“See Watteau again” at the Louvre, Pierrot the blur – Libération

After two years of restoration, the famous painting by the 18th century painter returns to the Parisian museum, magnified, without losing its element of mystery.

In the same room, in spring 2024, the Louvre presented the Virgin of Chancellor Rolin by Jan Van Eyck. The painting was illuminated by its restoration and by the meticulous tree structure of paintings, drawings, objects and texts that accompanied it. We said to ourselves, on leaving, that any work of this caliber, restored, should benefit from the same treatment: a work whose mystery is thickened and embellished, like a perfect crime, by the context, the information and the works which serve as its basis. Inspirers, stimulants and heirs. We marveled while following an investigation. In the same form, and with the same success, the museum now exhibits Pierrot, known as Gillesanother of his mysterious masterpieces.

The painting was probably painted towards the end of the 1710s, certainly by Watteau, at a time when Pierrot was a famous comedy character: arriving in Paris in 1673 with the Italian actors, he appeared in 36 of the 50 plays performed at the popular theaters of the Fair between 1713 and 1734. Initially, he was an idiotic and unkind valet, “a deceiver who betrays himself again» according to a critic, but who gradually becomes cunning and smooth-talking. The one on the board no longer plays, or he is playing at not playing. He stands before us, in the foreground, like a puppet in