzFranz SchrekerFranz Schreker was an Austrian composer, conductor, teacher and administrator. Primarily a composer of operas, his style is characterized by aesthetic plurality , timbral experimentation, strategies of extended tonality and...
: The Blue Flower, or The Heart of Pierrot: A Tragic Pantomime (1909), The Bird, or Pierrot's Mania: A Pantomimic Comedy (1909). - Belgian—Cantillon, Arthur: Pierrot before the Seven Doors (1924).
- Brazilian—César da Silva, Júlio: The Death of Pierrot (1915).
- British—Burnaby, DavyDavy BurnabyDavy Burnaby was a British actor who appeared in more than thirty films between 1929 and 1948. He was born in Buckland, Hertfordshire and made his screen debut in the 1929 film The Devil's Maze. He died in 1949....
: The Co-OptimistsThe Co-OptimistsThe Co-Optimists is the title of a stage variety revue which opened in London on 27 June 1921. The show was devised by Davy Burnaby. The piece was a co-operative venture by what The Times called "a group of well-known musical comedy and variety artists" presenting "an all-star 'pierrot'...
(revueRevueA revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
of 1921—and revised continually up to 1926—played in Pierrot costumes, with music and lyrics by various entertainers; filmed in 1929); Cannan, Gilbert: Pierrot in Hospital (1923); "Cryptos" and James T. TannerJames T. TannerJames Tolman Tanner was an English stage director and dramatist who wrote many of the successful musicals produced by George Edwardes.-Life and career:...
: Our Miss GibbsOur Miss GibbsOur Miss Gibbs is an Edwardian musical comedy in two acts by 'Cryptos' and James T. Tanner, with lyrics by Adrian Ross and Percy Greenbank, music by Ivan Caryll and Lionel Monckton. Produced by George Edwardes, it opened at the Gaiety Theatre in London on 23 January 1909 and ran for an extremely...
(1909; musical comedy played in Pierrot costumes); Down, Oliphant: The Maker of Dreams (1912); Drinkwater, John: The Only Legend: A Masque of the Scarlet Pierrot (1913; music by James Brier); Housman, LaurenceLaurence HousmanLaurence Housman was an English playwright, writer and illustrator.-Early life:Laurence Housman was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, one of seven children who included the poet A. E. Housman and writer Clemence Housman. In 1871 his mother died, and his father remarried, to a cousin...
, and Harley Granville-BarkerHarley Granville-BarkerHarley Granville-Barker was an English actor-manager, director, producer, critic and playwright....
: Prunella: or, Love in a Dutch Garden (1906, rev. ed. 1911; film of play, directed by Maurice Tourneur, released in 1918); Lyall, Eric: Two Pierrot Plays (1918); Rodker, JohnJohn RodkerJohn Rodker was a British writer, modernist poet, and publisher of some of the major modernist figures. He was born in Manchester into a Jewish immigrant family, who moved to London while he was still young.-Career:...
: "Fear" (1914), "Twilight I" (1915), "Twilight II" (1915); Sargent, Herbert C.: Pierrot Playlets: Cackle for Concert Parties (1920). - Canadian—Carman, BlissBliss CarmanBliss Carman FRSC was a Canadian poet who lived most of his life in the United States, where he achieved international fame. He was acclaimed as Canada's poet laureate during his later years....
, and Mary Perry King Kennerly: Pas de trois (1914); Green, Harry A.: The Death of Pierrot: A Trivial Tragedy (1923); Lockhart, GeneGene LockhartEugene "Gene" Lockhart was a Canadian character actor, singer, and playwright. He also wrote the lyrics to a number of popular songs.-Early life:...
: The Pierrot Players (1918; music by Ernest Seitz). - Dutch—Nijhoff, MartinusMartinus NijhoffMartinus Nijhoff was a Dutch poet and essayist. He studied literature in Amsterdam and law in Utrecht. His debut was made in 1916 with his volume De wandelaar...
: Pierrot at the Lamppost (1918). - French—Ballieu, A. Jacques: Pierrot at the Seaside (1905); Guitry, SachaSacha GuitryAlexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.- Biography :...
: Deburau (1918); Hennique, Léon: The Redemption of Pierrot (1903); Morhardt, Mathias: Mon ami Pierrot (1919); Strarbach, Gaston: Pierrot's Revenge (1913); Tervagne, Georges de, and Colette Cariou: Mon ami Pierrot (1945); Voisine, Auguste: Pierrot's Scullery-Brats (1903). - Italian—Adami, Giuseppe: Pierrot in Love (1924); Cavacchioli, Enrico: Pierrot, Employee of the Lottery: Grotesque Fantasy ... (1920); Zangarini, Carlo: The Divine Pierrot: Modern Tragicomedy ... (1931).
- Polish—Leśmian, Boleslaw: Pierrot and Columbine (c. 1910).
- Portuguese—Almada Negreiros, José de: Pierrot and Harlequin (1924).
- Russian—Blok, AlexanderAlexander BlokAlexander Alexandrovich Blok was a Russian lyrical poet.-Life and career:Blok was born in Saint Petersburg, into a sophisticated and intellectual family. Some of his relatives were literary men, his father being a law professor in Warsaw, and his maternal grandfather the rector of Saint Petersburg...
: The Fairground Booth a.k.a. The Puppet Show (1906); Evreinov, NikolaiNikolai EvreinovNikolai Nikolayevich Evreinov was a Russian director, dramatist and theatre practitioner associated with Russian Symbolism.- Life :The son of a French woman and a Russian engineer, Evreinov developed a keen interest in theatre from an early age, penning his first play at the age of 7. Six years...
: A Merry Death (1908), Today's Columbine (1915), The Chief Thing (1921; turned into film, La Comédie du bonheur, in 1940).
Ballet, cabaret, and Pierrot troupes
- Austrian—Rathaus, Karol: The Last Pierrot (1927; ballet).
- British—Gordon, HarryHarry GordonHarry Gordon was a popular Scottish entertainer, comedian and impressionist, touring throughout Scotland and further afield. From the 1920s through the 1950s Gordon also produced a large number of recordings, including several under assumed names...
: Scottish entertainer (1893-1957)—formed a Pierrot troupe in 1909 that played both in theaters and at seaside piers in the northeast of Scotland. - French—Saint-Saëns, Camille: Pierrot the Astronomer (1907; ballet).
- French/Russian—Productions of the Ballets RussesBallets RussesThe Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...
, under the direction of Sergei DiaghilevSergei DiaghilevSergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
:- Le CarnavalCarnaval (ballet)Carnaval is a ballet of the Ballets Russes, based on the music of Robert Schumann's, Carnaval, for piano, as orchestrated by Aleksandr Glazunov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Anatole Liadov, Alexander Tcherepnin...
(1910)—music by Robert SchumannRobert SchumannRobert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
(orchestrated by Aleksandr Glazunov, Nikolai Rimsky-KorsakovNikolai Rimsky-KorsakovNikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
, Anatole LiadovAnatoly Konstantinovich LyadovAnatoly Konstantinovich Lyadov or Liadov was a Russian composer, teacher and conductor.- Biography :Lyadov was born in St. Petersburg into a family of eminent Russian musicians. He was taught informally by his conductor father from 1860 to 1868, and then in 1870 entered the St. Petersburg...
, and Alexander TcherepninAlexander TcherepninAlexander Nikolayevich Tcherepnin was a Russian-born composer and pianist. His father, Nikolai Tcherepnin and his son, Ivan Tcherepnin were also composers, as are two of his grandsons, Sergei and Stefan. His son Serge was involved in the roots of electronic music and instruments...
), choreography by Michel FokineMichel FokineMichel Fokine was a groundbreaking Russian choreographer and dancer.-Biography:...
, set and costumes by Leon BakstLéon BakstLéon Samoilovitch Bakst was a Russian painter and scene- and costume designer. He was a member of the Sergei Diaghilev circle and the Ballets Russes, for which he designed exotic, richly coloured sets and costumes...
. - Papillons (Butterflies [1914])—music by Robert Schumann (arranged by Nicolai Tcherepnin), choreography by Michel Fokine, sets by Mstislav DobuzhinskyMstislav DobuzhinskyMstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky or Dobujinsky was a Russian-Lithuanian artist noted for his cityscapes conveying the explosive growth and decay of the early twentieth-century city....
, and costumes by Leon Bakst. (This ballet had originally debuted, in 1912, under different directorial auspices, with sets by Piotr Lambine.) - ParadeParade (ballet)Parade is a ballet with music by Erik Satie and a one-act scenario by Jean Cocteau. The ballet was composed 1916-1917 for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes...
(1917)—scenario by Jean CocteauJean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, music by Eric Satie, choreography by Léonide Massine, set and costumes by Pablo PicassoPablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
. - Petrushka (1911)—music by Igor StravinskyIgor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, choreography by Michel Fokine, sets and costumes by Alexandre BenoisAlexandre BenoisAlexandre Nikolayevich Benois , an influential artist, art critic, historian, preservationist, and founding member of Mir iskusstva , an art movement and magazine...
. (As the Wikipedia article on PetrushkaPetrushkaPetrouchka or Petrushka is a ballet with music by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, composed in 1910–11 and revised in 1947....
indicates, the Russian clown is in general a PulcinellaPulcinellaPulcinella, ; often called Punch or Punchinello in English, Polichinelle in French, is a classical character that originated in the commedia dell'arte of the 17th century and became a stock character in Neapolitan puppetry....
figure, but in this ballet he seems closer to a Pierrot.)
- Le Carnaval
- Russian—Fokine, MichelMichel FokineMichel Fokine was a groundbreaking Russian choreographer and dancer.-Biography:...
: The Immortal Pierrot (1925; ballet, premiered in New York City).- Vertinsky, AlexanderAlexander VertinskyAlexander Nikolayevich Vertinsky was a Russian and Soviet artist, poet, singer, composer, cabaret artist and actor who exerted seminal influence on the Russian tradition of artistic singing.-Early years:...
: Cabaret singer (1889–1957)—became known as the "Russian Pierrot" after debuting around 1916 with "Pierrot's doleful ditties"—songs that chronicled tragic incidents in the life of Pierrot. Dressed in black, his face powdered white, he performed world-wide, settling for nine years in Paris in 1923 to play the Montmartre cabarets. One of his admirers, Konstantin SokolskyKonstantin SokolskyKonstantin Sokolsky Russian singer...
, assumed his Pierrot persona when he debuted as a singer in 1928.
- Vertinsky, Alexander
- See also Pierrot lunaire below.
Films
- American (U.S.A.)—Bradley, Will: Moongold: A Pierrot Pantomime (1921); Browning, TodTod BrowningTod Browning was an American motion picture actor, director and screenwriter.Browning's career spanned the silent and talkie eras...
: PuppetsPuppets (film)Puppets is a 1916 short drama film directed by Tod Browning.-Cast:* DeWolf Hopper Sr. - Pantaloon * Jack Brammall - Harlequin* Robert Lawler - Clown* Pauline Starke - Columbine* Kate Toncray - The Widow* Edward Bolles - Pierrot...
(1916); Cukor, GeorgeGeorge CukorGeorge Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
: Sylvia ScarlettSylvia ScarlettSylvia Scarlett is a 1935 romantic comedy film starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, based on The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett, a novel by Compton MacKenzie. Directed by George Cukor, it was notorious as one of the most famous unsuccessful movies of the 1930s...
(1935; features performing foursome called The Pink Pierrots); Lund, Oscar A.C.: When Pierrot Met Pierrette (1913). - Danish—Schnéevoigt, GeorgeGeorge SchnéevoigtGeorge Schnéevoigt was a Danish film director, cinematographer, and actor of the 1930s and early 1940s....
: Pierrot Is Crying (1931). - Dutch—Frenkel, Jr., TheoTheo FrenkelTheo Frenkel was a Dutch film director, actor and screenwriter of the silent era. He directed 214 films between 1908 and 1928. He also appeared in 21 films between 1911 and 1948. His son Theo Frenkel Jr...
: The Death of Pierrot (1920); Binger, MauritsMaurits BingerMaurits Binger was a Dutch film director, producer and screenwriter of the silent era. He directed 39 films between 1913 and 1922 and is considered one of the pioneers of fictional films in the Netherlands...
: Pierrot's Lie (1922). - French—Burguet, Paul Henry: The Imprint, or The Red Hand (1908; Gaston Séverin plays Pierrot); Carné, MarcelMarcel Carné-Biography:Born in Paris, France, the son of a cabinet maker whose wife died when their son was five, Carné began his career as a film critic, becoming editor of the weekly publication, Hebdo-Films, and working for Cinémagazine and Cinémonde between 1929 and 1933. In the same period he worked in...
: Children of ParadiseChildren of ParadiseLes Enfants du Paradis, released as Children of Paradise in North America, is a 1945 French film by French director Marcel Carné, made during the German occupation of France during World War II...
(1945; see above under The Pantomime of Deburau at the Théâtre des Funambules); Carré fils, Michel: The Prodigal Son a.k.a. Pierrot the Prodigal (1907; the first feature-length film and the first film of a stage-play [i.e., Carré's pantomime of 1890]; George Wague plays Pierrot père); Feuillade, LouisLouis FeuilladeLouis Feuillade was a prolific and prominent French film director from the silent era. Between 1906 and 1924 he directed over 630 films...
