Harlequin on the Moon: Commedia dell'Arte and the Visual Arts

Lawner, Lynne

New York: H.N. Abrams, 1998. Hardcover. Maroon boards with BW illustration and white spine lettering. Glossy color-illustrated dust jacket with maroon and white lettering. 208 pp. 181 illustrations, 75 in color. VG/VG. Item #175489
ISBN: 9780810911949

Commedia dell'arte is the first modern theater - inspiration to Shakespeare, Moliere, Goldoni, Mozart, and Balanchine and forerunner of the modern stage comedy. This book traces the history of commedia from its beginnings through many transformations to its rediscovery in the experimental theater of today. The depiction of commedia in the visual arts has a rich history. From Tiepolo and Watteau to Beardsley, Picasso, Hockney, and other modern masters, painters have found great resonance and meaning in the clowns and lovers of commedia. Lynne Lawner traces all these threads, unearthing rare texts of commedia plays, discovering myriad versions of the ever-fascinating Harlequin, Pierrot, Columbine, and Pulcinella, relating the gossip of courts and theaters, and revealing the ways in which these figures and their classic stories - the sly servant, the foolish soldier, the clever maid, the quack doctor - have arisen again and again in art.