When Buffet produced his circus illustrations in 1968 he was in fact following in a well established, modern French artistic tradition. In the second half of the 19th century impressionist and post-impressionist artists such as Degas, Renoir, Seurat and Toulouse-Lautrec had all painted circus subject matter.
Picasso often visited the circus in Paris and produced more than 300 images of saltimbanques (circus people), harlequins, acrobats and clowns. Fernand Léger viewed the circus as a symbol of popular urban leisure, for example Les Deux Acrobates (1918), whilst Matisse included circus illustrations in his major work Jazz (1947). Other major artists inspired by the circus included Marc Chagall and Kees van Dongen.
