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Antoine Watteau (artist) French, 1684 - 1721 Italian Comedians, probably 1720 oil on canvas Overall: 63.8 x 76.2 cm (25 1/8 x 30 in.) framed: 94.3 x 106.4 cm (37 1/8 x 41 7/8 in.) Samuel H. Kress Collection 1946.7.9 |
Antoine Watteau's Italian Comedians presents fifteen figures arranged on stone steps, dressed in costumes typical of the commedia dell'arte theater. The Italian comedians were extremely popular performers whose fame rested on the audience's recognition of stock characters. Their plays were often greatly exaggerated by pantomime, gesture, and innuendo. Watteau, who spent his early years in the studio of a scene painter, often depicted the commedia dell'arte actors in his fêtes-galantes.
Pierrot, dressed in shimmering white satin, stands in the center of the composition. Pierrot was a naive clown whose declarations of love were rejected by Flaminia, the heroine, placed to his left. Other well-known characters are Scaramouche, dressed in yellow and black, whose sweeping arm gesture presents Pierrot to the audience; on the left, Mezzetin, another clown, who flirts with Sylvia, the ingénue; and Harlequin, the adventurer, shown with a black face in his red and green diamond-cut costume.
The garland of flowers strewn across the foreground steps implies the actors are taking a bow after a stage performance, but it appears that the members united here were Watteau's own invention, and do not represent a specific play or troupe. This tension between illusion and reality is typical of Watteau and influenced a generation of his followers to explore the relationships between painting and theater.