PARIS.- Fools are everywhere. But are the fools of today the same as the fools of yesteryear? The Musée du Louvre is dedicating an unprecedented exhibition to the myriad figures of the fool, which permeated the pictorial landscape of the 13th to the 16th centuries. Over the course of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the fool came to occupy every available artistic space, insinuating himself into illuminated manuscripts, printed books and engravings, tapestries, paintings, sculptures, and all manner of objects both precious and mundane. His fascinating, perplexing and subversive figure loomed large in the turmoil of an era not so different from our own.
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The exhibition examines the omnipresence of fools in Western art and culture at the end of the Middle Ages, and attempts to parse the meaning of these figures, who would seem to play a key role in the advent of modernity. The fool may make us laugh, with his abundance of frivolous antics, but he also harbours a wealth of hidden facets of an erotic, scatological, tragic or violent nature. Capable of the best and of the worst, the fool entertains, warns or denounces; he turns societal values on their head and may even overthrow the established order.
Within the newly renovated Hall Napoléon, this exhibition, which brings together over 300 works from 90 French, European and American institutions, brings us on a one-of a-kind journey through Northern European art (English, Flemish, Germanic, and above all French), illuminating the profane aspects of the Middle Ages and revealing a fascinating era of surprising complexity. The exhibition explores the disappearance of the figure of the fool with the Enlightenment and the triumph of reason, and its resurgence at the end of the 18th century and all throughout the 19th. The fool then became a figure with which artists identified, wondering: ‘What if I were the fool?’
‘Infinite is the number of fools’, Ecclesiastes 1:15
The exhibition does not trace the history of madness as mental illness, but examines the omnipresence of fools in Western art and culture at the end of the Middle Ages, and attempts to parse the meaning of these figures, who seem to play a key role in the advent of modernity. In the French language, the single term ‘fou’ covers a variety of realities, from courtly buffoons to the mentally ill. The exhibition’s progression is designed to show different aspects of the fool, and his evolution from a marginal figure in the 13th century to an omnipresent character in the 16th.
The fool was originally rooted in religious thought as the personification of the ‘insipiens’, who ‘has said in his heart, There is no God.’ He flourished especially in the profane world to become, in the late Middle Ages, an essential figure of urban social life, particularly in carnivals and Catholic confraternities, at last embodied at the court in the person of the ‘King’s Fool’.
The vast array of artistic production bearing witness to this fascination, from the most refined objects and paintings to items of daily use, shows us what a major role the figure of the fool played in the visual culture of the era, especially for artists. In the 16th century this development continued, reaching its apogee: the figure of the fool became the symbol of the world’s disorders. This journey on the Ship of Fools was interrupted with the Classical age, with the figure of the fool largely eclipsed; yet this subversive creature aroused new interest in the twilight of the 18th century, after the tumult of the Revolution had died down, and reemerged in new forms in the 19th century with the birth of psychiatry.
Prologue: On the World’s Margins: Monsters and Marginalia
To enter the world of the fool, we must first enter the world of marginality, starting with the margins of manuscripts where, in the second half of the 13th century, a profusion of strange, grotesque, hybrid creatures known as marginalia appeared, neighbouring sacred or profane texts. Emerging from the world of fables, proverbs or the imagination, these little figures dancing in lateral or lower margins seem to play with the space of page and text as they dangle from foliage scrolls or nestle in decorated initials. Often comic or parodic, sometimes scatological or erotic, they seem to be there to amuse the reader as a counterpoint to the serious nature of the text they accompany.
But gradually these creatures, which appear to question the very order of God’s creation, escaped their manuscripts to invade every space, from floor (tiles and flagstones) to ceiling (painted ceilings in southern Europe), from the furniture (misericords) to the walls (stained glass windows and sculptures). Like them, the figure of the fool, at first on the margins of society, would invade every part of the medieval visual space in the last centuries of the Middle Ages.
