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Grotesque

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, seeGrotesque (disambiguation).
Grotesque studies,Michelangelo

Since at least the 18th century (in French and German, as well as English),grotesquehas come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus is often used to describe weird shapes and distorted forms such asHalloweenmasks. In art, performance, and literature, however,grotesquemay also refer to something that simultaneously invokes an audience feeling of uncomfortable bizarreness as well assympatheticpity.

The English word first appears in the 1560s as a noun borrowed from French, itself originally from the Italiangrottesca(literally "of a cave" from the Italiangrotta,'cave'; seegrotto),[1]an extravagant style ofancient Roman decorative artrediscovered at Rome at the end of the fifteenth century and subsequently imitated. The word was first used of paintings found on the walls of basements of ruins in Rome that were called at that timele Grotte('the caves'). These 'caves' were in fact rooms and corridors of theDomus Aurea,the unfinished palace complex started byNeroafter theGreat Fire of Romein AD 64, which had become overgrown and buried, until they were broken into again, mostly from above. Spreading from Italian to the other European languages, the term was long used largely interchangeably witharabesqueandmoresquefor types of decorative patterns using curving foliage elements.

Rémi Astruc[2]has argued that although there is an immense variety of motifs and figures, the three main tropes of the grotesque are doubleness,hybridityand metamorphosis.[3]Beyond the current understanding of the grotesque as an aesthetic category, he demonstrated how the grotesque functions as a fundamental existential experience. Moreover, Astruc identifies the grotesque as a crucial, and potentially universal, anthropological device that societies have used to conceptualize alterity and change.[not verified in body]

History

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Roman frescos in Nero'sDomus Aurea,Rome,unknown painter,c.64–68 AD

Early examples in Roman ornament

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In art, grotesques are ornamental arrangements ofarabesqueswith interlaced garlands and small and fantastic human and animal figures, usually set out in asymmetricalpattern around some form of architectural framework, though this may be very flimsy. Such designs were fashionable in ancientRome,especially as fresco wall decoration and floor mosaic. Stylized versions, common in Imperial Roman decoration, were decried byVitruvius(c. 30 BC) who, in dismissing them as meaningless and illogical, offered the following description:

For example, reeds are substituted for columns, fluted appendages with curly leaves and volutes take the place of pediments, candelabra support representations of shrines, and on top of their roofs grow slender stalks and volutes with human figures senselessly seated upon them.[4]

EmperorNero's palace in Rome, theDomus Aurea,was rediscovered by chance in the late 15th century, buried in fifteen hundred years of land fill. Access into the palace's remains was from above, requiring visitors to be lowered into it using ropes as in a cave, orgrottein Italian. The palace's wall decorations infrescoand delicatestuccowere a revelation.

Etymology in Renaissance

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Ceiling of thePiccolomini Library,Siena Cathedral,Siena,Italy, byPinturicchioand his assistants, 1502–1503

The first appearance of the wordgrottescheappears in a contract of 1502 for thePiccolomini Libraryattached to theduomoofSiena.They were introduced byRaphael Sanzioand his team of decorative painters, who developedgrottescheinto a complete system of ornament in theLoggiasthat are part of the series ofRaphael's Roomsin theVatican Palace,Rome. "The decorations astonished and charmed a generation of artists that was familiar with the grammar of theclassical ordersbut had not guessed till then that in their private houses the Romans had often disregarded those rules and had adopted instead a more fanciful and informal style that was all lightness, elegance and grace. "[5]In these grotesque decorations a tablet or candelabrum might provide a focus; frames were extended into scrolls that formed part of the surrounding designs as a kind of scaffold, as Peter Ward-Jackson noted. Light scrolling grotesques could be ordered by confining them within the framing of a pilaster to give them more structure.Giovanni da Udinetook up the theme of grotesques in decorating theVilla Madama,the most influential of the new Roman villas.