: Pierrot's Projector (1909), Pierrot, Pierrette (1924); Guitry, SachaSacha GuitryAlexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.- Biography :...
: Deburau (1951; based upon Guitry's own stage-play [see Plays, playlets, pantomimes, and revues above]); Guy, Alice: Pierrot, Murderer (1904); Leprince, René: Pierrot Loves Roses (1910); Méliès, GeorgesGeorges MélièsGeorges Méliès , full name Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, was a French filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest cinema. He was very innovative in the use of special effects...
: By Moonlight, or The Unfortunate Pierrot (1904). - German—Gottowt, JohnJohn GottowtJohn Gottowt was a German actor, stage director and film director for theatres and silent movies.He was born as Isidor Gesang in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary. After his education in Vienna, he joined the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in 1905, working for Max Reinhardt as an actor and director...
: The Black Lottery Ticket, or Pierrot's Last Night on the Town (1913); Löwenbein, Richard: Marionettes (1918); Piel, HarryHarry PielBorn Hubert August Piel, Harry Piel in Munich, Germany was a prolific German actor, film director, screenwriter and film producer who was involved in over 150 films....
: The Black Pierrot (1913, 1926); Wich, Ludwig von: The Cuckolded Pierrot (1917; view The Cuckolded Pierrot). - Italian—Alberini, Filoteo: Pierrot in Love (1906); Bacchini, RomoloRomolo BacchiniRomolo Bacchini, also credited as Bachini was a filmmaker, musician, painter and italian dialect poet, who spent his career during the silent movies era.-The cinema:...
: Pierrot's Heart (1909); Camagni, Bianca Virginia: Fantasy (1921); Caserini, MarioMario CaseriniMario Caserini was an Italian film director, as well as an actor, screenwriter, and early pioneer of film making in the early portion of the 20th century. Caserini was born in Rome, Italy, and was married to early 20th century Italian actress Maria Caserini...
: A Pierrot's Romance (1906); Falena, UgoUgo FalenaUgo Falena , was an Italian silent film director and occasional opera librettist. His films include Otello , Beatrice Cenci , William Tell , Romeo & Juliet , and a notable adaptation of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana featuring the soprano who sang at the premiere of the opera, itself, Gemma...
: The Disillusionment of Pierrot (1915); Negroni, Baldassarre: Story of a Pierrot (1913); Notari, Eduardo: So Cries Pierrot (1924). - Ukrainian—Karenne, Diana (worked mainly in Italy, Germany, and France): Pierrot a.k.a. Story of a Pierrot (1917; still from Pierrot).
Works on canvas, paper, and board
- American—Bloch, AlbertAlbert BlochAlbert Bloch was an American Modernist artist and the only American artist associated with Der Blaue Reiter , a group of early 20th-century European modernists....
: Many works, including Harlequinade (1911), Piping Pierrot (1911), Harlequin and Pierrot (1913), Three Pierrots and Harlequin (1914); Bradley, Will: Various posters and illustrations (see, e.g., "Banning" under Poetry below); Heintzelman, Arthur William: Pierrot (n.d.); Hopper, Edward: Soir Bleu (1914); Parrish, MaxfieldMaxfield ParrishMaxfield Parrish was an American painter and illustrator active in the first half of the twentieth century. He is known for his distinctive saturated hues and idealized neo-classical imagery.-Life:...
: Pierrot's Serenade (1908), The Lantern-Bearers (1908), Her Window (1922); Sloan, John: Clown Making Up (1909). - Austrian—Schiele, EgonEgon SchieleEgon Schiele was an Austrian painter. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity, and the many self-portraits the artist produced...
: Pierrot (Self-Portrait) (1914). - Belgian—Ensor, JamesJames EnsorJames Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was a Flemish-Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life...
: Pierrot and Skeletons (1905), Pierrot and Skeletons (1907), Intrigued Masks (1930); Henrion, Armand: Series of self-portraits as Pierrot (1920s). - Brazilian—Di Cavalcanti: Pierrot (1924).
- British—Sickert, WalterWalter SickertWalter Richard Sickert , born in Munich, Germany, was a painter who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century....
: Pierrot and Woman Embracing (1903–1904), Brighton Pierrots (1915; two versions). - Canadian—Manigault, Middleton (worked mainly in U.S.A.): The Clown (1912), Eyes of Morning (Nymph and Pierrot) (1913).
- French—Alleaume, Ludovic: Poor Pierrot (1915); Derain, AndréAndré DerainAndré Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...
: Pierrot (1923–1924), Harlequin and Pierrot (c. 1924); Gabain, Ethel: Many works, including Pierrot (1916), Pierrot's Love-letter (1917), and Unfaithful Pierrot (1919); La Fresnaye, Roger deRoger de La FresnayeRoger de La Fresnaye was a French cubist painter.-Early years and education:La Fresnaye was born in Le Mans where his father, an officer in the French army, was temporarily stationed. The La Fresnayes were an aristocratic family whose ancestral home, the Château de La Fresnaye, is in Falaise...
: Study for "Pierrot" (1921); La Touche, Gaston de: Pierrot's Greeting (n.d.); Matisse, HenriHenri MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
: The Burial of Pierrot (1943); Mossa, Gustav Adolf: Pierrot Takes His Leave (1906); Picabia, FrancisFrancis PicabiaFrancis Picabia was a French painter, poet, and typographist, associated with both the Dada and Surrealist art movements.- Early life :...
: Pierrot (early 1930s); Renoir, Pierre-AugustePierre-Auguste RenoirPierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
: White Pierrot (1901/1902); Rouault, GeorgesGeorges RouaultGeorges Henri Rouault[p] was a French Fauvist and Expressionist painter, and printmaker in lithography and etching.-Childhood and education:Rouault was born in Paris into a poor family...
: Many works, including White Pierrot (1911), Pierrot (1920), Pierrot (1937–1938), Pierrot (or Pierrette) (1939), Aristocratic Pierrot (1942), The Wise Pierrot (1943), Blue Pierrots with Bouquet (c. 1946). - German—Beckmann, MaxMax BeckmannMax Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement...
: Pierrot and Mask (1920), Carnival (1943); Faure, Amandus: Standing Artist and Pierrot (1909); Heckel, ErichErich HeckelErich Heckel was a German painter and printmaker, and a founding member of the Die Brücke group which existed 1905-1913.-Biography:Heckel was born in Döbeln . His parents were born in Saxony...
: Dead Pierrot (1914); Leman, UlrichUlrich LemanUlrich Leman was a German painter.Born in Düsseldorf, he became interested in painting at an early age and in 1919 he co-founded the group "The Young Rheinland" with other young painters of the day, including Otto Dix and Gert Heinrich Wollheim.During the early 1920s Ulrich Leman was a...
: The Juggler (1913); Macke, AugustAugust MackeAugust Macke was one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter . He lived during a particularly innovative time for German art which saw the development of the main German Expressionist movements as well as the arrival of the successive avant-garde movements which...
: Ballets Russes (1912), Clown (Pierrot) (1913), Face of Pierrot (1913), Pierrot and Woman (1913); Nolde, EmilEmil NoldeEmil Nolde was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great oil painting and watercolour painters of the 20th century. He is known for his vigorous brushwork and expressive choice of colors...
: Pierrot and White Lilies (c. 1911), Women and Pierrot (1917); Werner, Theodor: Pierrot lunaire (1942). - Italian—Modigliani, AmedeoAmedeo ModiglianiAmedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...
(worked mainly in France): Pierrot (1915); Severini, GinoGino SeveriniGino Severini , was an Italian painter and a leading member of the Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classicism and the "return to order" in the decade after the First World War. During his career he worked in a variety of...
: Many works, including The Two Pierrots (1922), Pierrot (1923), Pierrot the Musician (1924), The Music Lesson (1928–1929), The Carnival (1955). - Mexican—Cantú, Federico: Many works, including The Death of Pierrot (1930–1934), Prelude to the Triumph of Death (1934), The Triumph of Death (1939); Orozco, José Clemente: The Clowns of War Arguing in Hell (1940s); Zárraga, Ángel: Woman and Puppet (1909).
- Russian—Chagall, MarcMarc ChagallMarc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
(worked mainly in France): Pierrot with Umbrella (1926); Somov, KonstantinKonstantin SomovKonstantin Andreyevich Somov was a Russian artist associated with the Mir iskusstva. Born into a family of a major art historian and Hermitage Museum curator, he became interested in the 18th century art and music at an early age.Somov studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts under Ilya Repin from...
: Lady and Pierrot (1910), Curtain Design for Moscow Free Theater (1913), Italian Comedy (1914; two versions); Suhaev, Vasilij, and Alexandre YakovlevAlexandre JacovleffAlexandre Yevgenievich Jacovleff was a Russian neoclassicist painter, draughtsman, designer and etcher.-Biography:...
: Harlequin and Pierrot (Self-Portraits of and by Suhaev and A. Yakovlev) (1914); Tchelitchew, PavelPavel TchelitchewPavel Tchelitchew was a Russian-born surrealist painter, set designer and costume designer. He left Russia in 1920, lived in Berlin from 1921 to 1923, and moved to Paris in 1923. In Paris Tchelitchew became acquainted with Gertrude Stein and, through her, the Sitwell and Gorer families...
(worked mainly in France and U.S.A.): Pierrot (1930). - Spanish—Carmona, Fernando Briones: Melancholy Pierrot (1945); Dali, SalvadorSalvador DalíSalvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
: Pierrot with Guitar (1924), Pierrot Playing the Guitar (1925); Gris, JuanJuan GrisJosé Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life...
(worked mainly in France): Many works, including Pierrot (1919), Pierrot (1921), Pierrot Playing Guitar (1923), Pierrot with Book (1924)—see images at right of page; Picasso, PabloPablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
(worked mainly in France): Many works, including Pierrot (1918), Pierrot and Harlequin (1920), Three Musicians (1921; two versions), Portrait of Adolescent as Pierrot (1922), Paul as Pierrot (1925); Valle, Evaristo: Pierrot (1909). - Swiss—Klee, PaulPaul KleePaul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
: Head of a Young Pierrot (1912), Captive Pierrot (1923), Pierrot Lunaire (1924).
Sculptures and constructions
- German—Hub, Emil: Pierrot (c. 1920; bronze).
- Lithuanian—Lipchitz, JacquesJacques LipchitzJacques Lipchitz was a Cubist sculptor.Jacques Lipchitz was born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz, son of a building contractor in Druskininkai, Lithuania, then within the Russian Empire...
(worked mainly in France and U.S.A.): Pierrot (1909), Detachable Figure (Pierrot) (1915), Pierrot with Clarinet (1919), Seated Pierrot (1922), Pierrot (1925), Pierrot with Clarinet (1926), Pierrot Escapes (1927). - Ukrainian—Archipenko, AlexanderAlexander ArchipenkoAlexander Porfyrovych Archipenko was a Ukrainian avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist.-Biography:...
: Carrousel Pierrot (1913), Pierrot (1942); Ekster, AleksandraAleksandra EksterAleksandra Aleksandrovna Ekster was a Russian-French painter and designer.-Biography:-Childhood:...
: Pierrot (1926).
Poetry
- American (U.S.A.)—Banning, Kendall, ed.: Mon Ami Pierrot: Songs and Fantasies (1917; illustrated by Will BradleyWill BradleyWilbur Schwictenberg was an American trombonist and bandleader who also performed under the name Will Bradley...
); Beswick, Katherine: Columbine Wonders and Other Poems (c. 1920); Bodenheim, MaxwellMaxwell BodenheimMaxwell Bodenheim was an American poet and novelist who was known as the King of Greenwich Village Bohemians. His writing brought him international fame during the Jazz Age of the 1920s.-Biography:...
: "Pierrot Objects" (1920); Breed, Ida Marian: Poems for Pierrot (1939); Burt, Maxwell StruthersMaxwell Struthers BurtMaxwell Struthers Burt , was an American novelist, poet, and short-story writer.-Life:...
: "Pierrot at War" (1916); Burton, Richard: "Here Lies Pierrot" (1913); Chaplin, RalphRalph ChaplinRalph Hosea Chaplin was an American writer, artist and labor activist. At the age of seven, he saw a worker shot dead during the Pullman strike in Chicago, Illinois. He had moved with his family from Ames, Kansas to Chicago in 1893...
: Maybe, Pierrot ... (c. 1918); Crane, HartHart Crane-Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...
: "The Moth That God Made Blind" (c. 1918, pub. 1966); Crapsey, AdelaideAdelaide CrapseyAdelaide Crapsey was an American poet. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she was raised in Rochester, New York, daughter of Episcopal priest Algernon Sidney Crapsey, who had been transferred from New York City to Rochester, and Adelaide T...
: "Pierrot" (c. 1914); Faulkner, WilliamWilliam FaulknerWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
: Vision in Spring (1921); Ficke, Arthur DavisonArthur Davison FickeArthur Davison Ficke was an American poet and lawyer known for several books of poetry, including Sonnets of a Portrait-Painter and for his involvement in the literary hoax of Spectrism . He is also known for his relationship with Edna St...
