Who’s the Fool?

‘Figures of the Fool from the Middle Ages to Romanticism.’ Louvre Museum

Bienvenue and welcome back to Musée Musings, your idiosyncratic guide to Paris and art. Today, a review of the exhibition at the Louvre, ‘Figures of the Fool from the Middle Ages to Romanticism.’ Not an exciting title but a thoughtful and timely exhibition. I was relieved to read other reviewers observe that an exhibition about fools is particularly appropriate to our time. The French government collapses and both Jill Biden and Donald Trump fly to Paris for the re-opening of Notre Dame. The incoming president fills his cabinet with convicted felons and threatens to put his enemies in jail, among them, congressional men and women who investigated his involvement in the effort to overthrow the U.S. government on 6 January 2021.

I guess it’s only fitting that the incoming president’s pick for Ambassador to France was convicted nearly two decades ago of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. I am not talking about the 2.5 million dollars he donated to Harvard so that his son, despite mediocre grades, would be admitted. No, I’m talking about the hiring of a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law and tape the encounter so he could threaten his brother-in-law with sending the tape to his sister. Witness tampering. Before the incoming president left office the last time, he pardoned this fellow, his daughter’s father-in-law. This time, he’s off to Paris!

Back at the Louvre, there is an exhibition of over 300 works of art, from illuminated manuscripts, printed books and engravings to tapestries, paintings and sculptures as well as any number of objects, both decorative and useful. (Figs 1-3) These are works of art from all over Northern Europe (England, Flanders, Germany and France). They are not arranged by artist or country; material or style. The connection is the subject. Fools can be silly or sexual; they can be living on the margins of society or kings (and queens) living at its center. From the 13th to the 16th century, fools were everywhere. They disappeared in the 18th century, the Age of Reason, only to reappear the following century, with Romanticism. Fools have been around ever since.

Figure 1. Portrait of a Fool, Marx Reichlick, 1519 (it was thought that fools were hatched from eggs, here is one eating one …)

Figure 2. Fool & Woman as Towel Holder, Arnt van Tricht, 1535 (perhaps as a warning to women not to seduce)

Figure 3. Fool playing bagpipe, Annon. Church in Netherlands. Reference to fool as a windbag

Thematic exhibitions are my favorite kind. They are the way I like to think about art. You find yourself becoming interested in a particular subject. So you gather as many examples of that subject as you can find. Then you begin shuffling images, like cards in a deck, looking for connections and categories that make sense to you. And you find ways to explain those categories so that they make sense to others, too. The images in this exhibition have been put together to tell a story. It seemed appropriate, a few days before we left for the United States, that we should be surrounded by a bunch of fools, created during times that were probably as crazy our own.

Devorah Lauter, (Artnet) writes that fools were “(a) mirror to the absurdity and contradictions of life that were hard to face, but important to express and attempt to understand. In the form of the fool, this was most often voiced through humor—possibly the ultimate, and only real salve to the weight of life’s troubles.”

Another article about the exhibition (Enfilade) notes that the examples chosen by the designers (of this exhibition) “parse the meaning of the fool, who may make us laugh, with his abundance of frivolous antics, but (who may) also harbor …. an erotic, scatological, tragic or violent nature.” The fool’s purpose is various - he entertains, he warns, he denounces. The fool sometimes questions society’s values, sometimes pushing to “overthrow the established order.”

I remember thinking when Steve Bannon moved from outside agitator to Chief Strategist in Trump’s first term and again when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister in England that these Kings (or Clowns) of Chaos serve society best when they are outside instigators, shining a light on those in power. But when they become the power, their chaos can become destructive. Johnson got drummed out of office by his own party. Apparently Trump thought that Bannon was stealing too much of the limelight and fired him. England moved on and the U.S. is back to where it was 8 years ago.

Right, the exhibition. The first of the excellent wall panels tells us that the goal of the exhibition is to demonstrate “the omnipresence of fools in the art and culture of Western Christendom …” Originally the fool appeared in religious images as he who 'hath said in his heart, There is no God’.” Then, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the fool “flourished in the profane world, becoming…an essential figure of urban social life…” In the 16th century “… the fool became the symbol of the world's disorders.” Mostly gone by the end of the 17th century, the fool reappeared a century later, after the French Revolution, with Romanticism and the birth of psychiatry.