In the 16th century, such artistic license and irrationality was controversial matter.Francisco de Holandaputs a defense in the mouth ofMichelangeloin his third dialogue ofDa Pintura Antiga,1548:

"this insatiable desire of man sometimes prefers to an ordinary building, with its pillars and doors, one falsely constructed in grotesque style, with pillars formed of children growing out of stalks of flowers, witharchitravesandcornicesof branches of myrtle and doorways of reeds and other things, all seeming impossible and contrary to reason, yet it may be really great work if it is performed by a skillful artist. "[6]

Mannerism

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Grotesque engraving on paper, about 1500–1512, byNicoletto da Modena

The delight ofManneristartists and their patrons in arcane iconographic programs available only to the erudite could be embodied in schemes ofgrottesche,[9]Andrea Alciato'sEmblemata(1522) offered ready-made iconographic shorthand for vignettes. More familiar material for grotesques could be drawn fromOvid'sMetamorphoses.[10]

TheVatican loggias,aloggiacorridor space in theApostolic Palaceopen to the elements on one side, were decorated around 1519 byRaphael's large team of artists, withGiovanni da Udinethe main hand involved. Because of the relative unimportance of the space, and a desire to copy the Domus Aurea style, no large paintings were used, and the surfaces were mostly covered with grotesque designs on a white background, with paintings imitating sculptures in niches, and small figurative subjects in a revival of Ancient Roman style. This large array provided a repertoire of elements that were the basis for later artists across Europe.[11]

In Michelangelo'sMedici ChapelGiovanni da Udine composed during 1532–1533 "most beautiful sprays of foliage, rosettes and other ornaments in stucco and gold" in the coffers and "sprays of foliage, birds, masks and figures", with a result that did not pleasePope Clement VII Medici,however, norGiorgio Vasari,who whitewashed the grotesque decor in 1556.[12]Counter Reformationwriters on the arts, notably CardinalGabriele Paleotti,bishop of Bologna,[13]turned upongrotteschewith a righteous vengeance.[14]

Vasari, echoing Vitruvius, described the style as follows:[11]

"Grotesques are a type of extremely licentious and absurd painting done by the ancients... without any logic, so that a weight is attached to a thin thread which could not support it, a horse is given legs made of leaves, a man has crane's legs, with countless other impossible absurdities; and the bizarrer the painter's imagination, the higher he was rated".

Vasari recorded thatFrancesco Ubertini, called "Bacchiacca",delighted in inventinggrotteschi,and (about 1545) painted for DukeCosimo de' Mediciastudioloin a mezzanine at thePalazzo Vecchio"full of animals and rare plants".[15]Other 16th-century writers ongrottescheincludedDaniele Barbaro,Pirro LigorioandGian Paolo Lomazzo.[16]

Engravings, woodwork, book illustration, decorations

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Decorative panel showing the two separable elements ofGrotesque:the elaborate acanthus leaf and candelabra type design and the hideous mask or face

In the meantime, through the medium ofengravingsthe grotesque mode of surface ornament passed into the European artistic repertory of the 16th century, from Spain to Poland. A classic suite was that attributed toEnea Vico,published in 1540–41 under an evocative explanatory title,Leviores et extemporaneae picturae quas grotteschas vulgo vocant,"Light and extemporaneous pictures that are vulgarly called grotesques". LaterManneristversions, especially in engraving, tended to lose that initial lightness and be much more densely filled than the airy well-spaced style used by the Romans and Raphael.

Soongrottescheappeared inmarquetry(fine woodwork), inmaiolicaproduced above all atUrbinofrom the late 1520s, then in book illustration and in other decorative uses. AtFontainebleauRosso Fiorentinoand his team enriched the vocabulary of grotesques by combining them with the decorative form ofstrapwork,the portrayal of leather straps in plaster or wood moldings, which forms an element in grotesques.

From Baroque to Victorian era

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In the 17th and 18th centuries the grotesque encompasses a wide field ofteratology(science of monsters) and artistic experimentation. The monstrous, for instance, often occurs as the notion ofplay.The sportiveness of the grotesque category can be seen in the notion of the preternatural category of thelusus naturae,in natural history writings and in cabinets of curiosities.[17][18]The last vestiges of romance, such as the marvellous also provide opportunities for the presentation of the grotesque in, for instance, operatic spectacle. The mixed form of the novel was commonly described as grotesque – see for instance Fielding's "comic epic poem in prose" (Joseph AndrewsandTom Jones).

