Look at the funny, funny clowns. Or are they? Here you will be able to not only completely immerse yourself in the funny, fantastic world of the clown, but you might revisit some rather terrible nightmares, and perhaps you will find that the dichotomy of funny/scary feelings living deep within your psyche have been implanted because of the clown. This is the place where I am collecting my clowns. I've trolled the internet for both fun and happy images and the more insidious and "scary" images which are becoming more and more popular. The clown is a universal icon, in both of it's quises, as a happy go lucky fool, or a satanic evil laughing devil which just might eat you.

Beginning with the "fool" of the Middle Ages, and continuing through to the Carnival and Circus Clowns, and the ever popular "Birthday Clown" with his balloons, the "bumbling" clown is a fixture of most cultures throughout history. The clown is a beloved and sometimes feared icon. The clown has the uncanny ability to charm as well as frighten. The crooked laugh of the Clown's might very well be an evil grin. The clowns are on parade. When I was young, I began to have a fixation on clowns. Big floppy feet clowns. Painted face clowns. The clown is with humanity from the time he is a small child, easily amused by almost anything. At this time in our lives, open to possibilites as well as confusion, the clown appears, falls on his face, and begins to make us laugh.

We will draw clowns in our schoolrooms, and we will meet them in Elementary School at the Carnival. We see them on television, wishing us a happy birthday. They're at the local restaurant, and seen fleetingly, the insides of their cars filled with balloons, racing along the highway. They are almost ubiquitous, and they have been with us in pretty much all their various forms and expressions, for most of history.

With this website, I am indulging in my love of Clown Art. Immediately one thinks of Red Skelton. Early 19th Century Circus posters. Emmet Kelley. Happy Clowns. Sad Clowns. (Nasty Clowns.) They're all here. The website is divided into three sections. Each presents a colorful zany Clown World, complete with interesting facts and many colorful photos and images culled from a vast array of online depositories. First, we present "A Short History of Clowns", tracing the roots of our jolly friend. Next, "The Art of the Clown", with individual images of Clowndom from the past to the present, including paintings, prints, graphics, and a slideshow feature. Finally, this site, like a lot of others in the AllThingsMike Universe, features The Composite Artwork of Michael Nyiri. In the "Composites" section, you will find a variety of images clowning around in new composites from deep within my own psyche. This site was first presented online in May of 2006, and in January 2008 received a small makeover. More clown art sites are listed in the Art of the Clown section, and more composite artwork is presented in the Composite Artwork section, which now has full pages with back and next buttons.

Although created to 'announce" the "Clowns" website, the "Clowns" internet movie I constructed in 2006 has never been presented on the site. Below is the embedded file from my YouTube Channel. For the first time on the "Clowns" website, you can watch the "Clowns" internet movie, which is about 10 minutes long. Remember to hit pause on the theme music playing on this page on the player in the right hand sidebar before attempting to view the movie, which contains many of the images on the website and more, scored to a variety of circus themed music selections.

 

There is a comment section for the video on YouTube.

I began this website with an image search on Yahoo and Google for "clowns", "clown paintings", "clownface", and "clown art". I saved all the images in a folder and began to create composite images with the many red nosed denizens of the internet clownworld. The images are abundant, and represent many versions of our old friend. New images were searched for and added in January 2008.

 

The clown images collected for this website are from all over the internet. I admit I should be giving more credit and identifying more of the images than I have. If you know of an image on this site without proper representation and can credit the artist or photographer of any image duplicated on this site, please don't hesitage to email the webmaster with the proper info.The top right "scary clown" image, for example, is credited to ScienceFictionFantasyHorror.com and dated 2005.