: "A Watteau Melody" (1913); Garrison, Theodosia: "Good-Bye, Pierrette" (1906), "When Pierrot Passes" (before 1917); Griffith, William: Loves and Losses of Pierrot (1916), Three Poems: Pierrot, the Conjurer, Pierrot Dispossesed [sic], The Stricken Pierrot (1923); Hughes, LangstonLangston HughesJames Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
: "A Black Pierrot" (1923), "PierrotPierrot (poem)Pierrot is a short poem written by the African American author Langston Hughes. It was first published in the anthology The Weary Blues in 1926. In 30 lines, it describes contrasts the characters of Simple John, who adheres to an ethic of hard work and traditional virtues, and Pierrot, who leads...
" (1926), "For Dead Mimes" (1926), "Heart" (1932)—see "Goldweber" under External links below; Loveman, SamuelSamuel LovemanSamuel Loveman was a American poet, critic, and dramatist. His exotic and imaginative verse included 1926's the Hermaphrodite and Other Poems and 1944's the Sphinx Samuel Loveman (1887-1976) was a American poet, critic, and dramatist. His exotic and imaginative verse included 1926's the...
: "In Pierrot's Garden" (1911; five poems); Lowell, AmyAmy LowellAmy Lawrence Lowell was an American poet of the imagist school from Brookline, Massachusetts who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.- Personal life:...
: "Stravinsky's Three Pieces" (1915); Masters, Edgar LeeEdgar Lee MastersEdgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist...
: "Poor Pierrot" (1918); Moore, MarianneMarianne MooreMarianne Moore was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor...
: "To Pierrot Returning to His Orchid" (c. 1910); Shelley, Melvin Geer: "Pierrot" (1940); Stevens, WallaceWallace StevensWallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...
: "Pierrot" (1909, first pub. 1967 [in Buttel]); Taylor, DwightDwight TaylorDwight Taylor can refer to:*Dwight Taylor , former Major League Baseball outfielder for the Kansas City Royals*Dwight Taylor , film and television writer; works including Top Hat and Follow the Fleet. He was the son of actress Laurette Taylor.*Dwight Willard Taylor , malacologist...
: Some Pierrots Come from behind the Moon (1923); Teasdale, SaraSara TeasdaleSara Teasdale , was an American lyrical poet. She was born Sara Trevor Teasdale in St. Louis, Missouri, and after her marriage in 1914 she went by the name Sara Teasdale Filsinger.-Biography:...
: "Pierrot" (1911), "Pierrot's Song" (1915). - Australian—Gard’ner, Dorothy M.: Pierrot and Other Poems (1916).
- Austrian—Schaukal, Richard vonRichard von SchaukalRichard Schaukal was a Moravia-born Austrian poet.- Bibliography :* Gedichte, 1893 * Meine Gärten, 1897 * Tristia, 1898...
: Pierrot and Columbine, or The Marriage Song. A Roundelay ... (1902). - British—Becker, Charlotte: "Pierrot Goes" (1918); Christie, AgathaAgatha ChristieDame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
: "Pierrot Grown Old" (1925); Drinkwater, JohnJohn DrinkwaterJohn Drinkwater was an English poet and dramatist.He was born in Leytonstone, London, and worked as an insurance clerk...
: "Pierrot" (c. 1910); Foss, Kenelm: The Dead Pierrot (1920); Rodker, JohnJohn RodkerJohn Rodker was a British writer, modernist poet, and publisher of some of the major modernist figures. He was born in Manchester into a Jewish immigrant family, who moved to London while he was still young.-Career:...
: "The Dutch Dolls" (1915). - Canadian—Carman, BlissBliss CarmanBliss Carman FRSC was a Canadian poet who lived most of his life in the United States, where he achieved international fame. He was acclaimed as Canada's poet laureate during his later years....
: "At Columbine's Grave" (1902), "The Book of Pierrot", from Poems (1904, 1905). - Dutch—Nijhoff, MartinusMartinus NijhoffMartinus Nijhoff was a Dutch poet and essayist. He studied literature in Amsterdam and law in Utrecht. His debut was made in 1916 with his volume De wandelaar...
: "Pierrot" (1916). - Estonian—Semper, JohannesJohannes SemperJohannes Semper was an Estonian writer and translator.A student and later a prominent scholar at the University of Tartu, he was briefly nominated as Minister for Education of the Estonian SSR when the country was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940.He wrote the lyrics of the Anthem of Estonian...
: Pierrot (1917). - French—Rouault, GeorgesGeorges RouaultGeorges Henri Rouault[p] was a French Fauvist and Expressionist painter, and printmaker in lithography and etching.-Childhood and education:Rouault was born in Paris into a poor family...
: Funambules (1926). - German—Gleichen-Russwurm, Alexander, Freiherr von: Pierrot: A Parable in Seven Songs (1914); Presber, Rudolf: Pierrot: A Songbook (1920).
- Jamaican—Roberts, Walter Adolphe: Pierrot Wounded, Adapted from the French of P. Alberty (1917).
- New Zealander—Hyde, Robin: Series of Pierrette poems (1926–1927).
- Russian—Akhmatova, AnnaAnna AkhmatovaAnna Andreyevna Gorenko , better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova , was a Russian and Soviet modernist poet, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Russian canon.Harrington p11...
: Poem without a Hero (Part I: "The Year Nineteen Thirteen", written 1941, pub. 1960); Blok, AlexanderAlexander BlokAlexander Alexandrovich Blok was a Russian lyrical poet.-Life and career:Blok was born in Saint Petersburg, into a sophisticated and intellectual family. Some of his relatives were literary men, his father being a law professor in Warsaw, and his maternal grandfather the rector of Saint Petersburg...
: "The Puppet Show", "The Light Wandered about in the Window", "The Puppet Booth", "In the Hour when the Narcissus Flowers Drink Hard", "He Appeared at a Smart Ball", "Double" (1902-1905; series related to Blok's play The Puppet Show [see under Plays, playlets, pantomimes, and revues above]); Guro, ElenaElena GuroElena Genrikhovna Guro was a Russian Futurist painter, playwright, poet, and writer of fiction.-Early life:Guro was born in St. Petersburg on January 10, 1877. Her father was Genrikh Stepanovich Guro, an officer in the Imperial Russian Army of French descent. Her mother Anna Mikhailovna...
: "Boredom" and "Lunar", from The Hurdy-Gurdy (1909); Kuzmin, Mikhail Alekseevich: "Where will I find words" (1906), "In sad and pale make-up" (1912). - Ukrainian—Semenko, Myhailo: Pierrot Loves (1918), Pierrot Puts on Airs (1918), Pierrot Deadnooses (1919).
Fiction
- American (U.S.A.)—Carryl, Guy WetmoreGuy Wetmore CarrylGuy Wetmore Carryl was an American humorist and poet.-Biography:Carryl was born in New York City, the first-born of author Charles Edward Carryl and Mary R. Wetmore....
: "Caffiard, Deus ex Machina" (1902; originally "Pierrot and Pierrette"). - Austrian—Musil, RobertRobert MusilRobert Musil was an Austrian writer. His unfinished long novel The Man Without Qualities is generally considered to be one of the most important modernist novels...
: The Man Without QualitiesThe Man Without QualitiesThe Man Without Qualities is an unfinished novel in three books by the Austrian writer Robert Musil....
(1930, 1933, 1943; when main character, Ulrich, meets twin sister, Agatha, for first time after their father's death, they are both dressed as Pierrots). - British—Barrington, Pamela: White Pierrot (1932); Callaghan, Stella: "Pierrot and the Black Cat" (1921), Pierrot of the World (1923); Deakin, Dorothea: The Poet and the Pierrot (1905); Herring, Paul: The Pierrots on the Pier: A Holiday Entertainment (1914).
- Czech—Kozík, Frantisěk: The Greatest of the Pierrots (1939; novel about J.-G. Deburau).
- French—Alain-FournierAlain-FournierAlain-Fournier was the pseudonym of Henri Alban-Fournier , a French author and soldier. He was the author of a single novel, Le Grand Meaulnes , which has been twice filmed and is considered a classic of French literature.-Biography:Alain-Fournier was born in La Chapelle-d'Angillon, in the Cher...
: Le Grand MeaulnesLe Grand MeaulnesLe Grand Meaulnes is the only novel by French author Alain-Fournier. Fifteen-year-old François Seurel narrates the story of his relationship with seventeen-year-old Augustin Meaulnes as Meaulnes searches for his lost love. Impulsive, reckless and heroic, Meaulnes embodies the romantic ideal, the...
a.k.a. The Wanderer (1913; Ganache the Pierrot is an important symbolic figure); GypSibylle Gabrielle Marie Antoinette Riqueti de MirabeauSibylle Aimée Marie-Antoinette Gabrielle de Riquetti de Mirabeau, Comtesse de Martel de Janville was a French writer who wrote under the pseudonym GYP....
: Mon ami Pierrot (1921); Queneau, RaymondRaymond QueneauRaymond Queneau was a French poet and novelist and the co-founder of Ouvroir de littérature potentielle .-Biography:Born in Le Havre, Seine-Maritime, Queneau was the only child of Auguste Queneau and Joséphine Mignot...
: Pierrot mon ami (1942).
Songs and song-cycles
- American (U.S.A.)—Goetzl, Anselm: "Pierrot's Serenade" (1915; voice and piano; text by Frederick H. Martens); Johnston, Jesse: "Pierrot: Trio for Women's Voices" (1911; vocal trio and piano); Kern, JeromeJerome KernJerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
: "Poor Pierrot" (1931; voice and orchestra; lyrics by Otto HarbachOtto HarbachOtto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach was an American lyricist and librettist of about 50 musical comedies...
). For settings of poems by Langston HughesLangston HughesJames Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
and Sara TeasdaleSara TeasdaleSara Teasdale , was an American lyrical poet. She was born Sara Trevor Teasdale in St. Louis, Missouri, and after her marriage in 1914 she went by the name Sara Teasdale Filsinger.-Biography:...
, see also this note. - British—Coward, Sir NoëlNoël CowardSir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
: "Parisian Pierrot" (1922; voice and orchestra); Scott, CyrilCyril ScottCyril Meir Scott was an English composer, writer, and poet.-Biography:Scott was born in Oxton, England to a shipper and scholar of Greek and Hebrew, and Mary Scott , an amateur pianist. He showed a talent for music from an early age and was sent to the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany to...
: "Pierrot amoureux" (1912; voice and piano), "Pierrot and the Moon Maiden" (1912; voice and piano; text by Ernest DowsonErnest DowsonErnest Christopher Dowson , born in Lee, London, was an English poet, novelist and writer of short stories, associated with the Decadent movement.- Biography :...
from Pierrot of the Minute [see above under England]); Shaw, MartinMartin ShawMartin Shaw is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in shows such as The Professionals, The Chief, Judge John Deed and Inspector George Gently.-Theatrical background:...
: "At Columbine's Grave" (1922; voice and piano; lyrics by Bliss CarmanBliss CarmanBliss Carman FRSC was a Canadian poet who lived most of his life in the United States, where he achieved international fame. He was acclaimed as Canada's poet laureate during his later years....
[see above under Poetry]). - French—Lannoy, Robert: "Pierrot the Street-Waif" (1938; choir with mixed voices and piano; text by Paul VerlainePaul VerlainePaul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.-Early life:...
); Poulenc, FrancisFrancis PoulencFrancis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...
: "Pierrot" (1933; voice and piano; text by Théodore de BanvilleThéodore de BanvilleThéodore Faullain de Banville was a French poet and writer.-Biography:Banville was born in Moulins in Allier, Auvergne, the son of a captain in the French navy. His boyhood, by his own account, was cheerlessly passed at a lycée in Paris; he was not harshly treated, but took no part in the...
); Privas, Xavier: Many works, in both Chansons vécues (1903; "Unfaithful Pierrot", "Pierrot Sings", etc.; voice and piano; texts by composer) and Chanson sentimentale (1906; "Pierrot's All Hallows", "Pierrot's Heart", etc.; voice and piano; texts by composer); Rhynal, Camille de: "The Poor Pierrot" (1906; voice and piano; text by R. Roberts). - German—Künneke, EduardEduard KünnekeEduard Künneke was a German composer of operettas, operas and theatre music. He was born in Emmerich. His daughter was the actress and singer Evelyn Künneke....
: [Five] Songs of Pierrot (1911; voice and piano; texts by Arthur Kahane). - Italian—Bixio, Cesare Andrea: "So Cries Pierrot" (1925; voice and piano; text by composer); Bussotti, SylvanoSylvano BussottiSylvano Bussotti is an Italian composer of contemporary music whose work is unusually notated and often creates special problems of interpretation.Born in Florence, Bussotti learned to play the violin as a child, becoming a prodigy...
: "Pierrot" (1949; voice and harp). - Japanese—Osamu Shimizu: Moonlight and Pierrot Suite (1948/49; male chorus; text by Horiguchi DaigakuHoriguchi Daigakuwas a poet and translator of French literature in Taishō and Shōwa period Japan.-Early life:Horiguchi was born in the Hongo district of Tokyo. His father, Horiguchi Kumaichi was an ex-samurai from Echigo and a career diplomat with the Foreign Ministry...
). - See also Pierrot lunaire below.
Instrumental works (solo and ensemble)
- American (U.S.A.)—Abelle, Victor: "Pierrot and Pierrette" (1906; piano); Foote, ArthurArthur FooteArthur William Foote was an American classical composer, and a member of the "Boston Six." The other five were George Whitefield Chadwick, Amy Beach, Edward MacDowell, John Knowles Paine, and Horatio Parker.The modern tendency is to view Foote’s music as “Romantic” and “European” in light of the...