Grotesque ornament received a further impetus from new discoveries of original Roman frescoes and stucchi atPompeiiand the other buried sites roundMount Vesuviusfrom the middle of the century. It continued in use, becoming increasingly heavy, in theEmpire Styleand then in theVictorianperiod, when designs often became as densely packed as in 16th-century engravings, and the elegance and fancy of the style tended to be lost.

Extensions of the term in art

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Artists began to give the tiny faces of the figures in grotesque decorations strangecaricaturedexpressions, in a direct continuation of the medieval traditions of thedrolleriesin the border decorations or initials inilluminated manuscripts.From this the term began to be applied to larger caricatures, such as those ofLeonardo da Vinci,and the modern sense began to develop. It is first recorded in English in 1646 from SirThomas Browne:"In nature there are no grotesques".[24]By extension backwards in time, the term became also used for the medieval originals, and in modern terminology medieval drolleries, half-human thumbnail vignettes drawn in the margins, and carved figures on buildings (that are not also waterspouts, and sogargoyles) are also called "grotesques".

A boom in the production of works of art in the grotesque genre characterized the 1920–1933 period ofGerman art.In contemporary illustration art, the "grotesque" figures, in the ordinary conversational sense, commonly appear in the genregrotesque art,also known asfantastic art.

In literature

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One of the first uses of the term grotesque to denote a literary genre is inMontaigne'sEssays.[25]The Grotesque is often linked withsatireandtragicomedy.[26]It is an effective artistic means to convey grief and pain to the audience, and for this has been labeled byThomas Mannas the "genuine antibourgeois style".[26]

Some of the earliest written texts describe grotesque happenings and monstrous creatures. The literature of myth has been a rich source of monsters; from the one-eyedCyclopsfromHesiod'sTheogonyto Homer'sPolyphemusin theOdyssey.Ovid'sMetamorphosesis another rich source for grotesque transformations and hybrid creatures of myth.Horace'sArt of Poetryalso provides a formal introduction to classical values and to the dangers of grotesque or mixed form. Indeed, the departure from classical models of order, reason, harmony, balance and form opens up the risk of entry into grotesque worlds. Accordingly, British literature abounds with native grotesquerie, from the strange worlds ofSpenser's allegory inThe Faerie Queeneto the tragi-comic modes of 16th-century drama. (Grotesque comic elements can be found in major works such asKing Lear.)

Literary works ofmixedgenre are occasionally termed grotesque, as are "low" or non-literary genres such as pantomime and farce.[27]Gothic writingsoften have grotesque components in terms of character, style and location. In other cases, the environment described may be grotesque – whether urban (Charles Dickens), or the literature of the American south which has sometimes been termed "Southern Gothic".Sometimes the grotesque in literature has been explored in terms of social and cultural formations such as the carnival(-esque) inFrançois RabelaisandMikhail Bakhtin.Terry Castlehas written on the relationship between metamorphosis, literary writings and masquerade.[28]

Another major source of the grotesque is in satirical writings of the 18th century.Jonathan Swift'sGulliver's Travelsprovides a variety of approaches to grotesque representation. Corporeal hybridity is an essential marker in Swift. In poetry, the works ofAlexander Popeprovide many examples of the grotesque.

In fiction, characters are usually consideredgrotesqueif they induce both empathy and disgust. (A character who inspires disgust alone is simply a villain or amonster.) Obvious examples would include the physically deformed and the mentally deficient, but people with cringe-worthy social traits are also included. The reader becomes piqued by the grotesque's positive side, and continues reading to see if the character can conquer their darker side. In Shakespeare'sThe Tempest,the figure ofCalibanhas inspired more nuanced reactions than simple scorn and disgust. Also, inJ. R. R. Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Rings,the character ofGollummay be considered to have both disgusting and empathetic qualities, which fit the grotesque template.