According to Elisabeth Antoine-König, the curator of the exhibition, the fool is “an outlet (both) during a time of crisis in the church and amid the mutations of a society in full upheaval, notably with the emergence of capitalism….” Konig compares our current, fraught experience with digital technology and social media with the radical transformations brought by the invention of the printer. Except that while the earlier period had the fool to help them cope, nobody and nothing is “helping us manage this turning point.” Well, our fools certainly aren’t.

Here are some of the themes I found most interesting in the exhibition, I hope that as I explain them to you, you’ll find them interesting, too.

The first objects are beautifully illustrated medieval manuscripts. The wall panel tells us that “To enter the world of the fool, we must first enter the world of margins and marginality.” Of course I was familiar with the marginalia of medieval manuscripts but I didn’t know that it was here that one first encounters the figure of the fool, which the text describes as “strange, grotesque, hybrid creatures …dancing in margins … dangl(ing) from foliage scrolls or nestled in decorated initials.” The fool was initially depicted nude or wearing torn clothes. Gradually, he began to appear in multicolored garments and holding specific attributes, like a club (jester-stick), a mocking reference to the scepter held by kings. (Figs 4, 5)

Figure 4. Fool Who Denies God with club/bauble & round of cheese or bread. Psalter Duc de Berry, Jacquemart de Hesdin, illustration for Psalm 52.

Figure 5. The Fool Who Denies God as Court Jester holding club (bauble) and round of cheese (or bread), Annon. 

The word marginalia is not so far from the word margin, the place people who are different live in relationship to ‘normal’ society. Marginalia and margins, interesting.

One person I wasn’t expecting to see here was Saint Francis of Assisi, images of whom I am very familiar. He is most often depicted in a rocky wilderness, either offering a sermon to birds or receiving the Stigmata. (Figs 6, 7) And wearing a brown robe tied with a rope around his waist, the three knots on the rope symbolizing the three Franciscan vows: Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. Turns out, before Saint Francis was Saint Francis, he was a member of a prosperous family of silk merchants. After living the life of a wealthy young man, he changed course, became a beggar, an itinerant preacher and a caregiver for lepers. (Fig 8) So how can Saint Francis be considered a fool? According to the writings of Saint Paul (1st century), “what is folly in the eyes of men is wisdom in the eyes of God.” Saint Francis’ life was an inversion of society’s values. He has been known since the 12th century as ‘God's juggler,’ and ‘God's fool’.

Figure 6. St Francis Sermon to the Birds, Basilica of St. Francis, Assisi, Italy

Figure 7. St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, Jan van Eyck

Figure 8. Scenes from the Life of St. Francis. Upper left, Kissing a Leper, Lower right, strips naked in defiance of his father. Anonymous, ca 1335

The Five Foolish Virgins also made an appearance (with the Five Wise Virgins, of course), in sculptures and an engraving from 1470 by Martin Schongauer, (Figs 9, 10) one of Albrecht Durer’s heroes. The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins is about carelessness and its consequences. Ten virgins are chosen to participate in a wedding. Each holds the lamp she will take with her when the bridegroom arrives to escort them to the celebration. The five Wise Virgins bring extra oil for their lamps, the five Foolish Virgins don’t. When the bridegroom is delayed, the Foolish Virgins must run off to get more oil. While they are gone, the bridegroom appears, taking the Five Wise Virgins with him. The moral of the story is the Boy Scout Motto: Always Be Prepared. You don't know when the Son of God is coming for you.

Figure 9. One of Foolish Virgins (not enough oil for her lamp) with fool below

Figure 10. Wise and Foolish Virgins, Martin Schongauer, 1470

Then there are 13th and 14th century depictions of Christ’s Passion, His mocking and torture and crucifixion. In these images, the fool becomes the Jew. Antisemitism, of course, started much earlier than the 1200s. (Figs 11, 12)

Figure 11. Figure in upper right hand corner wearing hat of Jew / Fool

Figure 12. Christ before Pilate with figure of Fool / Jew between Pilate and Christ

A cautionary tale about the power of beautiful young women and the foolishness of old men adorns the top of an aquamale, a vessel used for pouring water. (Fig 13) Which can have religious or secular functions. This aquamale would not have been used by a priest to wash his hands before saying Mass but for guests in a private home to wash their hands before eating dinner. As sexually suggestive as it is, it may well have remained on the table to amuse the guests while they ate.

