The Great Parade: Portrait of the Artist as Clown

New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004. Hardbound. Good/Good, slight wear has been read, corners slightly bumped.. Red Cloth with color pictorial glossy dustjacket. 424 pp., profusely illustrated in color with over 209 items listed and illustrated. A beautiful book that showcases how circus figures and artifacts have been portrayed in art over the past two centuries. The circus is a dazzling world filled with acrobats and harlequins, tumblers and riders, monsters and celestial creatures. Now this engaging book sets that world in a new light, examining how painters, sculptors, and photographers from the eighteenth century to the present have used the circus as a springboard for their imaginative expression and have envisioned the clown as a metaphor for the modern artist. The book presents more than 175 works by such artists as Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rouault, Picasso, Chagall, and Léger. Some of these are masterful works shown for the first time; these range from the 18-meter stage curtain Picasso designed in 1917 for Erik Satie's ballet Parade to more intimate works such as Nadar and Tournachon's photographs of Pierrot as played by celebrated mime Charles Debureau. Catalogue of an exhibition held at Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, France from March 12 to May 31, and National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, from June 25 to Sept. 19, 2004./ Issued also in French under title: La grande parade./ Includes bibliographical references (pages 391-412) and index.