Victor Hugo'sThe Hunchback of Notre-Dameis one of the most celebrated grotesques in literature.Dr. Frankenstein's monsterfromMary Shelley's 1818 novelFrankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheuscan also be considered a grotesque, as well as the title character,ErikinThe Phantom of the Operaand the Beast inBeauty and the Beast.Other instances of the romantic grotesque are also to be found inEdgar Allan Poe,E. T. A. Hoffmann,inSturm und Drangliterature or in Sterne'sTristram Shandy.The romantic grotesque is far more terrible and sombre than the medieval grotesque, which celebrated laughter and fertility. It is at this point that a grotesque creature such as Frankenstein's monster begins to be presented more sympathetically as the outsider who is the victim of society.[29]But the novel also makes the issue of sympathy problematic in an unkind society. This means that society becomes the generator of the grotesque, by a process of alienation.[30]In fact, the grotesque monster inFrankensteintends to be described as "the creature".

The grotesque received a new shape withAlice's Adventures in WonderlandbyLewis Carroll,when a girl meets fantastic grotesque figures in her fantasy world. Carroll manages to make the figures seem less frightful and fit forchildren's literature,but still utterly strange. Another comic grotesque writer who played on the relationship between sense and nonsense wasEdward Lear.Humorous, or festive nonsense of this kind has its roots in the seventeenth century traditions of fustian, bombastic and satirical writing.[31]

During the nineteenth-century category of grotesque body was increasingly displaced by the notion of congenital deformity or medical anomaly.[32]Building on this context, the grotesque begins to be understood more as deformity and disability, especially after theFirst World War,1914–18. In these terms, the art historianLeah Dickermanhas argued that "The sight of horrendously shattered bodies of veterans returned to the home front became commonplace. The accompanying growth in the prosthetic industry struck contemporaries as creating a race of half-mechanical men and became an important theme indadaistwork.'[33]The poetry ofWilfred Owendisplays a poetic and realistic sense of the grotesque horror of war and the human cost of brutal conflict. Poems such asSpring OffensiveandGreater Lovecombined images of beauty with shocking brutality and violence in order to produce a sense of the grotesque clash of opposites. In a similar fashion,Ernst Friedrich(1894–1967), founder of the Berlin Peace Museum, an anarchist and a pacifist, was the author ofWar Against War(1924) which used grotesque photographs of mutilated victims of the First World War in order to campaign for peace.

Southern Gothicis a genre frequently identified with grotesques andWilliam Faulkneris often cited as the ringmaster.Flannery O'Connorwrote, "Whenever I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one" (Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction,1960). In O'Connor's often-anthologizedshort storyA Good Man Is Hard to Find,the Misfit, a serial killer, is clearly a maimed soul, utterly callous to human life, but driven to seek the truth. The less obvious grotesque is the polite, doting grandmother who is unaware of her own astonishing selfishness. Another oft-cited example of the grotesque from O'Connor's work is her short story entitledA Temple of the Holy Ghost.The American novelistRaymond Kennedyis another author associated with the literary tradition of the grotesque.

Contemporary writers

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Contemporary writers of literary grotesque fiction includeIan McEwan,Katherine Dunn,Alasdair Gray,Angela Carter,Jeanette Winterson,Umberto Eco,Patrick McGrath,Jessica Anthony,Natsuo Kirino,Paul Tremblay,Matt Bell,Chuck Palahniuk,Brian Evenson,Caleb J. Ross(who writes domestic grotesque fiction),[34]Richard Thomasand many authors who write in thebizarro genre of fiction.

