THE ORIGIN OF CLOWNING

The English word for clown was first recorded as far back as c. 1560 (as clowne, cloyne) generally meaning unrefined, peasant, clumsy. Though clowns have been with us throughout history serving as our entertainers, the mordern "clown, referring to a professional fool/jester, developed soon after 1600—based on Elizabethan rustic fool characters such as seen in Shakespeare's works.

The harlequinade (an English comic style theratrical genre) came about in England in the 1700s. It was here that the word "clown" came into use as the given name of a stock character. Originally, the character named Clown, a foil for main character Harlequin's slyness & adroit nature and a servant of a greedy merchant. At first, Clown was a lower class fool character dressed in tattered servants' garb. Until Joseph Grimaldi starred as him in Charles Dibdin's Harlequin in the Flying World at Sadler's Wells Theatre. Instead of the tatty servant's outfit that had been used for a century, Dibdin designed Clown's new flamboyant attire "garishly colourful...patterned with large diamonds and circles, and fringed with tassels and ruffles".

The pantomine gained traction around London. Others copied and referenced the new colorful attire for their own screenplays. Later on, in the continuation pantomime, "Harlequin Amulet", the character Harlequin was written to be "less mischievous", which left Grimaldi's Clown as the main laughable entertainment. Clown became more important, embodying anarchic fun, and no longer a simple servant. This is where the first authentic meaning of the term "Clown" was derived from.

THE CIRCUS & CLOWNS

The modern circus majorly derives from Philip Astley's London equestrian riding school, which opened in 1768. Astley added many forms of entertainment to his shows to bring "novelty" to the performances. He implemented a clown, jugglers, tumblers, tightrope walkers, and dancing dogs. Guilds of acrobats & clowns had performed throughout Europe for centuries before this, but Astley's riding school really boomed the popularity of the concept of adding clowns to a circus setting. Nevertheless, Phillip Astley is known widely as a "circus owner, and inventor", often regarded as "the father of the modern circus".

Tom Belling senior (1843–1900) developed the red clown or Auguste clown around 1870, acting as a foil for the white faced clown. Belling's costume became the template for the modern stock character of a children's clown, based on a lower class or hobo character, with a red nose, white makeup around the eyes and mouth, and oversized clothes and shoes.

The clown character—as developed by the late 19th century—is reflected in Ruggero Leoncavallo's 1892 opera "Pagliacci". Belling's Auguste character was further popularized by Nicolai Poliakoff's "Coco the Clown" persona in the 1920s to 1930s. Circus clowns were also made widely popularized in the 20th century in the United States by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey traveling circus.

CLOWNS IN HISTORY

Back in 220 BC, Chinese Emperor Qin Shin Huang (otherwise known as the leader who ordered the building of the Great Wall of China) employed a dwarf jester named Yu-Sze (優旃 or Jester Twisty Pole), who became one of China's most famous court jesters. Those who performed as court jesters were given great freedom of speech. Often they were the only one to speak out against the ruler's ideas, and through their humor were able to affect policy.

Thousands of laborers were killed during the construction of the Great Wall of China. Shin Huang-ti planned to have the wall painted which would have resulted in thousands more dying. His jester, Yu-Sze, was the only one who dared criticize his plan. He jokingly convinced the Emperor to abandon his plan by pointing out that the only problem might be building a drying-room large enough to hold the wall while the paint dried. Yu-Sze is remembered today as a Chinese national hero.

TYPES OF CLOWNS

White & Auguste Clowns:

The White clown, or clown blanc in French, is described as a sophisticated character, as opposed to the clumsy Auguste clown. Also known as the sad clown & happy clown pairing. The classic White clown is derived from the stock Pierrot character in pantomimes. Their makeup is white, usually with facial features such as eyebrows emphasized in black. They are a more intelligent and sophisticated clown

The Auguste clown has a variation of pink/red/tan face paint rather than white. Features are exaggerated in size, and are typically red and black in color. The mouth and eyes are thickly outlined in white. The Augustes are the ones who get the pies in the face, are squirted with water, are knocked down on their backside, sit accidentally in wet paint, or have their trousers ripped off. They were not instigators but recipients of the comic doings.

Pierrot and Harlequin

The classical pairing of the White Clown with Auguste in modern tradition has a precedent in the pairing of Pierrot and Harlequin in the Commedia dell'arte.

Pierrot (PEER-oh) is a stock character of the Italian commedia dell'arte in the late 17th century. The name is a diminutive of Pierre. His character in contemporary popular culture—in poetry, fiction, the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, and screen—is that of the sad clown, often pining for love of Columbine (a stock character of commedia dell'arte), who usually breaks his heart and leaves him for Harlequin.

Performing unmasked, with a whitened face, Pierrot wears a loose white blouse with large buttons and wide white pantaloons. Sometimes he appears with a frilled collaret and a hat, usually with a close-fitting crown and wide round brim and, more rarely, with a conical shape like a dunce's cap. The stock Pierrot clown quickly became an avatar of the disenfranchised. Symbolists saw him as a lonely fellow-sufferer; Modernists made him into a silent, alienated observer of the mysteries of the human condition. Still, today he is seen in the postmordern era as "the sad clown".

Harlequin(Italian: Arlecchino/Arlequin) is a stock servant character of the Italian commedia dell'arte. His role is that of a light-hearted, nimble-bodied, and astute servant, often acting to pursue his own love interest, Columbina, with a sly demeanor. He was often competing with the sterner and melancholic Pierrot. The Harlequin scharacter was definitively popularized by the Italian actor Tristano Martinelli in Paris in 1584–1585, and became a stock character after Martinelli's death in 1630. He later develops into a prototype of the romantic hero.