{"id":22029,"date":"2022-09-28T16:27:39","date_gmt":"2022-09-28T15:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=22029"},"modified":"2022-09-28T16:27:39","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T15:27:39","slug":"john-austens-harlequin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2022\/09\/28\/john-austens-harlequin\/","title":{"rendered":"John Austen’s Harlequin"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The familiar characters of the Commedia dell’arte<\/em>\u2014Harlequin, Columbine, Pierrot et al\u2014are depicted here by British illustrator John Austen for The Adventures of Harlequin<\/em><\/a> (1923), a prose recounting by Francis Bickley of events in the life of the trickster character. Or a<\/em> life… Since Harlequin has only ever been a theatrical archetype Bickley has to employ considerable invention to flesh out the details. The enterprise may be a questionable one but I’m always happy to see another book illustrated by Austen, especially when so many of his illustrated editions remain difficult to find. A Pierrot figure appeared in the first of these, The Little Ape and Other Stories<\/em><\/a>, at a time when Austen’s drawing style was closer to Harry Clarke in its use of decorative detail. His style continued to evolve throughout the 1920s. Here it’s closer to George Barbier, the French artist who drew his own Commedia dell’arte<\/em> trio when illustrating Michel Fokine’s Carnaval<\/em> for a ballet portfolio, Designs on the Dances of Vaslav Nijinsky<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The illustrators archive<\/a><\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Everyman and Other Plays by John Austen<\/a>
\n\u2022 Harry Clarke and others in The Studio<\/a>
\n\u2022 John Austen’s Tales of Passed Times<\/a>
\n\u2022 John Austen\u2019s Little Ape<\/a>
\n\u2022 John Austen\u2019s Hamlet<\/a>
\n\u2022 The art of John Austen, 1886\u20131948<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The familiar characters of the Commedia dell’arte\u2014Harlequin, Columbine, Pierrot et al\u2014are depicted here by British illustrator John Austen for The Adventures of Harlequin (1923), a prose recounting by Francis Bickley of events in the life of the trickster character. Or a life… Since Harlequin has only ever been a theatrical archetype Bickley has to employ … Continue reading “John Austen’s Harlequin”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New blog post: John Austen's Harlequin","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,42,48,46],"tags":[12455,695,2140,12456],"class_list":["post-22029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-illustrators","category-theatre","tag-francis-bickley","tag-george-barbier","tag-john-austen","tag-michel-fokine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-5Jj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}