In the Beginning: The Fool and God
In the profoundly religious medieval world, the figure of the fool was first seen as the embodiment of those who rejected God. Artists often depicted this fool in illuminations, the paintings decorating psalters, particularly in the initial ‘D’ of Psalm 52, which begins with the phrase, ‘Dixit insipiens in corde suo: non est Deus’ (’The fool hath said in his heart: there is no God’). The initial D which opens this psalm (and sometimes larger illuminations) therefore often shows the figure of the fool who rejects God, with increasingly codified attributes: torn clothing or complete nudity, replaced in the late Middle Ages by particoloured clothes; a club which gradually became a bauble, or jester-stick; bread or cheese held in his hand. These were sometimes very complex illustrations, representing, for example, King Solomon and his legendary jester Marcolf, or manifestations of particular traditions, such as the fool’s feathered hat, which saw much use in Italy.
Foolish Virgins and Figures of Outcasts
The illustrations of Psalm 52 confirm the importance of the Book of Psalms and the Old Testament in general in the written and visual culture of the Middle Ages, but the New Testament was also an essential source for the iconography of the period. The parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins expands on the idea that carelessness and laziness lead to forgetting God. Gothic sculpture in Germany offered monumental interpretations of this subject. As for the cycle of the Passion of Christ, images sometimes combined the figure of the fool and that of the Jew, exemplifying the rise of antisemitism in the period. Here, we contrast different depictions showing highly expressive, even caricatural faces representing Jewish figures, Biblical characters and executioners.
Folly in Christianity: Saint Francis, God’s Juggler
As early as the 1st century, in the writings of Saint Paul, it is said that what is folly in the eyes of men is wisdom in the eyes of God. Some extraordinary men, such as Saint Francis of Assisi, actually put into practice that inversion of values. Saint Francis broke with both the world into which he was born, the rich Italian bourgeoisie, and that to which he aspired, the brilliant aristocracy keen for knightly adventure. He renounced his family, preached to birds, dressed like a beggar and finally received the marks of Christ’s suffering, the stigmata, on his own body. As a result, he has been known from his own time on as God’s herald, God’s juggler, or even ‘God’s fool’.
The Fool and Love
In the 13th century, the fool was inextricably linked to love and its measure or excess in the spiritual, then the earthly realm. The theme of love’s folly haunted chivalric romances and their many depictions. It seized upon young and old alike; the scene of the philosopher Aristotle ridden and thus made ridiculous by Phyllis, mistress of Alexander the Great, was much in vogue in the late Middle Ages. It was seen as a humorous tale of women’s power, upending the traditional order. Humour and satire took on the subject of love: soon, a figure intervened between the lover and his lady – that of the fool, who mocked chivalric values and stressed the lascivious, even obscene, nature of human love. His mere presence sufficed to symbolise lust asprawl everywhere – in brothels, bathhouses and beyond. Sometimes the protagonist of this folly, sometimes its commentator, the fool warns those who yield to debauchery that death awaits them, death which will drag the fool himself into his danse macabre...
Courtly Love and Folly
The great medieval romances expressed this by having their heroes undergo episodes of madness either genuine, like that of Lancelot, or feigned, like that of Tristan returning disguised as a fool to the court of King Mark. Precious, decorative ivory boxes depict key episodes of these mad loves, or the folly of love itself, in these different aspects. Beginning in the 15th century, many works appeared which mocked the philosopher Aristotle who, blinded by love for the beautiful Phyllis, let her ride upon his back under the amused gaze of his student Alexander the Great. The tale symbolised woman’s power in action.
The Fool, Symbol of Lust
In chivalric romances, the garden was the ideal lovers’ meeting place. With the emergence of engravings in the 15th century, however, a new figure encroached on the garden of love: the fool, who, with his grimacing face and often obscene gestures, reduced love to lust. This lascivious character became the very symbol of baser desire. Engravings served as models for all kinds of media: precious metalwork, stained glass and items of daily use were all overrun by the sarcastic figure of the fool. The fool also denounced the lust of old men beguiled by young women scheming for their money, as well as that of young people yielding to debauchery in bathhouses or brothels, as in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
The Fool, Love and Death
The figure of the fool slips itself between Eros (Love) and Thanatos (Death), to denounce the vanity of carnal love, doomed to death. This was already the theme of Vanitas works, which showed human beings reduced to a skeletal state, demonstrating the fleetingness of human life.