: "Pierrot" and "Pierrette", from Five Bagatelles (c. 1894; piano); Neidlinger, William Harold: Piano Sketches (1905; #5: "Pierrot"; #7: "Columbine"); Oehmler, Leo: "Pierrot and Pierrette – Petite Gavotte" (1905; violin and piano). - Belgian—Strens, Jules: "Mon ami Pierrot" (1926; piano).
- British—Scott, CyrilCyril ScottCyril Meir Scott was an English composer, writer, and poet.-Biography:Scott was born in Oxton, England to a shipper and scholar of Greek and Hebrew, and Mary Scott , an amateur pianist. He showed a talent for music from an early age and was sent to the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany to...
: "Two Pierrot Pieces" (1904; piano), "Pierrette" (1912; piano). - Czech—Martinů, BohuslavBohuslav MartinuBohuslav Martinů was a prolific Czech composer of modern classical music. He was of Czech and Rumanian ancestry. Martinů wrote six symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. Martinů became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic...
: "Pierrot's Serenade", from Marionettes, III (c. 1913, pub. 1923; piano). - French—Debussy, ClaudeClaude DebussyClaude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
: Sonata for Cello and Piano (1915; Debussy had considered calling it "Pierrot angry at the moon"); Salzedo, CarlosCarlos SalzedoCarlos Salzedo , was a harpist, composer and conductor, born in Arcachon, France, who was one of the musical elite of his time.-France:...
(worked mainly in U.S.A.): "Pierrot is Sad", from Sketches for Harpist Beginners, two series (1942; harp); Satie, ErikErik SatieÉric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...
: "Pierrot's Dinner" (1909; piano). - German—Kaun, HugoHugo KaunHugo Wilhelm Ludwig Kaun was a German composer, conductor, and music teacher.Kaun was born in Berlin, and completed his musical training in his native city. In 1886 , he left Germany for the United States and settled in Milwaukee, which was home to a well-established German immigrant community...
: Pierrot and Columbine: Four Episodes (1907; piano). - Hungarian—Vecsey, Franz vonFranz von VecseyFranz von Vecsey was a Hungarian violinist and composer.He was born in Budapest and began his violin studies with his father, Lajos Vecsey, and at the age of eight he entered the studio of Jenő Hubay...
: "Pierrot's Grief" (1933; violin and piano). - Italian—Drigo, RiccardoRiccardo DrigoRiccardo Eugenio Drigo , a.k.a. Richard Drigo was an Italian composer of ballet music and Italian Opera, a theatrical conductor, and a pianist....
(worked mainly in Russia): "Pierrot's Song: Chanson-Serenade for Piano" (1922); "Pierrot and Columbine" (1929; violin and piano). - Swiss—Bachmann, Alberto: Children's Scenes (1906; #2: "Little Pierrot"; violin and piano).
Works for orchestra
- American (U.S.A.)—Thompson, RandallRandall ThompsonRandall Thompson was an American composer, particularly noted for his choral works.-Career:He attended Harvard University, became assistant professor of music and choir director at Wellesley College, and received a doctorate in music from the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music...
: Pierrot and Cothurnus (1922; prelude to Edna St. Vincent MillayEdna St. Vincent MillayEdna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...
's Aria da Capo [see under Plays, Playlets, and Pantomimes above]). - Austrian—Zeisl, ErichErich ZeislErich Zeisl was an Austrian-born Jewish American composer.-Life and music:Born to a middle class Jewish family in Vienna, Zeisl's musical precocity enabled him to gain a place at the Vienna State Academy when he was 14, at which age his first song was published...
: Pierrot in the Bottle: Ballet-Suite (1935; ballet itself [1929] remains unperf.). - British—Bantock, Sir GranvilleGranville BantockSir Granville Bantock was a British composer of classical music.-Biography:Granville Ransome Bantock was born in London. His father was a Scottish doctor. He was intended by his parents for the Indian Civil Service but was drawn into the musical world. His first teacher was Dr Gordon Saunders at...
: Pierrot of the Minute: Overture to a Dramatic Fantasy of Ernest Dowson (1908; see under England above); Holbrooke, Joseph CharlesJoseph HolbrookeJoseph Charles Holbrooke was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was sometimes referred to as "the cockney Wagner".-Family:...
: Ballet Suite #1, "Pierrot", for String and Full Orchestra (1909). - German—Reger, MaxMax RegerJohann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and academic teacher.-Life:...
: A Ballet-Suite for Orchestra (1913; #4: "Pierrot and Pierrette"). - Hungarian—Lehár, FranzFranz LehárFranz Lehár was an Austrian-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow .-Biography:...
: "Pierrot and Pierrette" (1911; waltz). - Italian—Masetti, Enzo: Contrasts (1927; part 1: "Pierrot's Night").
- Russian—Pingoud, ErnestErnest PingoudErnest Pingoud was a Finnish composer of Alsatian parentage.-Life:Born in Saint Petersburg, Pingoud was a pupil of the great Russian composers Alexander Glazunov and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. In 1906, he went to Germany to study with Max Reger.Pingoud was the...
(worked mainly in Finland): Pierrot's Last Adventure (1916).
Operas, operettas, and zarzuelas
- American (U.S.A.)—Barlow II, Samuel Latham MitchellSamuel BarlowSamuel L. M. Barlow was a Harvard-educated American composer, pianist and art critic.-Early life:Born in New York City, Samuel Latham Mitchell Barlow was the son of Peter Townsend Barlow, a noted N.Y. City Magistrate and the former Virginia Louise Matthews, a sister of author, Brander Matthews...
: Mon Ami Pierrot (1934; libretto by Sacha GuitrySacha GuitryAlexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.- Biography :...
). - Austrian—Berg, AlbanAlban BergAlban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
: LuluLulu (opera)Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Composition history:...
(unfinished; first perf. 1937; libretto by composer, adapted from "Lulu" plays of Frank WedekindFrank WedekindBenjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
[see under Germany above]); Korngold, Erich WolfgangErich Wolfgang KorngoldErich Wolfgang Korngold was an Austro-Hungarian film and romantic music composer. While his compositional style was considered well out of vogue at the time he died, his music has more recently undergone a reevaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest...
: Die tote StadtDie tote StadtDie tote Stadt is an opera in three acts by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The libretto is by the composer and Paul Schott , and is based on Bruges-la-Morte, a short novel by Georges Rodenbach.-Performance history:When Die tote Stadt had its premiere on December 4, 1920, Korngold was just 23...
(The Dead City [1920]; libretto by composer and Paul SchottJulius KorngoldJulius Korngold was a noted music critic. He was regarded as the top critic in Vienna in the early twentieth century, when that city was viewed as the centre of classical music. He is most notable for championing the works of Gustav Mahler at a time when many did not think much of him...
; actor Fritz banters and sings in the guise and costume of Pierrot—an ironic counterpart to the lovelorn main character, Paul). - Belgian—Dell'Acqua, EvaEva Dell'AcquaEva Dell'Acqua was a Belgian singer and composer of Italian ancestry.-Biography:Eva Dell'Acqua was born in 1856 in Brussels, Belgium, and was the daughter of the Italian painter Cesare Dell'Acqua...
: Pierrot the Liar (1918); Renieu, Lionel: The Chimera, or Pierrot the Alchemist (1926; libretto by Albert Nouveau and Fortuné Paillot). - British—Holbrooke, Joseph CharlesJoseph HolbrookeJoseph Charles Holbrooke was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was sometimes referred to as "the cockney Wagner".-Family:...
: Pierrot and Pierrette (1909; libretto by Walter E. Grogan). - German—Goetze, WalterWalter GoetzeWalter Wilhelm Goetze [sometimes Götze] was a German composer of operettas and revues.Goetze began as composer of songs; the first of his many works for the stage was the revue Nur nicht drängeln in 1912, followed by his first operetta Der liebe Pepi in 1913...
: The Golden PierrotDer goldene PierrotDer goldene Pierrot is an operetta in eight scenes by Walter Goetze to a libretto by Oskar Felix and Otto Kleinert. It premiered on 31 March 1934 at the Theater des Westens in Berlin.-Roles:-Plot:...
(1934; libretto by Oskar Felix and Otto Kleinert). - Hungarian—Lehér, FranzFranz LehárFranz Lehár was an Austrian-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow .-Biography:...
: The Count from LuxembourgDer Graf von LuxemburgDer Graf von Luxemburg is an operetta in three acts by Franz Lehár to German libretto by Alfred Willner, Robert Bodanzky, and Leo Stein. It premiered at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, on 12 November 1909 and was an immediate success...
(1909; libretto by A. M. WillnerA. M. WillnerAlfred Maria Willner was an Austrian writer, philosopher, musicologist, composer and librettist. He began composing mostly music for the piano before making a career writing librettos for ballets, operas and operettas...
, Robert BodanzkyRobert BodanzkyRobert Bodanzky, also known as Danton , was an Austrian journalist, playwright, poet and artist. While he became famous for his apolitical poems before the first World War, he turned an anarchist communist afterwards, writing political essays, plays and poems...
, and Leo SteinLeo SteinLeo Stein was an American art collector and critic. He was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, the older brother of Gertrude Stein. He became an influential promoter of 20th-century paintings. Beginning in 1892, he studied at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for two years. The...
; with roles for Pierrot and Pierrette). - Italian—Menotti, Gian CarloGian Carlo MenottiGian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, among about two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular...
: The Death of Pierrot (1923; written by Menotti, including libretto, when he was age 11, in the same year he entered the Milan ConservatoryMilan ConservatoryThe Milan Conservatory is a college of music which was established by a royal decree of 1807 in Milan, capital of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. It opened the following year with premises in the cloisters of the Baroque church of Santa Maria della Passione. There were initially 18 boarders,...
for formal training). - Spanish—Barrera, Tomás: Pierrot's Dream (1914; libretto by Luis Pascual Frutos); Chapí, RupertoRuperto ChapíRuperto Chapí y Lorente was a Spanish composer, and co-founder of the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores.Chapí was born at Villena, the son of a Valencian barber. He trained in his home town and Madrid...
: The Tragedy of Pierrot (1904; libretto by Ramón Asensio Más and José Juan Cadenas).
Late 20th/early 21st centuries
In the latter half of the 20th century, Pierrot continued to appear in the art of the Modernists—or at least of the long-lived among them: Chagall, ErnstMax Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
, Goleminov
Marin Goleminov
Marin Petrov Goleminov was a Bulgarian composer, violinist, conductor and pedagogue.Goleminov was born in Kyustendil; the son of an attorney, he studied law before switching to music...
, Hopper
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
, Miró, Picasso—as well as in the work of their younger followers, such as Gerard Dillon, Indrek Hirv, and Roger Redgate
Roger Redgate
Roger Redgate is a British musician.He was born in Bolton, Lancashire. He graduated at the Royal College of Music, where he won prizes for composition, violin performance, harmony and counterpoint. A DAAD scholarship enabled him to study with Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber in Freiburg...
. And when film arrived at a pinnacle of auteurism
Auteur theory
In film criticism, auteur theory holds that a director's film reflects the director's personal creative vision, as if they were the primary "auteur"...
in the 1950s and '60s, aligning it with the earlier Modernist aesthetic, some of its most celebrated directors—Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
, Fellini, Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
—turned naturally to Pierrot.
But Pierrot's most prominent place in the late 20th century, as well as in the early 21st, has been in popular, not High Modernist, art. As the entries below tend to testify, Pierrot is most visible (as in the 18th century) in unapologetically popular genres—in circus acts and street-mime sketches, TV programs and Japanese anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
, comic books and graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s, children's books and "young adult" fiction (especially fantasy and, in particular, vampire fiction), Hollywood films, and pop and rock music. He generally assumes one of three avatars: the sweet and innocent child (as in the children's books), the poignantly lovelorn and ineffectual being (as, notably, in the Jerry Cornelius
Jerry Cornelius
Jerry Cornelius is a fictional secret agent and adventurer created by science fiction / fantasy author Michael Moorcock. Cornelius is a hipster of ambiguous and occasionally polymorphous sexuality. Many of the same characters feature in each of several Cornelius books, though the individual books...
novels of Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
), or the somewhat sinister and depraved outsider (as in David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
's various experiments, or Rachel Caine
Rachel Caine
Rachel Caine is a pen name of Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, an American writer of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, suspense, and horror novels. She also publishes media tie-in novels as Julie Fortune.-Personal life:...
's vampire novels, or the S&M lyrics of the English rock group Placebo
Placebo (band)
Placebo are a British rock band from London, England, formed in 1994 by singer and guitarist Brian Molko and bass guitarist Stefan Olsdal. The band was joined by drummer Robert Schultzberg, who was later replaced by Steve Hewitt after conflicts with Molko. Hewitt left the band in October 2007 and...
).
The format of the lists that follow is the same as that of the previous section, except for the Western pop-music singers and groups. These are listed alphabetically by first name, not last (e.g., "Stevie Wonder", not "Wonder, Stevie").
Plays, pantomimes, variety shows, circus, and dance
- American—Craton, JohnJohn CratonJohn Douglas Craton is an American classical composer. His works have been performed throughout the United States and Europe. While his compositions cover a diverse range, he is best known for his operas and works for classical mandolin.-Biography:...
