Pierrot - Pierrot, Pierroting, The Arts

An evocative fictional character with a rich theatrical, literary, and artistic history. Originally Pedrolino, a servant role in the commedia dell'arte, Pierrot gained his white face and white floppy costume on the French stage. Pierrot developed as the clown counterpart of Harlequin, the earliest French version being created in 1682 in Paris. His childlike manner and his pathos, dumb and solitary, was the creation of the great 19th-c pantomimist Deburau at the Fenambules theatre in Paris. It survives in many clowns today.

Pierrot is a stock character of pantomime.

The French character named Pierrot is a creation of Jean-Gaspard Deburau, and is a variant on the Italian character Pedrolino. It is also claimed that in ancient times, the broad red mouth of the character was created by physically cutting the mouth to make it larger.

Another Pierrot was created by Alexander Vertinskiy in Russia. His Pierrot wore a black tunic and pantaloons and sang sad songs in brothels.

Pierrot

There is a story about the pierrot which relates how a small naked boy was found outside the gates of Heaven. St Peter adopted the child and gave him his own name—Little Peter or Pierrot—but there was one condition, Pierrot was not to be allowed to play with any of the human children he might come across as he wandered outside the gates of Paradise. They proclaimed his guilt, and Pierrot was excluded from Paradise forevermore.

Pierroting

One may be said to be Pierroting if one is behaving like Pierrot.

from the posthumously published poem "The Moth That God Made Blind" by Hart Crane.

The Arts

British rock band Placebo's album "Meds" contains a track called "Pierrot the Clown".

Novembre, a progressive metal band from Italy, has a song called "Come Pierrot" ("Like Pierrot") on the Novembrine Waltz album. (Translation: "Tonight moonwater drops are falling / as I'm sheltered here just like Pierrot...") Pierrot Lunaire ("Moonstruck Pierrot" or "Pierrot in the moonlight") is an important work of Arnold Schoenberg, a setting of Albert Giraud's work of French poems of the same name (translated into German by Erich Otto von Hartleben) to music. Pierrot le Fou is a film by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina. The video game series Magical Drop features "Black Pierrot" as a secret character, an opponent only the best players would get to face. In the anime series, Cowboy Bebop, there is an episode titled "Pierrot Le Fou." He is dressed to resemble Pierrot and hunts down anyone who happens to see him. Brindis por Pierrot (Cheers for Pierrot) is an album of the Uruguayan songwriter/singer Jaime Ross. The song "The Carnival Is Over" by Australian band The Seekers features the lines "But the joys of love are fleeting / For Pierrot and Columbine".