Editing Grotesque (section)

==History==
[[File:Domus fresco.jpg|thumb|Roman frescos in Nero's [[Domus Aurea]], [[Rome]], unknown painter, {{circa}} 64–68 AD]]

===Early examples in Roman ornament===
In art, grotesques are ornamental arrangements of [[Arabesque (European art)|arabesque]]s with interlaced garlands and small and fantastic human and animal figures, usually set out in a [[symmetrical]] pattern around some form of architectural framework, though this may be very flimsy. Such designs were fashionable in ancient [[Rome]], especially as fresco wall decoration and floor mosaic. Stylized versions, common in Imperial Roman decoration, were decried by [[Vitruvius]] (c. 30 BC) who, in dismissing them as meaningless and illogical, offered the following description: 
 <blockquote>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.<ref>Vitruvius 7.5.3 ({{cite book |last1=Marcus Vitruvius Pollio |translator1-last=Morgan |translator1-first=Morris Hicky |title=Ten Books on Architecture |date=1914 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge MA |url=https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Ten_Books_on_Architecture/Book_VII}})</ref></blockquote>

Emperor [[Nero]]'s palace in Rome, the [[Domus 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, or ''[[grotto|grotte]]'' in Italian. The palace's wall decorations in [[fresco]] and delicate [[stucco]] were a revelation.

===Etymology in Renaissance===
[[File:Biblioteca Duomo Siena-2 Apr 2008.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Ceiling of the [[Piccolomini Library]], [[Siena Cathedral]], [[Siena]], Italy, by [[Pinturicchio]] and his assistants, 1502–1503]]
The first appearance of the word ''grottesche'' appears in a contract of 1502 for the [[Piccolomini Library]] attached to the [[duomo]] of [[Siena]]. They were introduced by [[Raphael Sanzio]] and his team of decorative painters, who developed ''grottesche'' into a complete system of ornament in the [[Loggias]] that are part of the series of [[Raphael's Rooms]] in the [[Vatican Palace]], Rome. "The decorations astonished and charmed a generation of artists that was familiar with the grammar of the [[classical orders]] but 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."<ref>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.</ref> 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 Udine]] took up the theme of grotesques in decorating the [[Villa Madama]], the most influential of the new Roman villas.

In the 16th century, such artistic license and irrationality was controversial matter. [[Francisco de Holanda]] puts a defense in the mouth of [[Michelangelo]] in his third dialogue of ''Da Pintura Antiga'', 1548:
<blockquote>"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, with [[architrave]]s and [[Cornice (architecture)|cornice]]s of 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."<ref>Quoted in David Summers, "Michelangelo on Architecture", ''The Art Bulletin'' '''54'''.2 (June 1972:146–157) p. 151.</ref></blockquote>

<gallery mode="packed" heights="170px">
BLW Pilgrim Bottle, about 1560-1570.jpg|Pilgrim bottle, by the [[Fontana workshop]] from [[Urbino]], Italy, {{circa}} 1560–1570, tin glazed earthenware ([[majolica]]), [[Victoria and Albert Museum]], London
Ceiling of Uffizi Gallery.jpg|Ceiling decorated with arabesques in the [[Uffizi]] Gallery, [[Florence]], Italy, by various architects, including [[Giorgio Vasari]], {{circa}} 1560–1581<ref>{{cite book |last=Greenhalgh |first=Paul |title=Ceramic - Art and Civilization |date=2019 |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Publishing]] |page=189 |isbn=978-1-4742-3970-7 |oclc=1154118123 }}</ref>
The Sistine Hall of the Vatican Library (2994335291).jpg|Ceilings decorated with grotesques in the [[Vatican Library]], [[Vatican City]], by [[Domenico Fontana]], 1587–1588<ref>{{cite book|last1=Listri|first1=Massimo|title=The World's Most Beautiful Libraries|date=2020|publisher=Taschen|isbn=978-3-8365-3524-3|page=52|url=|language=}}</ref>
File:Fresco room Nobility in Villa d'Este (Tivoli).jpg|[[Mother Nature]] is surrounded by ''grottesche'' in this fresco detail from [[Villa d'Este]].
File:Renaissance Grotesques Composition.jpg|Renaissance grotesque motifs in assorted formats
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===Mannerism===
[[Image:Grotesqueengraving.jpg|thumb|250px|Grotesque engraving on paper, about 1500–1512, by [[Nicoletto da Modena]]]]
The delight of [[Mannerism|Mannerist]] artists and their patrons in arcane iconographic programs available only to the erudite could be embodied in schemes of ''grottesche'',<ref>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.</ref> [[Andrea Alciato]]'s ''[[Emblemata]]'' (1522) offered ready-made iconographic shorthand for vignettes. More familiar material for grotesques could be drawn from [[Metamorphoses|Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'']].<ref>Victor Kommerell, ''Metamorphosed Margins: The Case for a Visual Rhetoric of the Renaissance 'Grottesche' under the Influence of Ovid's Metamorphoses'' (Hildesheim, 2008).</ref>