But the moralising fool is hoisted by his own petard: danses macabres, those paintings often found in late medieval cemeteries or churches, include the fool in their depiction of the whole of society. Death leads the dance and draws after himself pope and emperor, cardinal and king, down to the fool and the peddler, the latter embodying the human soul in its earthly wanderings.
The Fool at Court
Biblical tradition extols the wisdom of Solomon. In the Middle Ages it was believed that he had had at his court a fool named Marcolf, whose sayings were famous. Following this model, kings and princes kept both male and female fools at court for their amusement. At least as early as the 14th century, the court fool, antithesis of royal wisdom, was an institution; the ironic or critical speech of this symbol made flesh was, as a rule, accepted. In the terminology of the era, some were ‘natural fools’, that is to say simple-minded (or handicapped), others ‘artificial fools’, or witty jesters. They were given a nickname, like Coquinet at the court of the dukes of Burgundy, or Triboulet, fool at the court of the ‘Good King René’. Some, such as Triboulet in France, Will Somers in England and Kunz von der Rosen in Germany, have passed down to posterity, inspiring literature well into the 19th century. And although female court fools did also exist, they seem to have been depicted less frequently.
The Reign of Folly
History follows a cruel course: sometimes the king himself suffered from genuine mental illness. Charles VI, whose reign (1380–1422) was periodically interrupted by fits of madness (discreetly called ‘absences’ at the time), dragged the Kingdom of France into the darkest hours of the Hundred Years’ War. Similarly, Joanna of Castile (1479–1555) was so shaken by the sudden and early death of her husband Philip the Handsome, who she loved passionately, that she was driven to madness. She was deprived of her royal powers and confined for the rest of her life by her father Ferdinand II of Aragon and son Charles I. She became known as Joanna the Mad.
The Fool Amuses Himself: Balls, Games and Tournaments
A real person become a veritable institution, the fool had his place in court among aristocratic games and entertainment. He commented upon and parodied tournaments and jousts; he attended court balls. His presence seemed to introduce an ironic perspective on these demonstrations of aristocratic sociability. The subversive fool was so intrinsic to court society that he even became a character in its games: a chess piece and a figure on playing cards, particularly those of the tarot, which appeared in the 15th century in Europe. The first known examples are displayed here. In this form, he was the ancestor of the joker on our playing cards.
Fools in the City
The figure of the fool continued to appear more frequently and widely, passing from the closed environment of the court to that of the city. By the late Middle Ages, the fool was omnipresent in urban festivities, embodying rites that turned the normal order topsy-turvy. It was in this context that the subversive figure established his characteristic look and special costume. He was recognisable among the crowd by his particoloured attire and his accessories: the bauble, or jester-stick (his sceptre) and the cap with its ass’s ears and cockscomb crest. The fool overran the urban landscape, cropping up on fountains or window frames, and also indoors, on all sorts of objects, both precious and modest. In this costume he passed down to posterity in often-factitious portraits, where he gazes at the viewer mockingly, as though holding up a mirror and asking: who is the real fool, you or I? Merry and uproarious, he led the dance during those periods when the world was turned upside down.
The World Upside Down: Feasts of Fools and Carnival
The Christian liturgical calendar of the Middle Ages carefully scheduled specific periods in which the world’s order was upended and revelry unbridled. For instance, churches had their Feast of Fools between Christmas and the Epiphany (or Three Kings’ Day): young clerics took the place of high church officials and parodied ecclesiastical ritual. In the secular world, carnival played the same role: an opportunity for costumes, masks, drinking and revelling before the austerity of Lent. This tradition spread through other urban practices, such as charivaris or confraternal festivities. It was a time of joyous parades, plays and farces in which scatology and bawdiness ran wild.
From the Bauble to the Bells: The Fool, Music and Dance
The prevalence of the figure of the fool expanded enormously from the 14th century on. As it did so, his appearance became codified. The fool became instantly recognisable by his particoloured costume (an expression of disorder) and his accessories: the bauble, a parodic sceptre with which the fool could converse; the bells of his costume; and his cap, with its ass’s ears and cockscomb crest. Raucous and exuberant, the fool was often a musician at festivals, playing the castanets, the bagpipes or another wind instrument. He could also be an acrobat or a dancer. At the court, his contagious folly was expressed in the mauresque, a dance whose participants, including the fool, turned contortionist to win the prize bestowed by the lady in charge.
