The fool has appeared in art for centuries. What do these depictions of complex character say about us?

Although the fool is often associated with the Middle Ages, the figure’s role has evolved greatly in subsequent centuries. Now an exhibition at the Louvre in Paris celebrates its complex character, tracing the fool’s dance through art history.

Titled “Figures of the Fool: From the Middle Ages to the Romantics”, the show includes eight sections that explore the fool in different contexts – such as ‘In the Beginning: The Fool and God’, ‘The Fool and Love’, ‘The Fool at Court’ and ‘Fools in the City’ – to teach visitors how the character changed over time.

“The figure of the fool walked from the margins of medieval manuscripts to the unhallowed courts of the Renaissance, then returned to the page as Hamlet’s Yorick,” writes the Wall Street Journalby Dominic Green. “Later, in the age of reason and democracy, the parodist of royal dignity became a mirror of the universal condition: the ‘holy fool’ of Dostoyevsky and the grubby clowns of Picasso; Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.”

Museum visitors can view more than 300 works of art from 90 European and American institutions. These items follow the fool for hundreds of years, starting in the Middle Ages and ending in the 19th century.

“Such characters appear in architectural decorations, frescoes, tapestries, etchings, ceramics and ivory or carved miniatures, or in chess sets as an alternative to the bishop,” writes Art forum‘sCharlotte Kent. “Fools came from all social strata. In one drawing they fall from trees; an anonymous Dutch oil on panel depicts fools hatching from eggs beneath a huge chicken.”

Later depictions often portray the Fool as someone to be associated with, rather than someone to be mocked. As the Louvre explains about the exhibition websitethe character became “a figure with whom artists identified and wondered, ‘What if I were the fool?'”

Many of the fools in the exhibition wear bright, colorful outfits and evoke a sense of levity. But many others do not fit this stereotype and appear gloomy or burdened.

In Jan Matejko‘s 1862 image of Stańczyka famous Polish court jester, the figure sits slumped in a chair, “having just discovered – presumably indicated by papers on the table – that the Polish city of Smolensk was lost (1514) during the war with Moscow,” according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Behind him, the rest of the field is enjoying a ball.

“The fool enables a figurative representation of questions that concern society,” says Elisabeth Antoine-König, one of the curators of the exhibition. Artnet‘S Devorah Lauter. She adds that the fool “is one thing and its opposite. He is the rejected, marginalized figure, and the one who unites us and endures the ridicule and anger of others.”

Today, most of us don’t want to be called fools. Still, the exhibition’s curators think modern audiences can learn a lot from the character. “I feel that the figure of the fool, as it existed in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, is missing today to help us face the crises we are experiencing,” adds Antoine-König.

“Figures of the Fool: From the Middle Ages to the Romantics‘ can be seen at the Louvre in Paris until February 3, 2025.