Grotesque (arts)

Grotesque refers to a decorative style of art and architecture in which strange or fantastic human and animal forms are intertwined with elaborate designs and natural elements, such as plants. The interaction between the elements distorts the natural feel of the imagery into something unfamiliar or absurd. In modern usage, the word grotesque has evolved to mean something horrific or repulsive, but the art form itself was meant to be playful and light-hearted. The style originated in ancient Rome, but was lost for centuries before it was rediscovered during the Italian Renaissance. It reached the height of its popularity in sixteenth-century Europe and reminded popular into the early nineteenth century. Among the notable examples of grotesque style are works from such artists as Raphael, Hieronymus Bosch, and Francisco de Goya, or the monster-like stone sculptures found on the exteriors of medieval churches.

Background

The art styles of ancient Greece and Rome generally placed an emphasis on realism, proportion, and aesthetic beauty. Figures of humans and elements from mythology were most often depicted in sculpture and painting in the most realistic ways possible. Departures from the classical style were sometimes met with criticism from the experts of the time. In the first century CE, wealthy Romans began decorating their homes with unusual designs that incorporated interlaced lines resembling complex floral patterns. These designs were combined with strange figures of animals or mythological beasts such as griffins or centaurs. The Romans did not attach a name to the style, but many critics dismissed it as illogical and pointless.

In 64 CE, the Emperor Nero used the style to decorate an enormous palace he began building called the Domus Aurea, or “Golden House.” Nero’s palace was an exercise is extravagance. It had more than 140 rooms, covered more than 125 acres, and featured immense domes, ornate fountains, and indoor waterfalls. The palace’s walls were almost completely decorated with elaborate artwork. The artwork was a mix of intricate floral-like patterns with fantastic images from both history and mythology. Many of these elements exhibited an almost absurd quality, such as a horse with legs made of leaves, a man with the legs of a bird, or human figures frolicking among bees.

Nero was a violent and cruel emperor who was despised by the people of Rome. He spared no expense to ensure he lived in luxury even as many of the empire’s citizens suffered in poverty. He built his Domus Aurea on land that was cleared when a devastating fire tore through Rome. Roman citizens were angered by Nero’s slow response to the fire and many even blamed him for starting it. In 68 CE, the Roman Senate deposed Nero, who committed suicide upon hearing the news. The emperors who ruled after Nero wanted to distance themselves as much as possible from his reign. The Domus Aurea was left abandoned and much of its marble was stripped away to be used on other projects. An amphitheater and public baths were later built on the site, and eventually Nero’s palace was completely covered over by new construction.

Overview

In the fourteenth century, an artistic and cultural movement began in Italy that slowly began to move Europe away from the religious-dominated thinking of the Middle Ages. This movement, known as the Renaissance, featured a revived interest in the classical art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome. In the midst of this cultural renewal, the city of Rome was undergoing its own architectural rebirth. In the 1480s, architects uncovered the remains of several palaces from the time of the Roman Empire. Among them were the buried remains of Nero’s Domus Aurea.

Italian artists were fascinated by the discovery, especially the remarkably preserved artwork that covered the structure’s walls. They descended into the cave-like ruins of the palace with torches and meticulously copied the abandoned and ridiculous images they saw there. They named this bizarre style of art grottesco, after the Italian word grotte, or “cave,” where it was found. Eventually, the term evolved to become known as grotesque.

Like the paintings that inspired it, grotesque art was characterized by strange images that combined the natural with the absurd. Renaissance artists tried to outdo their ancient counterparts by creating even more imaginative imagery. Wild combinations of human, angelic, animal, and mythological figures were interwoven with elaborate geometric shapes and complex line drawings. The Italian painter Raphael and his student, Giovanni da Udine, were among the artists who were able to view the walls of the Domus Aurea firsthand. Both used grotesque style in commissioned works they painted on the walls and ceilings in several Vatican rooms. Among the elements in Udine’s paintings were disembodied smiling faces hanging by strings, floating angelic torsos, and leopards walking across wires. Among Raphael’s more unusual images were naked cherubs on wheeled platforms being pulled along by snails.

