Look at 'em go.
I have been designing variations of these characters since I was an adolescent. They stemmed from my early years watching Saturday morning cartoons in the 80′s and having the unusual condition of a high school drama teacher for a mother. I am something of an odd person, therefor it is expected that I would probably draw odd things. I hope that someday my little oddlings will find a place in the world. I knew about Harlequin, Pierrot, and Columbine simply from being around the theatre at a young age. Images of them pop up everywhere, mostly out of some art-deco construct as some sort of motif. I liked to collect images of french clowns for my room until I discovered that they were actually quite frightening. I wasn’t really formally introduced to Commedia dell’Arte until I was thirteen and I saw a student’s reproduction of Picasso’s Three Musicians in the office where I attended junior high.
The Italian Theatre is less refined and elegant than the French adaptation. It’s bawdier, earthier, and the characters are merely at the mercy of their carnal appetites. They can’t be bothered with the moon. Unless they fear it might be crashing down on their heads. They are vulgar, brash, and at times somewhat demonic. But it’s all in the spirit of good fun. Their reactions, affects, and demeanors are all instinctual, in this way they are something more like animals than like people. They are us at our most basic functions. It’s how we can laugh at them and ourselves at the same time.
So, if Commedia snuck up behind some of my favourite cartoons from Saturday mornings; let’s say Warner Bros, Hannah Barbarah, Disney, etc., seduced them, tossed them in a haystack, and abandoned them breathless and knocked up, these would be the bastard children of that union. Their lineage may be questionable, but I have to love them.
Granted, my interpretations are also influenced by the visual artists that were also obsessed with Commedia, especially Maurice Sand, the son of Georges Sand. His renderings of the stock characters make mine look like crude schoolbook doodles. Of course, I have read a few books on the subject that criticize him for killing Commedia dell’Arte dead, on the basis that his images were so popular that the characters became frozen in time and could not adapt with the changing world, therefore they become obsolete. Which is positively ridiculous!
Many factors led to the death of Commedia, but I don’t think the blame can be attached to any one artist. Probably the biggest nail in the coffin was taking in out of the streets and scripting it. Originally Commedia dell’Arte was all improvised, performed in the public squares, and free for everybody. That is probably more of what Commedia dell’Arte is than characters, masks, and costumes. I admit openly that these illustrations are anachronisms from the past with my own sick little bent. I don’t imagine anything for them other than that, besides the fact that they are great fun to draw and that they bring me joy. But if they also bring Commedia to a larger audience than that would also please me greatly.
One day I would like to see a true resurgence of Commedia in the world. Until then I have my cheeky drawings to keep e company.