Pop culture

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Other contemporary writers who have explored the grotesque in pop-culture areJohn Docker,in the context of postmodernism;Cintra Wilson,who analyzes celebrity; andFrancis Sanzaro,who discusses its relation to childbirth and obscenity.[35]

Alien Resurrection(1997) is the only film rated by theMPAAto have "grotesque images" in its rating description,[36]mainly due to its depiction of the Newbornxenomorphand the failed clones ofEllen Ripley,who all featured grotesque human-alien (hybrid) characteristics.[37]

Theatre of the Grotesque

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The term "Theatre of the Grotesque"refers to an anti-naturalisticschool of Italian dramatists, writing in the 1910s and 1920s, who are often seen as precursors of theTheatre of the Absurd. Characterized by ironic and macabre themes of daily life in the World War 1 era. Theatre of the Grotesque was named after the play 'The Mask and the Face' by Luigi Chiarelli, which was described as 'a grotesque in three acts.'

Friedrich Dürrenmattis a major author of contemporary grotesque comedy plays.

In architecture

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Main article:Grotesque (architecture)
Detail from theJohn Mylne MonumentinGreyfriars Kirkyard.The text reads...Aetatis Suae 56,because he died at age 56.

In architecture the term "grotesque" means a carved stone figure.

Grotesques are often confused withgargoyles,but the distinction is that gargoyles are figures that contain a water spout through the mouth, while grotesques do not. Without a water spout, this type of sculpture is also known as a chimera when it depicts fantastical creatures. In the Middle Ages, the termbabewynwas used to refer to both gargoyles and grotesques.[38]This word is derived from theItalianwordbabbuino,which means "baboon".

In typography

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Main article:Grotesque (typeface classification)

The word "grotesque", or "Grotesk" in German, is also frequently used as a synonym forsans-serifintypography.At other times, it is used (along with "neo-grotesque", "humanist", "lineal",and" geometric ") to describe a particular style or subset of sans-serif typefaces. The origin of this association can be traced back to English typefounderWilliam Thorowgood,who introduced the term "grotesque" and in 1835 produced7-line pica grotesque—the first sans-serif typeface containing actual lowercase letters. An alternate etymology is possibly based on the original reaction of other typographers to such a strikingly featureless typeface.[39]

Popular grotesque typefaces includeFranklin Gothic,News Gothic,Haettenschweiler,andLucida Sans(although the latter lacks thespurred"G"[clarification needed]), whereas popular neo-grotesque typefaces includeArial,Helvetica,andVerdana.