: Pierrot and Pierrette a.k.a. Le Mime solitaire (2009; ballet); Muller, Jennifer (head of three-member Works Dance Company, New York): Pierrot (1986; music and scenario by Thea MusgraveThea MusgraveThea Musgrave CBE is a Scottish composer of opera and classical music.-Biography:Born in Barnton, Edinburgh, Thea Musgrave studied at the University of Edinburgh and in Paris as a pupil of Nadia Boulanger...
[see below under Western classical: Instrumental]); Russillo, Joseph (worked mainly in France): Pierrot (1975; ballet). - British—Littlewood, JoanJoan LittlewoodJoan Maud Littlewood was a British theatre director, noted for her work in developing the left-wing Theatre Workshop...
, and the Theatre WorkshopTheatre WorkshopTheatre Workshop is a theatre group noted for their director, Joan Littlewood. Many actors of the 1950s and 1960s received their training and first exposure with the company...
: Oh, What a Lovely War!Oh, What a Lovely War!Oh, What a Lovely War! is an epic musical originated by Charles Chilton as a radio play, The Long Long Trail in December 1961, and transferred to stage by Gerry Raffles in partnership with Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop in 1963...
(1963; a musical satire on World War I played in Pierrot costumes); Wilson, Ronald Smith: Harlequin, Pierrot & Co. (1976). - Canadian—Cirque du SoleilCirque du SoleilCirque du Soleil , is a Canadian entertainment company, self-described as a "dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment." Based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul in 1984 by two former street performers, Guy...
(performs internationally): CorteoCorteoCorteo is a Cirque du Soleil touring production that premiered in Montreal, Canada on April 21, 2005. As of May 24, 2005, Cirque du Soleil had broken its record of spectators for the première location in Montreal; more than 200,000 people had viewed the production, far outpacing the prior record...
(2005-present; It. cortéo = "cortège" or "funeral procession"; Pierrot appears as "White Clown"), La NoubaLa NoubaLa Nouba is a Cirque du Soleil show, which, like most Cirque du Soleil shows, is a circus-like performance featuring acrobats, gymnasts, and other skilled performers. The show's creation was directed by Franco Dragone, who also directed most of Cirque du Soleil's earlier shows. Its title derives...
(1998–present; as in "faire la nouba", i.e., "to party"; features a Pierrot Rouge and a Pierrot Clown). - Cuban—Morejón, NancyNancy MorejónNancy Morejón is one of Cuba's major authors and poets. She has gained recognition for work whose themes are centered on women and the Afro-Cuban experience.-Life history:...
: Pierrot and the Moon (1999). - French—Baival, C., Paul Ternoise, and Albert Verse: Pierrot's Choice (1950); Marceau, MarcelMarcel MarceauMarcel Marceau was an internationally acclaimed French actor and mime most famous for his persona as Bip the Clown.-Early years:...
: Pierrot of Montmartre (1952); The Mime Sime: The Fantasies of Pierrot (2007); Prévert, JacquesJacques PrévertJacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain very popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. Some of the movies he wrote are extremely well regarded, with Les Enfants du Paradis considered one of the greatest films of all time.-Life and...
: Baptiste (1959; choreography by Jean-Louis BarraultJean-Louis BarraultJean-Louis Barrault was a French actor, director and mime artist, training that served him well when he portrayed the 19th-century mime Jean-Gaspard Deburau in Marcel Carné's 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis .Jean-Louis Barrault studied with Charles Dullin in whose troupe he acted...
). - Russian—Pimonenko, Evgeny (performs internationally): Your Pierrot (c. 1994–present; act by black-suited Pierrot-juggler-equilibrist, originally of Valentin GneushevValentin GneushevValentin Gneushev is a Russian circus director and choreographer.Gneushev was born in the city of Nizhny Tagil in the Serdlovsk region....
's Cirk Valentin). - Swedish—Cramér, Ivo: Pierrot in the Dark (1982; ballet).
- See also Pierrot lunaire below.
Films, television, and anime
- American—Anger, KennethKenneth AngerKenneth Anger is an American underground experimental filmmaker, occasional actor and author...
: Rabbit's MoonRabbit's MoonRabbit’s Moon is an avant-garde short film by American filmmaker Kenneth Anger. Filmed in 1950, Rabbit's Moon was not completed until 1972...
(1950 film released in 1972, revised 1979); Kelly, GeneGene KellyEugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
: Invitation to the DanceInvitation to the Dance (film)Invitation to the Dance is a 1956 anthology film consisting of three distinct stories, all starring and directed by Gene Kelly.The film is unusual in that it has no spoken dialogue, with the characters performing their roles entirely through dance and mime...
(1956 film; Kelly appears as Pierrot in opening ["Circus"] segment); Wise, RobertRobert WiseRobert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...
: Star!Star! (film)Star! is a 1968 American musical film directed by Robert Wise. The screenplay by William Fairchild is based upon the life and career of British performer Gertrude Lawrence.-Plot:...
(1968 film; main character Gertrude LawrenceGertrude LawrenceGertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
[ Julie AndrewsJulie AndrewsDame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...
], dressed as Pierrot, sings Noël CowardNoël CowardSir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's "Parisian Pierrot"—as Lawrence herself did in Coward's review London Calling!London Calling!London Calling! was a musical revue, produced by André Charlot with music and lyrics by Noël Coward, which opened at London's Duke of York's Theatre on September 4, 1923. It is famous for being Noël Coward's first publicly produced musical work and for the use of a 3-D stereoscopic shadowgraph as...
[1923], for which the song was written). - British—Graham, Matthew, and Ashley Pharaoh: Ashes to AshesAshes to Ashes (TV series)Ashes to Ashes is a British science fiction and police procedural drama television series, serving as the sequel to Life on Mars.The series began airing on BBC One in February 2008. A second series began broadcasting in April 2009...
(2008 TV series; main character, Alex Drake, is haunted by Pierrot like that in David BowieDavid BowieDavid Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
video Ashes to AshesAshes to Ashes (David Bowie song)"Ashes to Ashes" is a single by David Bowie, released in 1980. It made #1 in the UK and was the first cut from the Scary Monsters album, also a #1 hit. As well as its musical qualities, it is noted for its innovative video, directed by Bowie and David Mallet...
); Mahoney, Brian: Pierrot in Turquoise or The Looking Glass Murders (1970 film written and performed by David BowieDavid BowieDavid Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
and Lindsay KempLindsay KempLindsay Kemp is a British dancer, actor, teacher, mime artist and choreographer.Born in South Shields on May 3, 1938, Kemp's father, a seaman, was lost at sea in 1940. According to Kemp, he danced from early childhood: "I'd dance on the kitchen table to entertain the neighbours. I mean, it was a...
, adapted from their stage-play of the same title [1967] and produced by Scottish Television [see also Songs, albums, and rock musicals below]). - French—Albicocco, Jean-Gabriel: Le Grand Meaulnes a.k.a. The Wanderer (1967 film; based upon the Alain-FournierAlain-FournierAlain-Fournier was the pseudonym of Henri Alban-Fournier , a French author and soldier. He was the author of a single novel, Le Grand Meaulnes , which has been twice filmed and is considered a classic of French literature.-Biography:Alain-Fournier was born in La Chapelle-d'Angillon, in the Cher...
novel [see above under Fiction]); Godard, Jean-LucJean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
: Pierrot le fouPierrot le fouPierrot le fou is a 1965 French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo. The film is based on Obsession, a novel by Lionel White. It was Jean-Luc Godard's tenth feature film, released between Alphaville and Masculin, féminin...
(Pierrot the Fool [1965 film]). - Italian—Fellini, FedericoFederico FelliniFederico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
: The Clowns (1970 film). - Japanese—Shinichiro WatanabeShinichiro Watanabeis a Japanese anime filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. He is known for directing the popular anime series Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.Watanabe is known for blending together multiple genres in his anime creations...
: Cowboy BebopCowboy Bebopis a critically acclaimed and award-winning 1998 Japanese anime series directed by Shinichirō Watanabe, written by Keiko Nobumoto, and produced by Sunrise. Its 26 episodes comprise a complete storyline: set in 2071, the series follows the adventures, misadventures and tragedies of five bounty...
(1998 anime; twentieth episode, “Pierrot le fou”, references both the character and the GodardJean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
film [see above, this section, under French]). See also "Japanese (manga)" under Comic books. - Swedish—Bergman, IngmarIngmar BergmanErnst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
: In the Presence of a ClownIn the Presence of a ClownIn the Presence of a Clown is a play written for television by Ingmar Bergman, and was recorded for Swedish television in 1997 with Bergman as a director...
(1997 film for TV; the Pierrot-like—yet female—Rigmor, the clown of the title, is an important symbolic figure).
Visual arts
- American (U.S.A.)—Hopper, EdwardEdward HopperEdward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
: Two Comedians (1966); Serrano, AndresAndres SerranoAndres Serrano is an American photographer and artist who has become notorious through his photos of corpses and his use of feces and bodily fluids in his work, notably his controversial work "Piss Christ", a red-tinged photograph of a crucifix submerged in a glass container of what was purported...
: A History of Sex (Head) (1996). - Austrian—Absolon, Kurt: Cycle of Pierrot works (1951).
- British—Hockney, DavidDavid HockneyDavid Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
: Troop of Actors and Acrobats (1980; one of stage designs for Satie's Parade [see under Ballet, cabaret, and Pierrot troupes above]), paintings on Munich museum walls for group exhibition on Pierrot (1995); Self, ColinColin SelfColin Self is a British Pop Artist, whose work has addressed the theme of Cold War politics.As a student at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1961 to 1963 Colin Self received encouragement for his drawings and collages from the artists David Hockney and Peter Blake...
: Pierrot Blowing Dandelion Clock (1997). - Colombian—Botero, FernandoFernando BoteroFernando Botero Angulo is a Colombian figurative artist. His works feature a figurative style, called by some "Boterismo", which gives them an unmistakable identity...
: Pierrot (2007), Pierrot lunaire (2007), Blue Pierrot (2007), White Pierrot (2008). - German—Ernst, MaxMax ErnstMax Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
(worked mainly in France): Mon ami Pierrot (1974). - Irish—Dillon, Gerard: Many works, including Bird and Bird Canvas (c. 1958), And the Time Passes (1962), The Brothers (1967), Beginnings (1968), Encounter (c. 1968), Red Nude with Loving Pierrot (c. 1970); Robinson, MarkeyMarkey RobinsonMarkey Robinson was a prolific Irish artist with a distinctive naïve expressionist style. His main passion was painting, but he also produced sculptures, and designed some stained glass panels....
: Many works. - Russian—Chagall, MarcMarc ChagallMarc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
(worked mainly in France): Circus Scene (late 1960s/early 1970s), Pierrot lunaire (1969). - Spanish—Miró, JoanJoan MiróJoan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
(worked mainly in France and U.S.A.): Pierrot le fou (1964); Picasso, PabloPablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
(worked mainly in France): Many works, including Pierrot with Newspaper and Bird (1969), various versions of Pierrot and Harlequin (1970, 1971), and metal cut-outs: Head of Pierrot (c. 1961), Pierrot (1961); Roig, Bernardí: Pierrot le fou (2009; polyester and neon lighting). - Commercial art. A variety of Pierrot-themed items, including jewelry and posters, are sold commercially.
Poetry
- American (U.S.A.)—Hecht, AnthonyAnthony HechtAnthony Evan Hecht was an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, and the Holocaust being recurrent themes in his work.-Early years:Hecht was born in New York...
: "Clair de lune" (before 1977); Nyhart, Nina: "Captive Pierrot" (1988; after the Paul KleePaul KleePaul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
painting [see above under Works on Canvas, Paper and Board]); Peachum, Jack: "Our Pierrot in Autumn" (2008). - British—Moorcock, MichaelMichael MoorcockMichael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
: "Pierrot on the Moon" (1987); Smart, HarryHarry SmartHarry Smart is a British poet.He was born in Yorkshire in 1956 and lives in Montrose, Scotland.He has had three poetry collections published by Faber and Faber:*Shoah *Pierrot...
: "The Pierrot" (1991). - Estonian—Hirv, Indrek: The Star Beggar (1993).
- New Zealander—Sharp, IainIain SharpIain Sharp, born in 1953, is a New Zealand poet and critic.-Biography:Born in Glasgow in 1953, Sharp emigrated with his family to New Zealand in 1961, where they settled in Auckland. He studied at Victoria University of Wellington and received a doctorate in English at the University of Auckland in...
: The Pierrot Variations (1985).
Fiction
- American (U.S.A.)—Caine, RachelRachel CaineRachel Caine is a pen name of Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, an American writer of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, suspense, and horror novels. She also publishes media tie-in novels as Julie Fortune.-Personal life:...
: Feast of Fools (Morganville Vampires, Book 4) (2008; vampire Myrnin dresses as Pierrot); Dennison, GeorgeGeorge DennisonGeorge Dennison was an American novelist and short-story author best known for The Lives of Children, his account of the First Street School. He also wrote fiction, plays, and critical essays, most notably his novel Luisa Domic and a collection of shorter works, Pierrot and Other Stories...
