Reading a book on Roman history that mentions ancient clowns. It talks about performers from Etruria using stock characters with coloured patches, long expansive trousers, large sleeved doublets familiar to any youth and mentions that clowns that appear in frescoes in Pompeii look like exact likenesses of modern clowns. Is there any other profession that could say the same? Is it true?
I’ve heard that there’s an older profession.
I’d be interested in seeing those frescoes. In a quick Google search I did not find any ancient frescoes depicting clowns.
If clowns did not exist, it would be necessary to invent them.
There are older professions than clowns, but presumably likenesses have changed over millennia.
The book, alas has no photos. It quoted an A.W. Schlegel Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. “An exact likeness of Punchinello, or Punch, has been found on the frescoes of Pompeii”. Since the book was written in 1944, the quote is older still.
Dali’s Persistence of Clowns features melting seltzer bottles.
Yes, and perhaps a flower boutonnière bent over a tree branch.
Every community has a clown. Sometimes though it is the clown who doesn’t know it.
Sometimes he is their representative.
Is this clown bothering you?
Took my then 10 year old twin grand daughters to a circus. One of them is afraid of clowns but I promised her none would come near her. A clown came near us after we sat down, I told him my grand daughter was afraid of clowns. He said he knew what to do. He came back a few minutes later with a gal carrying a case of makeup. The gal made up my grand daughters with makeup and showed them what they looked like as a clowns. She then took them to the center ring where they were joined by all the other clowns. She had a blast with them, they played tricks on other guests and learned how to make balloon animals. She enjoyed the rest of the circus. While walking out after the show, she told me she was still afraid of clowns. But just the scary ones.
^ This belongs over in the “What made you smile today” thread. 
There are no innocent clowns.*
*(Posted by someone on the SDMB a LONG time ago)
Here are some ancient Greek ‘clowns’, actually performers in an ancient Greek comedy play. They would have been wearing tragicomic masks rather than make-up, so they would have looked significantly different to modern clowns.
More ancient Greek clowns:
http://www.worldhistory.biz/uploads/posts/2015-09/625w-7.jpg
And some ancient Roman ones:
This last one is presumably the one that your book mentions as resembling Pulcinella from the commedia dell’arte, but it’s a statuette, not a fresco.
Thank you to everyone who posted pictures. How interesting!
Sadly, classical artistic depictions of Batman, IT professionals, Trump and musicians dressed like Josie and the Pussycats have not survived. However, they were hinted at in the missing books of Tacitus - or so I have heard.
No wonder Greek civilization and the Roman Empire went into severe declines - their children were permanently traumatized by clowns.
The Atellan Farce, also known as the Oscan Games, were masked improvised farces in Ancient Rome.
One of the stock characters was Maccus, “believed derived from either the Greek term makkoan, meaning ‘to be stupid’ or the Greek prefix mac-, that denotes greed”.
Wikipedia mentions possible connections with later clown-types: