The Louvre’s New Exhibition Takes a Serious Look at the Jesters of Yore
Devorah Lauter | Artnet | 13th October 2024
Perhaps we need more jesters in our fractious age. First seen in European visual culture around 1300, they were subversive figures capable of the best or worst in personal and social behaviours. Unrelated to madness, they symbolised the social tensions associated with the development of capitalism. Jesters had faded in popularity by the Enlightenment (after 1600) but have never gone away entirely. A popular figure in the Batman movies was his arch-enemy, the Joker.