Humanism and Reform: From the Ship of Fools to In Praise of Folly
By around 1500, the figure of the fool had become omnipresent in European culture and society. Two very different but complementary works contributed to its success: the Ship of Fools by Sebastian Brant, then in Praise of Folly by Erasmus. The former tome was published in German in 1494. It was translated into Latin and various European languages as soon as 1497. The work, illustrated with engravings, was a wild success, and was even lampooned and illegally re-edited. Erasmus published his Moriae Encomium (in Praise of Folly) in 1511. Written in Latin, it was intended for a scholarly elite. Yet his book is much more famous today than Brant’s, because his critique was a forerunner of the theses of the Reformation. Indeed, as the figure of the fool could be used to denounce ‘the other’, Catholics and Protestant declared a war of images on this theme, mirroring and reinforcing armed conflicts of religion.
From Bosch to Bruegel: The Triumph of the Fool in the Renaissance
The proliferation of fools gave rise to different myths claiming to explain their origin – centred around the egg theory – and their prevalence throughout the world, in particular with the idea of the ship of fools. The painting by Hieronymus Bosch, incorrectly called ‘the Ship of Fools’, like Brant’s book, by modern critics, is in fact only a fragment of a disassembled triptych. The painting’s general message refers to the world of folly, but also to other themes, like the depiction of vices, eschatology and the uncertainty of human fate. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, like Bosch, continued sometimes to use the figure of the fool in the traditional manner. But he also gave it a new value: the fool receded to the background, underlining mankind’s follies as he bore witness to them.
Eclipse and Metamorphoses of the Fool
In the 17th and 18th centuries, depictions of the fool in European art began to dwindle. These eras, which saw the expansion of the reign of reason and the Enlightenment, held no place for court fools. But the concepts embodied by the multiple figures of the fool (irony, farce and disorder) survived in new forms, such as the character of Don Quixote, created by Cervantes, or several figures of the commedia dell’arte, particularly Pulcinella (‘little chick’, known as Polichinelle in France).
Reemergence and Modernity of the Fool
The exhibition will end with a look at the Middle Ages and the Renaissance as they were interpreted by the late 18th and early 19th centuries: through the lens of the theme of madness, but in the tragic, sometimes cruel light engendered by political and artistic revolutions. Thus the figure of the fool came back into fashion, thanks to new editions of in Praise of Folly, with new illustrations in the taste of the day. In parallel, in the countries most strongly influenced by the incipient waves of Romanticism, some artists leaned on other famous texts to produce works characterised by the strange and the eerie, or used their own experience to explore the ‘sleep of reason’.
The Birth of Psychiatry and Royal Madness
In the first half of the 19th century, a twofold movement gave new significance to the theme of the fool. In the context of the French Revolution, the practice of confinement for the mentally ill was called into question. Goya’s Yard with Lunatics in Zaragoza, which denounced violence made into a spectacle, was contrasted with the myth of Pinel Freeing the Insane from their Chains in 1795. On the other hand, in the midst of an era that saw monarchy restored, artists did not hesitate to show the ravages of madness among the rulers of the past. Thus, Charles VI, in France, or Joanna the Mad, particularly in Spain and Belgium, fed into a meditation on the fragility or the dangers of power.
The Tragic Fool: A Romantic Figure
During the Romantic period, artists often turned to the great authors of the past, like Shakespeare, to give a touch of madness to their paintings. The author Victor Hugo, in the same period, was equally influential. He revived the figure of the fool in 1831, with his novel Notre-Dame de Paris, and the character Quasimodo, crowned ‘Pope of Fools’ by the crowd, and again a year later with the play Le roi s’amuse (The King Amuses Himself), featuring Triboulet, a jester at the 16th-century court of François I, who suffers a terrible fate. The latter work became world-famous thanks to its operatic adaptation by Verdi, Rigoletto. Against this background, and supplemented by improved study of mental illness, the figure of the fool was sometimes identified with that of the artist, struggling with his fears and even his own madness.
