Meditate with Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)

In the theater, turning your back on your audience is not done. Even less by putting his hands in his pockets with the nonchalance of a teenager whose guitar slung over his shoulder hangs limply on his back. But for this Pierrot, on the right, dressed all in white – large jacket and loose silk pants, collar, shoes and hat – this is not the time for comic representation, in the style of the commedia dell’arte. It is rather that, serious and gentle, of human bonds which are woven beyond pretense. As evening falls, under the foliage of a large chestnut tree with bushy foliage, a small group of men and women call out to each other. The two beauties seem curious about this lunar character who faces them, while at the other end of the bench, the man in the Scaramouche costume has lost his enthusiasm, as if beaten in advance. In the shadows, a fountain lets out its water which flows like time, inevitably. A stone faun contemplates the scene, himself wrestling with a sea creature.

The all-consuming, amorous passion is not far away. But, no, here, everything is wise, letting the enigma of the moment carry us into the scene. The Valencian painter Antoine Watteau, who offers it to us, is a thirty-year-old amazed by the theatricality of existence, of which these costumed actors who fascinate him only seem to be essential reminders. Playing is a useful thing, but living is even more necessary. The artist died a few years later, at the age of 37, from tuberculosis. In a large moon-white outfit.