: "A Tale of Pierrot" (1987); DePaola, TomieTomie dePaolaThomas Anthony "Tomie A." dePaola , is an American author and illustrator of over 200 children's books, including Caldecott Honor book Strega Nona and Newbery Honor book 26 Fairmount Avenue. DePaola was awarded the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal in 2011.-Biography:DePaola was born in Meriden,...
: Sing, Pierrot, Sing: A Picture Book in Mime (1983; children's book, illustrated by the author); Hoban, RussellRussell HobanRussell Conwell Hoban is an American writer, now living in England, of fantasy, science fiction, mainstream fiction, magic realism, poetry, and children's books-Biography:...
(has lived in England since 1969): Crocodile and Pierrot: A See-the-Story Book (1975; children's book, illustrated by Sylvie Selig). - Belgian—Norac, CarlCarl NoracCarl Norac is a Walloon Belgian author of children's books and poetry.-Biography:Carl Norac was born in Mons, Belgium in 1960, as the son of poet Pierre Coran and comedian Irène Coran. In 1968, they moved to the small village Erbisoeul, now a part of Jurbise. He studeis in Liège and becomes a...
: Pierrot d'amour (2002; children's book, illustrated by Jean-Luc Englebert). - British—Gaiman, NeilNeil GaimanNeil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
(has lived in U.S.A. since 1992): "Harlequin Valentine" (1999), Harlequin ValentineHarlequin Valentine"Harlequin Valentine" is a bloody and romantic short story and graphic novel based on the old Commedia dell'arte and Harlequinade pantomime....
(2001; graphic novel, illustrated by John Bolton); Greenland, Colin: "A Passion for Lord Pierrot" (1990); Moorcock, MichaelMichael MoorcockMichael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
: The English AssassinThe English AssassinThe English Assassin: A Romance of Entropy is a novel by British fantasy and science fiction writer Michael Moorcock . Subtitled "A romance of entropy" it was the third part of his long running Jerry Cornelius series ....
and The Condition of MuzakThe Condition of MuzakThe Condition of Muzak is a novel by British fantasy and science fiction writer Michael Moorcock. It is the final novel of his long running Jerry Cornelius series. It was first published in its revised form in 1979...
(1972, 1977; hero Jerry CorneliusJerry CorneliusJerry Cornelius is a fictional secret agent and adventurer created by science fiction / fantasy author Michael Moorcock. Cornelius is a hipster of ambiguous and occasionally polymorphous sexuality. Many of the same characters feature in each of several Cornelius books, though the individual books...
morphs with increasing frequency into role of Pierrot), "Feu Pierrot" (1978). - Canadian—Laurent McAllisterJean-Louis TrudelJean-Louis Trudel is a science fiction writer. He was born in Toronto, Canada and has lived in Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal before moving to Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, in 2010. He currently teaches part-time at the University of Ottawa....
: "Le Pierrot diffracté" ("The Diffracted Pierrot" [1992]). - French—Boutet, Gérard: Pierrot and the Secret of the Fire Rocks (1999; children's book, illustrated by Jean-Claude Pertuzé); Major, Henriette: The Vampire and the Pierrot (2000; children's book); Tournier, MichelMichel TournierMichel Tournier is a French writer.His works are highly considered and have won important awards such as the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française in 1967 for Friday, or, The Other Island and the Prix Goncourt for The Erl-King in 1970...
: "Pierrot, or The Secrets of the Night" (1978). - Japanese—Kōtaro IsakaKōtaro Isakais a Japanese author of detective fiction.- Biography :Isaka was born in Matsudo City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. After graduating from the law school of Tohoku University he went on to work as a systems engineer. He wrote short stories in his free time which he submitted to literary competitions...
: A Pierrot a.k.a. Gravity Clown (2003; a film based on the novel was released in 2009). - Polish—Lobel, Anita (naturalized U.S. citizen 1956): Pierrot's ABC Garden (1992; children's book, illustrated by author).
Comic books
- American (U.S.A.)—DC ComicsDC ComicsDC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
: Batman R.I.P.: Midnight in the House of Hurt (2008 [#676]; features Pierrot Lunaire, who will appear in seven more issues). - Japanese (mangaMangaManga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
)—Katsura HoshinoKatsura Hoshinois a Japanese manga writer and artist from Shiga Prefecture. She made her debut in July 2003 with the publication of her first manga series Continue and is known for her work, D.Gray-man, which began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump in May 2004.The D.Gray-man manga series has been...
: D. Gray-man, serialized in Weekly Shōnen JumpWeekly Shonen Jumpis a weekly shōnen manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the Jump line of magazines. The first issue was released with a cover date of July 2, 1968, and it is still circulating. One of the longest-running manga magazines in Japan, it has a circulation of 2.8 million copies...
(2004–present; main character, Allen Walker, is "the pierrot who will cause the akuma to fall"; anime based on manga released 2006–2008); Takashi HashiguchiTakashi Hashiguchiis a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for his manga series Yakitate!! Japan, for which he won the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōnen in 2004...
: Yakitate!! JapanYakitate!! Japanis a manga, authored by Takashi Hashiguchi, serialized in Shogakukan's Shōnen Sunday, which has been adapted into a television anime series by Sunrise. The manga has spanned 25 tankōbon volumes, as of January, 2007, while the weekly serialization of the manga has ended as of January 10, 2007...
(Freshly Baked!! Japan [Jap. pan = bread]), serialized in Shogakukan's Shōnen Sunday (2002–2007; features a clown-character named Pierrot Bolneze, heir to the throne of Monaco; anime based on manga released 2004–2006).
Western classical
Vocal- American (U.S.A.)—Hoiby, LeeLee HoibyLee Henry Hoiby was an American composer and classical pianist. Best known as a composer of operas and songs, he was a disciple of composer Gian Carlo Menotti. Like Menotti, his works championed lyricism during a time when such compositions were deemed old fashioned and irrelevant to modern society...
: "Pierrot" (1950; #2 of Night Songs for voice and piano; text by Adelaide CrapseyAdelaide CrapseyAdelaide Crapsey was an American poet. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she was raised in Rochester, New York, daughter of Episcopal priest Algernon Sidney Crapsey, who had been transferred from New York City to Rochester, and Adelaide T...
[see above under Poetry]). - British—Christie, Michael: "Pierrot" (1998; voice and small ensemble; text by John DrinkwaterJohn DrinkwaterJohn Drinkwater was an English poet and dramatist.He was born in Leytonstone, London, and worked as an insurance clerk...
[see above under Poetry]). - Polish—Szczeniowski, BoleslawBoleslaw SzczeniowskiBoleslaw Szczeniowski was a Canadian aeronautical engineer and composer of Polish descent. A graduate of the school of engineering at Lviv Polytechnic, Szczeniowski made a living as an engineer in Montréal...
(worked mainly in Canada): "Pierrot" (1958; voice; text by Wilfrid Lemoine). - Japanese—Norio Suzuki: "Pierrot Clown" (1995; women's chorus).
Instrumental
- American (U.S.A.)—Brown, EarleEarle BrownEarle Brown was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems...
: Tracking Pierrot (1992; chamber ensemble). - Austrian—Herf, Franz Richter: "Pierrot" (1955; piano).
- British—Biberian, GilbertGilbert BiberianGilbert Biberian is a British guitarist and composer.Born in Istanbul of Greek/Armenian descent, Mr Biberian's ethnic roots are integral to his compositions. He studied at Trinity College of Music, graduating in 1968. In 1965 a French Government grant took him to France to study with Ida Presti...
: Variations and Fugue on "Au Clair de la Lune" (1967; wind quartet), Pierrot: A Ballet (1978; guitar duo); Musgrave, TheaThea MusgraveThea Musgrave CBE is a Scottish composer of opera and classical music.-Biography:Born in Barnton, Edinburgh, Thea Musgrave studied at the University of Edinburgh and in Paris as a pupil of Nadia Boulanger...
, Pierrot (1985; for clarinet [Columbine], violin [Pierrot], and piano [Harlequin]; inspired dance by Jennifer Muller [see above under Plays, variety shows, circus, and dance]); Redgate, RogerRoger RedgateRoger Redgate is a British musician.He was born in Bolton, Lancashire. He graduated at the Royal College of Music, where he won prizes for composition, violin performance, harmony and counterpoint. A DAAD scholarship enabled him to study with Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber in Freiburg...
: Pierrot on the Stage of Desire (1998; for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion—known as the "Pierrot ensemblePierrot ensembleA Pierrot ensemble is a musical ensemble comprising flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, frequently augmented by the addition of a singer or percussionist, and/or by the performers doubling on other woodwind/stringed/keyboard instruments.-History:...
", comprising the instrumentation of Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire [see below]). - Bulgarian—Goleminov, MarinMarin GoleminovMarin Petrov Goleminov was a Bulgarian composer, violinist, conductor and pedagogue.Goleminov was born in Kyustendil; the son of an attorney, he studied law before switching to music...
: "Pierrot", from Five Impressions (1959; piano). - Canadian—Longtin, MichelMichel LongtinMichel Longtin is a Canadian composer and music educator. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Canadian League of Composers, he won the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music in 1986 for Pohjatuuli....
: The Death of Pierrot (1972; tape-recorder). - Dutch—Boer, Eduard de (a.k.a. Alexander Comitas): Pierrot: Scherzo for String Orchestra (1992).
- French—Duhamel, AntoineAntoine DuhamelAntoine Duhamel , is a French composer, orchestra conductor and music teacher.Born in Valmondois in the Val-d'Oise département of France, Antoine Duhamel came from a cinematic family and studied music at the Sorbonne. He wrote the score for his first film in 1960, going on to work with many of...
: Pierrot le fou: Four Pieces for Orchestra (1965/66); Françaix, Jean: Pierrot, or The Secrets of the Night (1980; ballet, libretto by Michel TournierMichel TournierMichel Tournier is a French writer.His works are highly considered and have won important awards such as the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française in 1967 for Friday, or, The Other Island and the Prix Goncourt for The Erl-King in 1970...
; see above under Fiction); Lancen, Serge: Masquerade: For Brass Quintet and Wind Orchestra (1986; #3: "Pierrot"). - German—Kirchner, Volker DavidVolker David KirchnerVolker David Kirchner is a German composer and violist.-Biography:Kirchner studied at the Peter Cornelius Conservatory in Mainz from 1956 to 1969 under Günter Kehr and Günter Raphael...
: Pierrot's Gallows Songs (2001; clarinet); Kühmstedt, Paul: Dance-Visions: Burlesque Suite (1978; #3: "Pierrot and Pierrette"). - Hungarian—Papp, Lajos: Pierrot Dreams: Four Pieces for Accordian (1993).
- Italian—Guarnieri, Adriano: Pierrot Suite (1980; three chamber ensembles), Pierrot Pierrot! (1980; flutes, celesta, percussion); Paradiso, Michele: Pierrot: Ballet for Piano (in Four Hands) and Orchestra (2008); Stuppner, Hubert: Pierrot and Pierrette (1984; ballet, libretto by Arthur Schnitzler [see The Veil of Pierrette under Plays, playlets, pantomimes, and revues]); Vidale, Piero: Pierrot's Dream: Four Fantasy Impressions (1957; orchestra).
- Russian—Koshkin, NikitaNikita KoshkinNikita Koshkin is a classical guitarist and composer born in Moscow. His early influences included Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev, as well as rock music...
: "Pierrot and Harlequin", from Masquerades, II (1988; guitar). - Swiss—Gaudibert, EricEric GaudibertEric Gaudibert is a Swiss composer.He studied piano and composition in the conservatory of Lausanne particularely with Denise Bidal and Hans Haug, and later in Paris in the Ecole Normale de Musique with Alfred Cortot, Henri Dutilleux and Nadia Boulanger...
: Pierrot, to the table! or The Poet's Supper (2003; percussion, accordion, saxophone, horn, piano).
Opera
- American (U.S.A.)—Baksa, Robert: Aria da Capo (1968); Bilotta, John George: Aria da Capo (1980); Blank, Allan: Aria da Capo (1958-60); Smith, Larry Alan: Aria da Capo (1980)—all libretti by Edna St. Vincent MillayEdna St. Vincent MillayEdna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...
(see above under Plays, playlets, pantomimes, and revues). - French—Margoni, Alain: Pierrot, or The Secrets of the Night (1990; libretto by Rémi Laureillard adapted from Michel TournierMichel TournierMichel Tournier is a French writer.His works are highly considered and have won important awards such as the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française in 1967 for Friday, or, The Other Island and the Prix Goncourt for The Erl-King in 1970...
; see above under Fiction).
See also Pierrot lunaire below.
Group names and costumes
- American (U.S.A.)—Michael JacksonMichael JacksonMichael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
appears as Pierrot on the cover of the Michael Jackson Mega Box (2009), a DVD collection of interviews with the singer. - British—David BowieDavid BowieDavid Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
dressed as Pierrot for the video of Ashes to AshesAshes to Ashes (David Bowie song)"Ashes to Ashes" is a single by David Bowie, released in 1980. It made #1 in the UK and was the first cut from the Scary Monsters album, also a #1 hit. As well as its musical qualities, it is noted for its innovative video, directed by Bowie and David Mallet...
(1980) and for the sleeve of his album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)Scary Monsters is an album by David Bowie, released in September 1980 by RCA Records. It was Bowie's final studio album for the label and his first following the so-called Berlin Trilogy of Low, "Heroes" and Lodger . Though considered significant in artistic terms, the trilogy had proved less...
