Study for 'Le Pierrot' 1921

Curator: Right, let's dive into Roger de La Fresnaye's "Study for 'Le Pierrot'," dating back to 1921. What strikes you about this watercolor and colored pencil piece? Editor: My first thought? An eerie sense of stillness. It's like looking at a fractured memory. The geometric shapes give it this very cool, almost robotic, feel, yet there’s a strange vulnerability lurking behind those simplified forms. Curator: Precisely. The Pierrot, a stock character known for his white costume and melancholic disposition, is stripped down to these almost architectural components. The blue washes of color seem to amplify the loneliness. Think of the commedia dell'arte roots - traditionally flamboyant. De la Fresnaye drains the life out of him! Editor: That blue is doing some heavy lifting here. It’s both calming and incredibly isolating, like the vast emptiness of a night sky. The geometric forms remind me of dissected grief—as if Pierrot’s heart is literally being broken into angular pieces before our eyes. Curator: And how about the symbols? That dark spot serving as a mouth—is it an absence of speech, an unuttered lament? What do we read from the upturned palms? Is it an acceptance, a plea or some other world of meaning altogether? It taps into the enduring legacy of the harlequin, yet subverts all that rich symbolism through its modernist form. It’s quite something. Editor: It is. There is a hollowness to the eyes in that face that has really got me wondering what de la Fresnaye felt during that period of his life, or wanted to say more broadly to his audiences at that time. He really pushes the boundaries of portraying sadness. Curator: Well, beyond his personal experience and life, this makes you really consider identity, doesn't it? We consider it even within ourselves, and ask ourselves if we ourselves ever feel disjointed as the Pierrot in de La Fresnaye's representation here does. Editor: Right. I agree, so wonderfully evocative - both on an aesthetic level and in what this imagery prompts us to ask ourselves. It will stay with me, this Pierrot.