In the Pavilion of the Red Clown (Robert Williams, 2001, oil on canvas)
Here is a contemporary picture by Robert Williams, the master of low-brow art. In fact it is so very contemporary that you can still order high quality limited edition prints directly from the artist (who will hopefully forgive me for using his image–considering that I just linked to his online store). The painting is obviously appropriate for Halloween week because of the masks, the pageantry, and the salacious costume worn by the circus girl (to say nothing of the uninhibited and rampant alcohol abuse on display), but what is the larger meaning?
At first the painting seems like a straightforward representation of an evil clown menacing a damsel in distress—the stock-in-trade cliché of horror films and pulp fiction everywhere. The inappropriate tongue-like nose on the clown’s mask, the rearing serpent, and the clown’s incarnadine garb all serve a rather straightforward Freudian narrative of male perversion and oppression.
Yet the clown grows more sympathetic on closer viewing. His leg is a prosthetic. He is an alcoholic. It is questionable if he is menacing the showgirl or if she is a knowing part of the act. The clown’s flamboyant red Pagliacci-style costume illustrates his intensity as a performance, and (as in Pagliacci ) the point of the painting is how thoroughly artists become subsumed into their art. We the audience are represented by the (vaguely) surprised showgirl and Williams himself is the desperate artist who, like a desperate maimed clown, is trying to get a rise out of us with every old trick in the book. See how desperate and drunk he is! His life has become his art—and it is a bemusing spectacle. The poor clown doesn’t even have his caged bird but just an angry capricious serpent and a drinking problem.
ferrebeekeeper 
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November 5, 2013 at 7:05 PM
Jim Ann Howard
Perhaps the caged bird was the girl’s pet? The snake is stuck in the cage until it digests the bird – I would like to spend time with this painting. I suspect it has many stories to tell.
November 6, 2013 at 3:29 PM
Wayne
Oh no! I never thought of the bird as belonging to the girl…that makes the painting so much more perverse.
November 7, 2013 at 1:34 PM
Wayne
And yet the cage is in her color scheme, isn’t it? What have you gotten me involved in, Robert Williams?
November 6, 2013 at 10:23 AM
Val F.
There’s a palpable menace to this painting. The snake, with it’s phallic connotations, adopts in a threatening pose (having devoured the bird and thus trapping itself inside the cage). The phallic motif is mirored by the clown’s nose, which contrasts with his rather pleading pose, yet he appears to be almost threatening the young woman with the snake. Then there are all the empty bottles, which make me wonder – has the clown been drinking because he knows she will never love him? Is this his attempt to woo her, while instead, horrifying her because he cannot ever be normal?
And notice the tongue of the dragon mask in the drunk – everything about this painting, with the exception of the “girl” (surely she’s an adult woman, no?) is lascivious and speaks of predation, secret fantasies and yes, the scary clown. I find it fascinating and disturbing.
November 6, 2013 at 3:27 PM
Wayne
Actually, I started writing a miniature essay on this painting and then discovered that the original narrative I had imagined didn’t work. The painting is one of those enigmatic allegories which never comes out quite right, no matter how you imagine it: it is always disturbing and upsetting (which is probably exactly what Williams wanted).
November 6, 2013 at 10:24 AM
Val F.
Oops – freudian slip – that should be trunk, not drunk!
November 7, 2013 at 1:33 PM
Wayne
Sometimes I get trunk…um, at the luggage store I mean.
November 12, 2013 at 11:52 AM
Beatrix
I found this, rather interesting-
It has been very fashionable of late, to cast the clown in the persona of a phantom psychopath—a thrilling notion that mixes Halloween with psychiatry. In the mode of antisocial circus performers, little investigation is given to the psychological makeup of clowns themselves. But here, in this painting, it is hard to ignore the personality quirks of this comedian.
A full description of the painting would be in order. This tableau-vivant takes place in a circus tent, obviously the quarters of our red clown. The back drop and floor are made up of olive-tan canvas. This material serves two functions. First, it gives the observer the impression that everything about the environment is transient, ready to be moved to the next location. And secondly, the surrounding canvas has a green tint which emphasizes the image of the clown’s red costume. It might be pointed out that this carmine red figure of derision and the similarity to the devil is no coincidence.
In the tent, as incidentals, is a trunk, along with papier mâché masks and grotesque, illogical theatrical props. The furniture is sparse and the floor is littered with wine bottles. The clown stands posed with a bird cage in hand. This raises the question, “Where is the bird?” He boldly smiles at the visiting show girl, as he alarms her with the cage’s contents. It is occupied with a harmless yellow corn snake. This is the visual structure of the oil painting.
This melodramatic scene was paraphrased with these remarks: “Occupying the cerebral netherworld between humor and severity, the scarlet clad anti-Puck, clowns around as sole purveyor of an abstract levity with ambiguous jokes that seem audienceless.”
This last quotation sheds light on the clown’s bizarre psychology. If you haven’t noticed, the clown has only one leg. He has apparently adjusted to this infirmity and incorporated it into his act. His thin left leg, wearing a red shoe, is actually his crutch. Lying on his steamer trunk is his formal prosthesis used for everyday life. The floor is strewn with booze bottles—he is apparently an unrepentant alcoholic—but that would be a simple situation if his psychosis ended there. It is obvious that he is an experienced master comedian. His costume is the classical European Scaramouche style with a half-mask nose. And of course, he wears the mask drawn back on his forehead with the long nose protruding like a horn, knowingly making himself look ominous.
Two things are unmistakable. To begin with, he delights in the girl’s shock, with her surprise in the bird cage. And, his condition—he’s drunk. It is evident that this character has a second life; however, what is not so conspicuous is that this performer probably functions secretly as another clown, a more inculpable form of buffoon. The girl’s presence in his tent is not only stimulating to him, but is not an accident. Her lure to his web was, no doubt, consensual.
This clown, when not entertaining a layman public, has conditioned himself, over the period of a long career, to mentally slip into a sardonic demi-humor—this is a joke realm more suited to extreme irony with a lack of moral logic. Here is a statement from the painting’s prologue verifying this: “Those private moments shared when a rubber chicken is given a Fleet enema.”
Even detractors to this artwork realize that his image seems to have meaning beyond this graphic melodrama. Looking at the birdcage, the question remains, “Where is the bird?” The show girl instantly knew—it’s in the snake.
—Robert Williams