(1980); Leo SayerLeo SayerLeo Sayer is a British singer-songwriter, musician, and entertainer whose singing career has spanned four decades. Sayer became a naturalised Australian citizen in 2009. Sayer was a top singles and album act on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1970s...
dressed as Pierrot on tour following the release of his first album, Silverbird (1973); Robots in DisguiseRobots in DisguiseRobots in Disguise are an English electropunk band. The group is composed of Dee Plume , Sue Denim , and a rolling live line-up of backing musicians...
: The Tears (2008), a video directed by Graeme Pearce, features black-suited Pierrots involved in love triangle. - Italian—Pierrot LunairePierrot Lunaire (band)Pierrot Lunaire was an Avant-prog/Progressive folk band from Italy.Two albums were released: A self-titled one in 1974 and Gudrun in 1976....
was a progressive rock/folk band. - Japanese—KöziKöziKözi is a Japanese musician who plays guitar, piano, keyboard and synthesizer. Közi is best known as guitarist for the visual kei rock band Malice Mizer. After the band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2001, he joined the industrial rock act Eve of Destiny and also started a solo career...
often wore a Pierrot costume while a member of the visual rock band Malice MizerMalice MizerMalice Mizer was a visual kei rock band from Japan. They were active from August 1992 to December 2001. Formed by Mana and Közi, the band's name stands for "malice and misery", extracted from "nothing but a being of malice and misery" — their reply to the question "what is human?"...
(1992–2001); PierrotPierrot (band)Pierrot was a Japanese visual kei rock band, originally founded as Dizy-Lizy in 1994 by Kirito and Jun in Nagano. The original band members were Hidelow on vocals, Kirito and Jun on guitar, Kohta on bass and Luka on drums. After changing their name to Pierrot, Luka left in November and Takeo joined...
was a rock band active from 1994 to 2006. - Russian—Cabaret Pierrot le Fou is a cabaret-noir group formed by Sergey Vasilyev in 2009; The Moon Pierrot was a conceptual rock band active from 1986 to 1992; it released its only studio album, The Moon Pierrot L.P., in 1991.
Songs, albums, and rock musicals
- American (U.S.A.)—Joe DassinJoe DassinJoseph Ira Dassin , more commonly known as Joe Dassin, was an American singer-songwriter best known for his French songs of the 1960s and 1970s.-Biography:...
(worked mainly in France): "Pauvre Pierrot" ("Poor Pierrot"), from Elle était oh!... (1971); Thomas Nöla et son Orchestre: "Les Pierrots", in Soundtrack to the Doctor (2006). - Australian—The SeekersThe SeekersThe Seekers are an Australian folk-influenced pop music group which were originally formed in 1962. They were the first Australian popular music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States...
: "The Carnival Is OverThe Carnival Is Over"The Carnival Is Over" is a Russian folk song with lyrics written by Tom Springfield in 1965 for the Australian group The Seekers, who customarily close their concerts with it...
" (1965: "But the joys of love are fleeting/For Pierrot and Columbine"). - Belgian—Sly-Dee: Histoire de Pierrot (Pierrot's Story [1994]).
- Brazilian—Los HermanosLos HermanosLos Hermanos is a rock band from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The group was formed in 1997 by Marcelo Camelo , Rodrigo Amarante , Rodrigo Barba , and Bruno Medina...
: "Pierrot", from Los Hermanos (1999); Marina LimaMarina LimaMarina Correia Lima is a Brazilian singer and songwriter. She is a prominent female pioneer of Brazilian rock music.-Career:From the age of five to twelve, Marina lived in the United States and learned to read first in English and then in Portuguese. She gained attention in 1977 when popular...
: Pierrot de Brasil (1998). - British—Ali CampbellAli CampbellAli Campbell, , is a British singer, solo artist and songwriter and was the lead singer and founding member of UB40. As part of UB40, Campbell sold over 70 million records world wide and toured the globe for 30 years. In 2008 Campbell left UB40 and embarked on a successful solo career.-Personal...
: "Nothing Ever Changes (Pierrot)", from Flying High (2009); David BowieDavid BowieDavid Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
: Pierrot in Turquoise (1993; includes following songs from the film of the same title: "Threepenny Pierrot", "Columbine", "The Mirror", "When I Live My Dream [1 & 2]"); Michael MoorcockMichael MoorcockMichael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
and the Deep Fix: "Birthplace of Harlequin", "Columbine Confused", "Pierrot's Song of Positive Thinking", and "Pierrot in the Roof Garden", from The Entropy Tango and Gloriana Demo Sessions (2008); Petula ClarkPetula ClarkPetula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...
: "Pierrot pendu" ("Hanged Pierrot"), from Hello Mister Brown (1966); PlaceboPlaceboA placebo is a simulated or otherwise medically ineffectual treatment for a disease or other medical condition intended to deceive the recipient...
: "Pierrot the Clown", from MedsMedsMeds is the fifth studio album by British alternative rock band Placebo, released in 2006 on Virgin Records. It was released in most countries on 13 March 2006, although it was released three days earlier in Australia and New Zealand...
(2006); Rick WakemanRick WakemanRichard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...
: "The Dancing Pierrot", from The Art in Music Trilogy (1999); Soft MachineSoft MachineSoft Machine were an English rock band from Canterbury, named after the book The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs. They were one of the central bands in the Canterbury scene, and helped pioneer the progressive rock genre...
: "Thank You Pierrot Lunaire", from Volume Two (1969). - Czech—Václav Patejdl: Grand Pierrot (1995; rock musical).
- French—Alain Kan: "Au pays de Pierrot" ("In Pierrot Country" [1973]); Chantal GoyaChantal GoyaChantal Goya is a French singer and actress.Chantal Goya started her career as a yé-yé girl, singing a catchy mid-'60s hybrid of girl-group pop and French chanson...
: "Les pierrots de Paris" and "Pierrot tout blanc" ("Pure White Pierrot"), in Monsieur le Chat Botté (1982); Danielle LicariDanielle LicariDanielle Licari is a French singer who was active in the 1960s and 1970s. She's now remembered in France as a backing vocalist in chanson.- Career :...
: "Les Chansons de Pierrot" (1981); Guy Béart: "Pierrot la tendresse" ("Pierrot the Tender"), from Béart à l'université de Louvain (1974); Gérard Lenorman: "Pierrot chanteur", from Le Soleil des Tropiques (1983); Jacques DutroncJacques DutroncJacques Dutronc is a French singer, songwriter, guitarist, composer, and actor. He has been married to singer Françoise Hardy since 30 March 1981 and the two have a son . He also has been a longtime songwriting collaborator with Jacques Lanzmann...
: "Où est-il l'ami Pierrot?" ("Where's Friend Pierrot?"), from L'intégrale les Cactus (2004); Loïc Lantoine: "Pierrot", from Tout est calme (2006); Maxime Le ForestierMaxime Le ForestierMaxime Le Forestier is a French singer.He was born in Paris to an English father and a French mother who had lived in England. He had two older sisters, Anne and Catherine....
: "Le Fantôme de Pierrot" ("Pierrot's Ghost"), from Hymne à sept temps (1976); Mireille MathieuMireille MathieuMireille Mathieu is a French chanteuse, and pop singer. Hailed in the French press as the successor to Édith Piaf, she has achieved great commercial success, recording over 1200 songs in nine different languages, with more than 120 million records sold worldwide.-Childhood to early...
: "Mon copain Pierrot" ("My Friend Pierrot" [1967]); Pascal DanelPascal DanelPascal Danel is a French pop singer and composer. He started his career as a singer in 1964. After two minor hits, he scored a number 1 hit single in France and various European countries with "La Plage aux Romantiques", a gold disc in 1966, followed in 1967 by the international success of...
: "Pierrot le sait" ("Pierrot Knows" [1966]); Pierre PerretPierre PerretPierre Perret , is a French singer and composer. Pierre Perret resides in the city of Nangis.- Biography :...
: Le Monde de Pierrot (The World of Pierrot [2005]; double album); RenaudRenaudRenaud, born Renaud Séchan, is a French singer, songwriter and actor.Renaud may also refer to:* Renaud , a male French given name* Renaud , a 1783 opera by Antonio Sacchini* Renaud, Quebec, part of Laval, Quebec...
: "Chanson pour Pierrot", from Ma Gonzesse (1979). - Italian—Bandabardò: "La fine di Pierrot" ("The End of Pierrot"), from Tre passi avanti (2004); Gigi Finizio: "Pierrot", from A te donna (1984); LitfibaLitfibaLitfiba is an Italian hard rock band formed in Florence in early 1980.Litfiba originated from the meeting of 5 punk, New Wave and simply rock music fans with then no musical background....
: "Pierrot e la luna" ("Pierrot and the Moon"), from 17 RE17 RE-Personnel:*Piero Pelù – Vocals*Ghigo Renzulli – Guitars*Ringo de Palma – Drums*Antonio Aiazzi – Keyboards*Gianni Maroccolo – Bass*Francesco Magnelli – Piano...
(1987); Matia BazarMatia BazarMatia Bazar is an Italian musical group formed in Genoa in 1975. The original members of the group are Piero Cassano, Aldo Stellita and Carlo Marrale. Antonella Ruggiero was the first singer in the group. The group represented Italy in the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest with a song called Raggio di...
: "Mio bel Pierrot" ("My Lovely Pierrot"), from Il tempo del sole (1980); NovembreNovembreNovembre is a progressive death metal/gothic doom metal band.-Biography:Starting out in 1990 as an Italian death metal band , Novembre grew to develop a unique, atmospheric sound. Although most of their lyrics are in English, vocalist Carmelo Orlando sings in Italian occasionally in many of their...
: "Come Pierrot" ("Like Pierrot"), from Novembrine WaltzNovembrine WaltzNovembrine Waltz is the 4th studio album by Novembre; an Italian Progressive/Melodic Metal band. Vocals vary between clean-singing, death metal growling, and harsh black metal screams.-Track listing:...
(2001); Patty PravoPatty PravoPatty Pravo is an Italian pop singer whose career has spanned more than four decades. Her first single "Ragazzo triste", released in 1966, was the first pop song aired on Vatican Radio...
: "Come un Pierrot" ("Like a Pierrot" [1974]). - Japanese—Alcoholic Kidz: "Pierrot" (2009); Aya KamikiAya Kamikiis a Japanese singer-songwriter. Her style ranges from pop, rock to rhythm and blues. She currently resides in Osaka, and is currently signed with Tokyo-based AVEX recording label. She speaks moderate Chinese, and because of this, she has a notable fanbase in China.-Biography:Kamiki learned to play...
: "Pierrot" (2006); Berryz Kobo: "Kokuhaku no Funsui HirobaKokuhaku no Funsui Hirobais the 14th single by all-girl J-pop group Berryz Kobo, released on June 27, 2007 on the Piccolo Town label . The single was released both as a normal, CD-only edition and a limited edition with a bonus DVD. The limited edition also contained a Berryz Kobo photo-card...
" ("Fountain Plaza of My Confession" [2007]; contains lyric "I am Pierrot"); Tanaka Koki of pop group KAT-TUNKAT-TUNKAT-TUN is a Japanese boy band formed by Johnny & Associates in 2001. The group's name is an acronym based on the first letter of each member's family name until the departure of Jin Akanishi in 2010. As of 2010, KAT-TUN stands for Kazuya KAmenashi, Junnosuke Taguchi, Koki Tanaka, Tatsuya Ueda,...
: "Pierrot", from Break the Records: By You & For YouBreak the Records: By You & For YouBreak the Records: By You & For You is the fourth studio album by Japanese boy band KAT-TUN and was released in Japan on April 29, 2009 by J-One Records...
(2009); Yellow Magic OrchestraYellow Magic OrchestraSakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Takahashi recruited Sakamoto to produce his debut solo recording in 1977 following the split of the Sadistic Mika Band...
: "Mad Pierrot", from Yellow Magic Orchestra (1978). - MonegasqueMonégasqueMonégasque may refer to:* Monégasque dialect, the local Ligurian dialect of Monaco* Something of, from, or related to Monaco, a small sovereign city-state located in southwestern Europe...
—Jacques PillsJacques PillsJacques Pills was a French singer and actor, born René Jacques Ducos. His impresario was Bruno Coquatrix. In 1959, Pills was the Monegasque entrant at the Eurovision Song Contest 1959 with the song "Mon ami Pierrot"...
: "Mon ami PierrotMon Ami Pierrot"Mon ami Pierrot" was the Monegasque entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1959, performed in French by French singer Jacques Pills...
"--winner Eurovision Song Contest 1959Eurovision Song Contest 1959The Eurovision Song Contest 1959 was the fourth Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in Cannes, following the French victory the previous year....
. - South Korean—JYJJYJJYJ is a three-member pop group, formed by three members of the South Korean boyband TVXQ: Jaejoong, Yoochun and Junsu. Their group name is taken from the first letters of each members' names....
: "Pierrot", from Their Rooms "Our Story"Their Rooms "Our Story"Their Rooms "Our Story" is the first music essay by South Korean pop group, JYJ. The album was released in digital and physical format by January 28, 2011....
