Customer Reviews

The Triumph of Pierrot: Commedia dell'Arte and Modern Imagination

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
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This history was really interesting. The organization is strange; it's topical rather than chronological. I've used it for a reference project, but I think it's awesome enough for leisure reading. Green and Swan discuss how history, visual arts, music, literature are all related to the commedia in the 20th century. It's been great for my research, but it's a great, accessible history book. I rate it 4 because occasionally statements contradict each other, and of course, the organization is weird because Green wrote 4 chapters or so and Swan wrote the other 4.

This is an important book on an important subject. Green and Swan have identified and vividly explore the relationship of commedia dell'arte figures (and the French derivative, Pierrot) on a vast range of modernist art, literature, and performance. The result is a rich revelation of both the commedia (or commedic, as Green and Swan say) and modern culture. From Picasso and Stravinsky to the Bread and Puppet Theater, Green and Swan miss few of the major artists and writers profoundly influenced by the imagery, improvisatory style, and art of commedia. This book would be an excellent companion for a course on the subject and it opens to scholars a diverse terrain of topics for further and deeper study. Aside from all that, readers of this book will never view modern culture in quite the same way -- and the seemingly lost art of commedia is brought to life in Green and Swan's illumination of its components in the work of the greatest late nineteenth/early twentieth century artists. A must read.