Figure 13. Aristotle and Phyllis, Aquamale, Netherlands, 15th c

The figures who adorn this aquamale are Aristotle and Phyllis. The story which shows them in this pose was invented in the early 13th century, attributed to a variety of authors, both German and French. It is one of several stories taken from the bible or ancient history to show (in images and essays) powerful men being seduced by beautiful women. According to Susan Smith (Women & Gender in Medieval Europe), these stories are “admonitory and often humorous inversion of the male-dominated sexual hierarchy.”

These cautionary tales were popular from the middle ages through the Renaissance and beyond. And they are everywhere - on prints, paintings, sculptures and useful objects. (Figs 14 - 16)

Figure 14. Aristotle and Phyllis, stone sculpture, Cadouin Abbey, 12th century

Figure 15. Aristotle and Phyllis, Hans Baldung, 1515

Figure 16. Aristotle and Phyllis, Master of Ottobeuren, wood, 1523

The Greek philosopher Aristotle was the tutor of Alexander the Great. The beautiful young woman, Phyllis, is alternatively identified as Alexander the Great’s mistress or the wife of Alexander the Great’s father. Either way, she is a love interest for the young Alexander. One interpretation suggests that Aristotle set up the scenario, thereby becoming its victim, Another interpretation suggests that Aristotle was set up, thereby becoming its hero. Let me explain.

Here’s the first interpretation. In attempting to protect his student, Aristotle made a fool of himself. Aristotle believed that Alexander was wasting too much time with Phyllis. He warned Alexander about her. When she found out what he was up to, Phyllis took revenge by seducing Aristotle. Aristotle then became so enamored by his pupil’s mistress that he did exactly what she told him to do. Which was to get down on all fours so that she could straddle him and whip him like a horse. And she made sure that Alexander saw them together, saw her sitting astride his wise old tutor. Both men, one young and noble, the other old and wise, were victims of Eros, Love (Lust).

Here’s the second interpretation, offered by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York which has the same aquamile. “Aristotle, the tutor of the young Alexander the Great, allowed himself to be humiliated by the seductive Phyllis as a lesson to the young ruler, who had succumbed to her wiles. Encouraging Alexander to witness his folly, Aristotle explained that if he, an old man, could be so easily deceived, the potential consequences for a young man were even more perilous.”

How about this explanation? Anyone attempting to deny young love is a fool. No interpretation has anything to do with the historic Aristotle or Alexander, of course! It’s just about young women as temptresses. Men who succumb to their charms are fools. And there is no fool as foolish as an old fool. Phyllis astride the young Alexander would have had no shock value, it would have looked kinky, fun!

There is so much more in the exhibition. For example, the meaning of sculptures depicting the fool walking alongside the peddler with the pope and the emperor, the cardinal and the king, in a procession led by Death. There are images of the Fool as the king’s sidekick and images of the fool as the king himself (or queen herself). There are images that include the fool, used by both Protestants and Catholics during the Reformation to denounce one another. Finally, there are paintings of fools by well known artists like Bosch and Bruegel; (Figs 17, 18) Goya and Fuseli. More about these and others next week. Gros Bisous, Dr. B.

Figure 17. Ship of Fools, Hieronymus Bosch

Figure 18. The Flight between Carnival and Lent, Pieter Bruegel

Thanks to everyone who commented on last week’s post, they are much much appreciated.

New comment on T’is a few weeks before Christmas:

Dr. B. I lived in SF for almost a year during Desert Storm. The city was vibrant and the shops were fabulous. The early 90s and into the mid-90s were also a good visit; there was a bit more homeless and changes of stores. I am so glad I experienced that time and had dinner in Chinatown and shopped at Macys.. remembered as a child going there on an annual business trip with my family. We stayed on Union Square in a beautiful hotel nice memories all. Please keep us up on what you think is happening regarding Macys and surrounding businesses. I have not been back in several years. now. Thank you for this post! Dianne

Just read most recent post.  I think it was your best!  There was so much excitement  and expressions of love for your progeny----more of Nicholas, please.  It was "getting home, cooking and loving in its tone.. Love,  A.H. Boston, MA

How big was that turkey??? You made so many interesting meals with just one bird!
Loved Ginevra’s plates too. Jimmy Kimmel is definitely on the “hit” list! Deedee