Maître de 1537, Portrait de fou regardant à travers ses doigts. The Phoebus Foundation © The Phoebus Foundation 
D’après Hyeronimus Bosch, Concert dans un œuf. Anciens Pays-Bas, milieu du XVIe siècle. Lille, Palais des Beaux- Arts, inv. P.8 © RMN-Grand Palais (Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille) Stéphane Maréchalle
One could claim with some justification that the world has gone crazy. That’s why the Louvre’s new exhibition, La Figure du Fou (“Figures of the Fool”), could not open at a better time. The world’s largest museum is exploring not the mental illness - “fou” means crazy in French - but rather the jester, the fool, the court buffoon. For almost 5 centuries, the figure of the jester was an everyday presence in Western culture, particularly in Northern European countries, between the 13th and the 17th Century. The “Fou” inserted itself everywhere: in books, in painting and sculptures, in tapestry, in etchings and - more surprisingly - in religious manuscripts. It really triggered the imagination of writers and artists. Throughout the centuries, he played many roles; he could amuse, denounce, entertain, forewarn, criticize, and make us laugh.
The Louvre exhibition takes us all the way to the Enlightenment, the so-called Age of Reason, which got rid of the “fou” - until he resurfaced a century later.
This spectacular exhibition presenting over 300 works, is taking us on a fascinating journey through centuries and culture. The jester appears first in religious manuscripts. In a deeply religious culture which fears God, the fool is the one who is rejecting God. In illuminated manuscripts, he is often painted in the margins - in Psalm 52, precisely at the letter D because it is the first letter of the psalm: “Dixit insipiens in corde suo: non est Deus.” (“the fool says in his heart: there is no God”).
The fool is also the one who chooses to live apart from society and is mocked for it. Saint Francis of Assisi, who talks to birds and animals and is abandoning the privileged life he was born into, is also a symbol of foolishness.
The jester is inextricably linked to love and passion, of course. But he also is the one who makes fun of human passion. Starting in the 14th Century the jester has a special place in royal courts. Some were real fools, some were court jesters, allowed to speak truth to power, to make fun of the powerful. Some became famous across Europe, like Triboulet, the buffoon of René the Duke of Anjou. The fool allows the expression of questions troubling society. He is both marginalized and a unifier: he is the one who bears the anger and ridicule of others.
Jacques Le Boucq, Recueil d’Arras : Coquinet, sot du duc de Bourgogne. 1560. Dessin, sanguine sur pierre noire. Arras, Pôle culturel Saint-Vaast / Ronville / Verlaine, Ms. 226, ouvert au fol. 288 © Médiathèque de l'Abbaye Saint-Vaast
At the end of the Middle Ages, the joker leaves the confines of the court. He becomes prevalent in everyday life. The most famous examples can be found in paintings by Bruegel and Bosch, for instance. Carnivals become moments when everyone could behave like a fool, everything is allowed, society’s norms were abolished for a few days. One book in particular has had an enormous influence through the centuries, Dutch scholar Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly, published in 1511. The book is thought to have played a major role in the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation.
La Figure du Fou ends with the 19th Century and the beginnings of psychiatry when “deviant” people were being locked up. At the same time, the “fool” becomes the symbol of the subversive artist who lives outside the norms dictated by society.
~Jean-Sébastien Stehli
Jacquemart de Hesdin, Psautier de Jean de France, duc de Berry : illustration du psaume 52, l’insensé, détail. Paris ou Bourges, vers 1386. Enluminure sur parchemin. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département des Manuscrits, Français 13091, fol. 106 © Bibliothèque nationale de France
