With Strings

These colorful marionettes come from the island of Java. In southeast Asia, for many centuries touring troupes of marionettes and their human makers were maintained by royalty for ceremonial and educational purposes, as well as for entertainment.

Homer, Plato and Aristotle all mention the existence of marionettes in ancient Greece and sometimes when a child died, its marionette was buried with it.

In 18th century France, we see a marionette play in Fragonard's aristocratic

Garden Party at Saint-Cloud.

The marionettes pictured in Daniele Adam's photograph Wheel of Marionettes (1974- from the collection of the Museum of European & Mediterranean Civilization in Paris) are characters in the Commedia dell'Arte that dates from the Italian Renaissance.

A marionette is, by definition, a puppet controlled by strings. So it is unsurprising that much humor, some gentle, and some extremely pointed makes use of that fact.

Their origins may be somewhat obscure, but one likes to think that the pleasure that marionette shows bring to their viewers is reason enough to celebrate them.