Grotesques were never a dominant art form of the Renaissance era—the classical focus on realism was still the primary inspiration for the majority of art—but it allowed artists a playful freedom that they used in numerous works throughout sixteenth-century Italy. Artists Pinturicchio and Filippino Lippi brought the style to Florence, an artistic and business center in northern Italy. There, it was used to decorate a chapel in the Santa Maria Novella Church, a ceiling in the famed art museum the Uffizi Gallery, and several rooms in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence’s city hall. Grotesque artwork was also used in the Piccolomini Library in the cathedral of Siena and in the Villa d’Este in the countryside outside of Rome.

The term grotesque also came to refer to the strange stone creatures that had been used to adorn cathedrals throughout Europe for centuries. These creatures, which were sculpted into bizarre human or animal forms, were also called chimeras. Today, the stone creatures are often mistakenly referred to as gargoyles, but that term applies only to decorative water spouts that are used to channel rainwater away from the roofs of structures. In architecture, grotesques and chimeras have a purely artistic function.

As the Renaissance progressed, the grotesque style spread outside of Italy and was adapted for use on more than just mural paintings and cathedral decorations. In the Park of the Monsters, a garden created in the sixteenth century in Bomarzo, Italy, several large stone sculptures incorporate grotesque elements. One of those resembles a giant ogre with a gaping mouth that serves as a door. Inside is a table where people from the era would sometimes sit and eat. The Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch combined grotesque imagery with biblical motifs to create surreal apocalyptic landscapes. These are filled with bizarre creatures that resemble animal-demons, walking heads, and distorted half-human creatures. For example, in his three-paneled work called The Garden of Earthly Delights, Bosch includes a knife sticking out from a human set of ears and a group of people sitting inside a giant human torso with tree trunk legs.

Grotesque art reached its peak in the sixteenth century, but it continued to inspire artists for almost four centuries. One of those artists was Spanish painter Francisco de Goya, who was born in the late eighteenth century. Although many of Goya’s works were of realistic scenes or portraits, he also embraced the surreal, unusual style of the grotesque. In his Caprichos, a series of about eighty hand-drawn prints, Goya often uses exaggerated human features or combines human and animal elements to express his subjects. For example, in Until Death, Goya portrays a decrepit elderly woman wearing a young girl’s bonnet and admiring her reflection in a mirror. In There They Go Plucked, he shows a group of women shooing away several featherless chickens with human heads.

In the eighteenth century, art began to reflect the era’s shift toward a philosophy of logic and reason. A style known as neoclassical developed and returned artistic focus to an emphasis on natural form and realism. Grotesque art began to be viewed as unnatural and abnormal. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the meaning of the term shifted away from the fanciful and bizarre and toward something horrific, misshapen, or ugly. Some twentieth-century artists such as Salvador Dali used the spirit of grotesque art to inspire the dreamlike elements in their works. However, these styles, known as dada or surrealism, were often both absurd and terrifying and were meant as a reaction to the horrors of World War I (1914–1918). In later art, the word grotesque has become associated mainly with stark or gruesome images that are designed to be shocking. For example, in 1936, German artist Hans Bellmer created a life-sized, partially dismembered sculpture of a woman called The Doll. Twenty-first century American artist Jonathan Payne specializes in creating monstrous sculptures that resemble human body parts with impossibly arranged tongues, teeth, fingers, and toes emerging from mounds of human flesh.

Bibliography

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Connelly, Frances. The Grotesque in Western Art and Culture: The Image at Play. Cambridge UP, 2014.

Connelly, Frances. Modern Art and the Grotesque, 1st edition. Cambridge UP, 2009.

Fain, Mamie. “Gargoyles and the Grotesque in Medieval Architecture.” Medievalists.net, 3 Dec. 2010, www.medievalists.net/2013/10/gargoyles-and-the-grotesque-in-medieval-architecture/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2020.

“Grotesque Decorations: A Revisited Ancient Pattern.” Luigi Bevilacqua, 26 Sept. 2017, www.luigi-bevilacqua.com/en/grotesque-decorations-fabrics/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2020.

“Grotesque Style.” Italy Travel and Life, 14 June 2016, www.italytravelandlife.com/2016/06/grotesque-style/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2020.

Jones, Jonathan. “Shock Horror: Why Art’s So Obsessed with the Grotesque.” Guardian, 22 Feb. 2018, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/nov/17/shock-horror-grotesque-art-jonathan-payne. Accessed 4 Feb. 2020.

Smith-Laing, Tim. “Horrible Art Histories.” Apollo Magazine, 6 Apr. 2015, www.apollo-magazine.com/horrible-art-histories-grotesque/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2020.