(2011); Lee Hyun Do: "Pierrot" (1999; featured in music video game Pump It UpPump It UpPump It Up, commonly abbreviated as PIU or shortened to just Pump, is a music video game series currently developed by Nexcade and published by Andamiro, a Korean arcade game producer. The game is typically played on a dance pad with five arrow panels: up-left, up-right, bottom-left, bottom-right,...
); Maximum Crew: Pierrot (2009); Outsider (rapper)Outsider (rapper)Outsider is a South Korean rapper. He is known for his speed-rapping and is reputed to be able to rap at 21 syllables per second. Outsider considers fellow Korean rapper MC Sniper as his mentor, and he is currently signed to MC Sniper's label, Sniper Sound.-History:Outsider is the world's fastest...
: "Pierrot's Tear", from Vol.2 Maestro (2009), "Pierrot's Tear II", from Vol.2.5 The Outsider (2010), "Pierrot's Tear III", from Vol.3 Hero (2010). - Uruguayan—Jaime RoosJaime RoosJaime Roos is an Uruguayan singer, composer and record producer. In 2000 he won a Silver Condor Award for Best Score Musician in El Amateur.- Discography :*Candombe del 31 *Para espantar el sueño...
: Brindis por Pierrot (Cheers for Pierrot [1985]); Falta y Resto: "Brindis por Pierrot", from Amor Rioplatense (2007).
Pierrot lunaire
The fifty poems that were published by Albert GiraudAlbert Giraud
Albert Giraud , was a Belgian poet who wrote in French.-Biography:Giraud was born Emile Albert Kayenbergh in Leuven, Belgium. He studied law at the University of Louvain. He left university without a degree and took up journalism and poetry...
(born Emile Albert Kayenbergh) as Pierrot lunaire: Rondels bergamasques
Pierrot lunaire (book)
Pierrot lunaire: rondels bergamasques is a collection of fifty poems published in 1884 by the Belgian poet Albert Giraud , who is usually associated with the Symbolist Movement. The protagonist of the cycle is Pierrot, the comic servant of the French Commedia dell'Arte and, later, of Parisian...
in 1884 quickly attracted composers to set them to music, especially after they were translated, somewhat freely, into German (1892) by the poet and dramatist Otto Erich Hartleben
Otto Erich Hartleben
Otto Erich Hartleben was a German poet and dramatist from Clausthal, known for his translation of Pierrot Lunaire.-Childhood, Education and Marriage:...
. (Hartleben later went on to write his own Pierrot poems.) The best known of these settings is the atonal song-cycle derived from twenty-one of the poems (in Hartleben's translation) by Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
in 1912: Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds Pierrot lunaire
Pierrot Lunaire
Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds 'Pierrot lunaire' , commonly known simply as Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 , is a melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg...
(Thrice-Seven Poems from Albert Giraud's Pierrot lunaire—Schoenberg was numerologically superstitious). But the poems have dense histories as songs and sets of songs both before and after Schoenberg's landmark Opus 21. The bullet-point that follows lists early 20th-century musical settings chronologically and notes how many poems were set by each composer (all are in the Hartleben translations) and for which instruments.
- Marschalk, Max: 5 poems for voice and piano (1901); Vrieslander, Otto: 50 poems for voice and piano (46 in 1905, the remainder in 1911); Graener, PaulPaul GraenerPaul Graener was a German composer and conductor.-Biography:Graener was born in Berlin and orphaned as a young child. A boy soprano, he taught himself composition and in 1896 moved to London, where he gave private lessons and served briefly as conductor at the Haymarket Theatre...
: 3 poems for voice and piano (c. 1908); Marx, JosephJoseph MarxJoseph Rupert Rudolf Marx was an Austrian composer, teacher and critic.-Life and career:Marx pursued studies in philosophy, art history, German studies, and music at Graz University, earning several degrees including a doctorate in 1909. He began composing seriously in 1908 and over the next four...
: 4 poems for voice and piano (1909; 1 of 4, "Valse de Chopin", reset for voice, piano, and string quartet in 1917); Schoenberg, Arnold: 21 poems for speaking voice, piano, flute (also piccolo), clarinet (also bass clarinet), violin (also viola), and violoncello (1912); Kowalski, MaxMax KowalskiMax Kowalski was a Polish-German composer, singer and singing teacher.Kowalski's family moved to Germany in 1883, a year after he was born. He studied law in Marburg, obtaining a doctorate and worked as a lawyer in Frankfurt am Main...
: 12 poems for voice and piano (1913); Lothar, MarkMark LotharMark Lothar [ló:tar] was a German composer.-References: Lothar, Mark ; Ott, Alfons : Mark Lothar. Ein Musikerporträt. München, Süddeutscher Verlag 1968. 228 Seiten. Mark Lothar 1902-1985, Seine Musik - sein Leben. Eine Ausstellung aus den Beständen der Münchner Stadtbibliothek Am Gasteig vom 4...
: 1 poem for voice and piano (1921).
As an homage to Schoenberg, the English composers Peter Maxwell Davies
Peter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
and Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
founded The Pierrot Players in 1967; they performed under that name until 1970. The similarly inspired Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien, founded in Vienna by flautist Silvia Gelos and pianist Gustavo Balanesco, is still performing internationally.
In 1987, the Arnold Schoenberg Institute in Los Angeles commissioned the settings of the remaining twenty-nine poems that Schoenberg had neglected, using his original scoring, by sixteen American composers: Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...
, Leslie Bassett
Leslie Bassett
Leslie Bassett is an American composer of classical music, and the University of Michigan’s Albert A. Stanley Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Composition...
, Susan Morton Blaustein
Susan Morton Blaustein
Susan Morton Blaustein is an American pianist and composer. She was born in Palo Alto, California, and studied piano and composition at Pomona College with Karl Kohn, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1975. She continued her studies in composition at the Liege Conservatory in Belgium...
, Paul Cooper, Miriam Gideon
Miriam Gideon
Miriam Gideon was an American composer.-Life:She studied organ with her uncle Henry Gideon and piano with Felix Fox. She also studied with Martin Bernstein, Marion Bauer, Charles Haubiel, and Jacques Pillois...
, John Harbison
John Harbison
John Harris Harbison is an American composer, best known for his operas and large choral works.-Life:...
, Donald Harris, Richard Hoffmann, Karl Kohn
Karl Kohn
Karl Georg Kohn is an American composer, teacher and pianist.- Biography :Kohn began playing the piano as a child in Vienna and, after he, at the age of 13, immigrated to the United States, continued his education in New York City and at Harvard where he studied composition with Walter Piston,...
, William Kraft
William Kraft
William Kraft is a composer, conductor, teacher, and percussionist.-Undergrad and Graduate School Years :...
, Ursula Mamlok
Ursula Mamlok
Ursula Mamlok is a German-born, American composer and teacher.-Education and influences:Mamlok was born as Ursula Meyer in Berlin, Germany and studied piano and composition with Professor Gustav Ernest and Emily Weissgerber until her family fled Nazi Germany following the nationwide pogrom in 1938...
, Steve Mosco, Marc Neikrug, Mel Powell
Mel Powell
Mel Powell was a jazz pianist and composer of classical music.Mel Epstein was born to Russian Jewish parents, Milton Epstein and Mildred Mark Epstein, and began playing piano as a child. He performed jazz professionally in New York City as a teenager...
, Roger Reynolds
Roger Reynolds
Roger Reynolds is an American composer born July 18, 1934 in Detroit, Michigan. He is a professor at the University of California at San Diego. He received an undergraduate degree in engineering physics from the University of Michigan where he later studied composition with Ross Lee Finney...
, and Leonard Rosenman
Leonard Rosenman
Leonard Rosenman was an American film, television and concert composer.-Life and career:Leonard Rosenman was born in Brooklyn, New York. After service in the Pacific with the Army Air Forces in World War II, he earned a bachelor's degree in music from the University of California, Berkeley...
. The settings were given their premieres between 1988 and 1990 in four concerts sponsored by the Institute. (The director of the Institute, Leonard Stein, added a setting of his own to the final concert of the project.)
Schoenberg's Pierrot has kindled inspiration not only among fellow composers but also among choreographers and singer-performers. Dancers who have staged Pierrot lunaire have included the Russian-born American Adolph Bolm
Adolph Bolm
Adolph Rudolphovitch Bolm was a Russian born American ballet dancer and choreographer....
(1926), the American Glen Tetley
Glen Tetley
Glen Tetley was an American ballet and modern dancer as well as a choreographer who mixed ballet and modern dance to create a new way of looking at dance, and is best known for his piece Pierrot Lunaire.-Biography:Glenford Andrew Tetley, Jr. was born on February 3, 1926 in Cleveland, Ohio...
(1962), the German Marco Goecke (2010) and the French Kader Belarbi (2011). The theatrical/operatic possibilities of Schoenberg's score have been realized by at least two major ensembles: the Opera Quotannis
Opera Quotannis
Opera Quotannis was a New York-based opera company which was founded in 1990, with conductor Bart Folse as Music Director and stage director Brian Morgan serving as Artistic Director...
, which staged a version of Pierrot lunaire (with singer Christine Schadeberg) at the New School for Social Research in 1995 and, more recently, the internationally acclaimed contemporary music sextet eighth blackbird
Eighth blackbird
eighth blackbird is a Grammy Award-winning contemporary music sextet based in Chicago. The group derives its name from the eighth stanza of Wallace Stevens' poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird...
, which premiered a "cabaret opera" dramatizing the Schoenberg cycle in 2009. Its percussionist, Matthew Duvall, played Pierrot, and, in addition to the remaining five musicians and a singer/speaker, Lucy Shelton, the production included a dancer, Elyssa Dole. The work, which will be toured in 2012 to mark the centennial of Schoenberg's composition of Pierrot lunaire, was conceived, directed, and choreographed by Mark DeChiazza. (View excerpts.)
Schoenberg has also attracted at least one parodist: in 1924, Hans Eisler published Palmström (Studies on 12-tone Rows), in which a Sprechstimme vocalist, singing texts by Christian Morgenstern
Christian Morgenstern
Christian Otto Josef Wolfgang Morgenstern was a German author and poet from Munich. Morgenstern married Margareta Gosebruch von Liechtenstern on March 7, 1910...
, parodies the musical lines of Pierrot to the accompaniment of flute (or piccolo), clarinet, violin (or viola), and violincello.
In 2001 and 2002, the British composer Roger Marsh set all fifty French poems for a (mostly) a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
group of singers. Sometimes they sing in French accompanied by a narrator, whose English translations are woven into the music; sometimes they sing in both French and English; sometimes they speak the poems in both languages (in various combinations). The few songs entirely in French are intended to be glossed by action in performance. Instruments occasionally brought in, usually solo, are violin, cello, piano, organ, bells, and beatbox. The English texts were derived from literal translations of Giraud's poems by Kay Bourlier.
Giraud's original texts also stand behind the Seven Pierrot Miniatures (2010) by the Scottish composer Helen Grime
Helen Grime
Helen Grime is a Scottish composer. Though born in England, her parents returned to Scotland when she was a baby. Her family raised her in her early years in Ellon, Aberdeenshire. Her grandparents were music teachers in Macduff, Aberdeenshire. Her mother teaches music at St...
, though hers cannot be called "settings", since voice and words are absent. The seven poems she selected—"The Clouds", "Decor", "Absinthe", "Suicide", "The Church", "Sunset", and "The Harp", none used by Schoenberg—were merely "points of departure" for her suite for mixed ensemble.
The painters Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
, Theodor Werner, Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
and Fernando Botero
Fernando Botero
Fernando Botero Angulo is a Colombian figurative artist. His works feature a figurative style, called by some "Boterismo", which gives them an unmistakable identity...
have all produced a Pierrot Lunaire (in 1924, 1942, 1969, and 2007, respectively). And Pierrot Lunaire is a very familiar figure in popular art: Brazilian, Italian
Pierrot Lunaire (band)
Pierrot Lunaire was an Avant-prog/Progressive folk band from Italy.Two albums were released: A self-titled one in 1974 and Gudrun in 1976....
, and Russian rock groups have called themselves Pierrot Lunaire. The Soft Machine
Soft Machine
Soft Machine were an English rock band from Canterbury, named after the book The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs. They were one of the central bands in the Canterbury scene, and helped pioneer the progressive rock genre...
, a British group, included the song "Thank You Pierrot Lunaire" in its 1969 album Volume Two. And in issue #676 of DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
, Batman R.I.P.: Midnight in the House of Hurt (2008), Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
acquired a new nemesis, who shadowed him for seven more issues: his name was Pierrot Lunaire.
Carnival
Pierrot is a familiar figure at many carnivals of the world, most notably Uruguayan Carnival, as well as at festivals in Trinidad and Tobago. At the latter festivals, he appears as "Pierrot Grenade", a descendant of his namesake, but dressed—at least in recent years—in narrow over-lapping strips of brightly colored cloth. He likes to show his scholarly erudition by declaiming Shakespeare and spelling long words. (View a dancing Pierrot Grenade.)Further reading
- Jones, Louisa E. (1984). Sad clowns and pale Pierrots: literature and the popular comic arts in 19th-century France. Lexington, Kentucky: French Forum Publishers.
- Kellein, Thomas. (1995). Pierrot: Melancholie und Maske. Munich: Prestel.
- Palacio, Jean de. (1990). Pierrot fin-de-siècle, ou, Les Métamorphoses d'un masque. Paris: Seguier.