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The late pictures shows Watteau moving beyond the enchanted mythology of Cythera - not into deeper dreams but closer to disenchanted reality. After a few quite small pictures it was on a large scale that he summed up the sense of isolation and odd man out, in the Gilles. Though this is no self-portrait, the sense of self identification is very strong and adds to the poignant effect. The group of laughing actors in the background, with a clown tugged along Silenus-like on a donkey, is probably inspired by an engraving of Gillot's; but what had been his main subject is deliberately reduced by Watteau to a frieze of busts that do not interfere with the tall white figure of Gilles, perfectly still, posed frontally against the empty sky. Once again, a figure seems to assume clothes for a part. Just as in the Fête vénitienne Watteau's own sensitive features and beautifully articulated hands contrasted with his humble costume, so Gilles seems too dignified for the clown's white floppy tunic and abbreviated trousers. The moon-shaped hat encircles a vividly painted but solemn face, its lack of animation the more marked when compared with the boisterous lively faces behind. There is a complete separation between the group and the individual; they are active while he is idle, having fun while he remains unsmiling, welded into a self contained group while he gazes out directly at the spectator. It is difficult not to feel that Watteau intends his to be the real awareness. He stands there a little dumbly, himself with a smack of the berger but dependent, like all entertainers, on his audience. The picture's mood is complex and inexplicably moving; it seems to record not a prologue but an epilogue (as so often in Watteau), a silencing of laughter and the sort of hush that pricks the eyes with unshed tears.
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