Final Masquerade

For more than half a century, the spot in the Louvre's Grande Galerie had the aura of a shrine. And for good reason. There hung Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, the Louvre's--and the world's--most famous painting. When Culture Minister Andre Malraux decided to redecorate the gallery and install in it the museum's collection of French paintings, the first question was what could possibly replace La Giaconda's enigmatic smile? The answer, decided Director Andre Parrot and Curator Michel Laclotte, was the tragic clown figure, Gilles, painted in 1720 by Antoine Watteau. And surprisingly, the replacement so far has met with nothing but approval.*

"One of the greatest paintings in the Western world," wrote Critic Pierre Schneider. "After the great Christ paintings of the Renaissance, this is the first nonreligious painting of an expiatory personage, a self-sacrifice figure." Adds Critic Andre Chastel, "Gilles has a poetic charm akin to Shakespeare. In fact, every time I look at it, I am reminded of Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Rivals in Pleasure. That Gilles should remind Chastel of Bottom is no surprise, for both play essentially the same comic role. In the commedia dell' arte farces so popular in Watteau's day, Gilles, or Pierrot, was the simple-wilted country bumpkin, often a servant who pointed out the follies of his master and for his audacity got his ears boxed. But Watteau's dignified, wistful figure is aimed not at burlesque. In all probability it was intended as a portrait of a patron or friend.

Watteau often painted such personalities in commedia dell' arte costumes, for the masquerade was the sign and symbol of his era. To capture its magic, the Flemish-born painter had run away to Paris at the age of 18, then studied with Stage Designer Claude Gillot and Interior Decorator Claude Audran before striking out on his own. The times cried out for a chronicler. After the aged Sun King, Louis XIV died in 1715, French society, under the leadership of the dissolute regent, the Due d'Orleans, gave itself over to a rabid pursuit of pleasure, rivaling that of Imperial Rome. Hairdos, fashions and morals reached undreamed-of heights, lengths and depths. Theaters, operas and court ballets were packed the year round, while gentlefolk staged amateur theatricals by the score in their chateaux and country houses. Costume balls, hunts, public spectacles and private liaisons dangereuses were the order of the day--and night.

Fleeting Gifts. In dozens of airy canvases, Watteau portrayed the costumed promenades and the subtle indiscretions, the muted serenades and lush elegance of invisibly manicured garden estates. Collectors snapped his pictures up. Yet no matter what he showed, Watteau's view remained strangely aloof. A subtle veil of distance shrouds all his pictures, making them seem as much fantasy as reality. Unlike the nude nymphs of Boucher, Lancret and Fragonard, who with varying degrees of success were to echo his style, Watteau's aristocratic Co-lombines and shepherdesses remained fully clothed.

Possibly, the Flemish tiler's son felt that he was only a servant, like Gilles, eavesdropping on his masters. Conceivably, he realized that any artist, like any comedian, must retain a sense of detachment. Very probably, he sensed that the fabulous beau monde was spending far beyond its means, that the entire stage-set would soon be struck, and that it was up to him to capture both its gaiety and its unreality. Certainly he knew that his own gifts were fleeting. For the last ten years of his life, he knew he had tuberculosis. Gilles, painted just a year before he died at the age of 37, is an unwitting testament and self-portrait, with the artist borrowing a clown's clothes and a friend's face for the final masquerade.

* The Mona Lisa, temporarily in the Louvre's neighboring Salle des Etats, will be installed next spring in the refurbished gallery formerly known as Salle Van Dyck.

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