Claude HARRISON ARCA R.P

"Our revels are now ended. These our actors were all spirits and are melted into thin air: like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud capped towers, the gorgeous palaces..all shall dissolve. We are such stuff as dreams are made on. " William Shakespeare,The Tempest, 1611.
Watching a magician at work is wonderful. Claude's magic is all in his mind, his brush and his palette. The satirical Renaissance form of Commedia Dell 'Arte which emerged in Tuscany around 1550, has long fascinated him. Performances all centred around four principal characters working in stock scenarios, making use of beautiful masks and elaborate costumes. One of the four, Harlequin, with the patchwork clothing is the character leaning towards political satire who comments on contemporary trends. At mediaeval courts, jesters were professonal jokers or 'fools', and were often referred to as clowns. They have long existed as typological characters with conventional roles in the arts, using nonsense to overthrow existing order. They also play key roles in the rituals supporting society's system of beliefs, pointing to the instability of language and the fallibility of reason. So in a way it was inevitable that Harlequin should assume a central role in so many of Claude's paintings.
The major figures in the Commedia, which have become an important part of character classification, are familiar to most of us, either through the plays of Shakespeare or Moliere or from the more obvious, public puppetry of Punch and Judy. It is uncertain whether these characters evolved in a particular dramatic tradition or whether they derived originally as a critical re-sponse to social conditions in 16th century Italy. However, a large cast of minor Commedia characters was available to fledge out each production and greater reliance was placed upon extravagant costumes and sets.
This almost limitless scope for improvisation must provide Claude with many hundreds of delightful hours as he composes and develops each new plot and sub-plot on his latest canvases or set of panels. Every work has a superb precision - a compositional integrity, and a compelling intricacy. There is a calculated yet sometimes nigh impossible placing of figures, plus for good measure, a conundrum embedded in each painting to exercise the viewer's mind. Few things delight this virtuoso more than to produce a painting which almost defies interpretation.
Noel Oddy July 2004
Copyright www.oddyart.com 2004