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^"OED-Grotesque etymology".Etymonline.com.Retrieved2014-12-15.
  2. ^Rémi Astruc, Le Renouveau du grotesque dans le roman du xxe siècle. Essai d'anthropologie littéraire, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2010, 280 p. (ISBN 978-2-8124-0170-1).
  3. ^Astruc R. (2010), Le Renouveau du grotesque dans le roman du XXe siècle, Paris, Classiques Garnier.
  4. ^Vitruvius 7.5.3 (Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (1914).Ten Books on Architecture.Translated by Morgan, Morris Hicky. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.)
  5. ^Peter Ward-Jackson, "The Grotesque" in "Some main streams and tributaries in European ornament from 1500 to 1750: part 1"The Victoria and Albert Museum Bulletin(June 1967, pp 58–70) p 75.
  6. ^Quoted in David Summers, "Michelangelo on Architecture",The Art Bulletin54.2 (June 1972:146–157) p. 151.
  7. ^Greenhalgh, Paul (2019).Ceramic - Art and Civilization.Bloomsbury Publishing.p. 189.ISBN978-1-4742-3970-7.OCLC1154118123.
  8. ^Listri, Massimo (2020).The World's Most Beautiful Libraries.Taschen. p. 52.ISBN978-3-8365-3524-3.
  9. ^An example, the vaulted arcade in the Palazzo del Governatore, Assisi, which was frescoed with grotesques in 1556, has been examined in the monograph by Ezio Genovesi,Le grottesche della 'Volta Pinta' in Assisi(Assisi, 1995): Genovesi explores the role of the local Accademia del Monte.
  10. ^Victor Kommerell,Metamorphosed Margins: The Case for a Visual Rhetoric of the Renaissance 'Grottesche' under the Influence of Ovid's Metamorphoses(Hildesheim, 2008).
  11. ^abWilson, 152
  12. ^"bellissimi fogliami, rosoni ed altri ornamenti di stuccho e d'oro"and"fogliami, uccelli, maschere e figure",quoted by Summers 1972:151 and note 30.
  13. ^Paleotti,Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane(printed at Bologna, 1582)
  14. ^Noted by Summers 1972:152.
  15. ^"Dilettossi il Bacchiacca di far grottesche; onde al Sig. duca Cosimo fece uno studiolo pieno d'animali e d'erbe rare ritratte dalle naturali, che sono tenute bellissime": quoted in Francesco Vossilla, "Cosimo I, lo scrittoio del Bachiacca, una carcassa di capodoglio e la filosofia naturale",Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz,37..2/3 (1993:381–395) p. 383; only fragments survive of the decor.
  16. ^All mentioned by Ezio Genovesi 1995, in providing explanation of the genre in the context of the painted vaulting at Assisi.
  17. ^Mauries, Patrick (2002).Cabinets of Curiosities.Thames and Hudson.
  18. ^Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park (1998).Wonders and the Order of Nature.USA: New York: Zone Books.
  19. ^"LAMBRIS DU CABINET DE L'HÔTEL COLBERT DE VILLACERF".carnavalet.paris.fr.Retrieved31 August2023.
  20. ^Sharman, Ruth (2022).Yves Saint Laurent & Art.Thames & Hudson. p. 147.ISBN978-0-500-02544-4.
  21. ^"Immeuble en bordure du Palais-Royal, restaurant Le Grand Véfour".pop.culture.gouv.fr.Retrieved15 October2023.
  22. ^"Immeuble en bordure du Palais-Royal, restaurant Le Grand Véfour".pop.culture.gouv.fr.Retrieved15 October2023.
  23. ^"Immeuble en bordure du Palais-Royal, restaurant Le Grand Véfour".pop.culture.gouv.fr.Retrieved15 October2023.
  24. ^OED,"Grotesque"
  25. ^Kayser (1957) I.2Ce discours est bien grotesue
  26. ^abClark (1991)pp. 20–1
  27. ^Harham, Geoffrey Galt (1982).On the Grotesque.US: Princeton University Press.
  28. ^Castle, Terry (1986).Masquerade and Civilization.Methuen.
  29. ^See Jeanne M. Britton, 'Novelistic Sympathy in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" 'Studies in RomanticismVol. 48, No. 1 (Spring, 2009)3–22, p. 3.
  30. ^Hanis McLaren Caldwell,Literature and Medicine in Nineteenth-Century Britain: from Mary Shelley to George Eliot(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 42.
  31. ^See Noel Malcolm,The Origins of English Nonsense(Fontana, 1997).ISBN0006388442
  32. ^See George M. Gould and Walter M. Pyle'sAnomalies and Curiosities of Medicine(1896).
  33. ^Leah Dickerman,Dada,National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2005, pp. 3–4.
  34. ^"What is Domestic Grotesque Fiction and Why Do I Write It?".Calebjross.com. 2012-01-21.Retrieved2013-03-06.
  35. ^Sanzaro, Francis. The Infantile Grotesque: Pathology, Sexuality, and a Theory of Religion. Davies Group Publishers, 2016.
  36. ^Alien ResurrectionFilm Ratings.com. Retrieved 13 February 2024.
  37. ^Huunan-Seppälä, Henriikka (2019)."Hybrid Creatures and Monstrous Reproduction: The Multifunctional Grotesque in Alien: Resurrection".Art, Excess, and Education.pp. 147–160.doi:10.1007/978-3-030-21828-7_9.ISBN978-3-030-21827-0.
  38. ^Janetta Rebold Benton (1997).Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings.New York: Abbeville Press. pp.8–10.ISBN0-7892-0182-8.
  39. ^"Linéale Grotesques"(PDF).Rabbit Moon Press. 2009. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on January 2, 2014.Retrieved2010-09-08.

References

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Further reading

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Wikimedia Commons has media related toGrotesque (ornamentation).
Look upgrotesquein Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikisourcehas the text of the 1906New International Encyclopediaarticle "Grotesque".
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grotesque&oldid=1234452741"