The [[Vatican loggias]], a [[loggia]] corridor space in the [[Apostolic Palace]] open to the elements on one side, were decorated around 1519 by [[Raphael]]'s large team of artists, with [[Giovanni da Udine]] the 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.<ref name="Wilson, 152">Wilson, 152</ref>

In Michelangelo's [[Medici Chapel (Michelangelo)|Medici Chapel]] Giovanni 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 please [[Pope Clement VII|Pope Clement VII Medici]], however, nor [[Giorgio Vasari]], who whitewashed the grotesque decor in 1556.<ref>"''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.</ref> [[Counter Reformation]] writers on the arts, notably Cardinal [[Gabriele Paleotti]], bishop of Bologna,<ref>Paleotti, ''Discorso intorno alle imagini sacre e profane'' (printed at Bologna, 1582)</ref> turned upon ''grottesche'' with a righteous vengeance.<ref>Noted by Summers 1972:152.</ref>

Vasari, echoing Vitruvius, described the style as follows:<ref name="Wilson, 152"/><blockquote>"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".</blockquote>

Vasari recorded that [[Francesco Bacchiacca|Francesco Ubertini, called "Bacchiacca"]], delighted in inventing ''grotteschi'', and (about 1545) painted for Duke [[Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany|Cosimo de' Medici]] a ''[[studiolo]]'' in a mezzanine at the [[Palazzo Vecchio]] "full of animals and rare plants".<ref>"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.</ref> Other 16th-century writers on ''grottesche'' included [[Daniele Barbaro]], [[Pirro Ligorio]] and [[Gian Paolo Lomazzo]].<ref>All mentioned by Ezio Genovesi 1995, in providing explanation of the genre in the context of the painted vaulting at Assisi.</ref>

===Engravings, woodwork, book illustration, decorations===
[[File:Italia del nord, maschere con ornati, 1590-1610 ca..JPG|thumb|200px|Decorative panel showing the two separable elements of ''Grotesque'': the elaborate acanthus leaf and candelabra type design and the hideous mask or face]]
In the meantime, through the medium of [[engraving]]s the 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 to [[Enea 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". Later [[Mannerist]] versions, 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.

Soon ''grottesche'' appeared in [[marquetry]] (fine woodwork), in [[maiolica]] produced above all at [[Urbino]] from the late 1520s, then in book illustration and in other decorative uses. At [[Château de Fontainebleau|Fontainebleau]] [[Rosso Fiorentino]] and his team enriched the vocabulary of grotesques by combining them with the decorative form of [[strapwork]], the portrayal of leather straps in plaster or wood moldings, which forms an element in grotesques.

===From Baroque to Victorian era===
In the 17th and 18th centuries the grotesque encompasses a wide field of [[teratology]] (science of monsters) and artistic experimentation. The monstrous, for instance, often occurs as the notion of ''play''. The sportiveness of the grotesque category can be seen in the notion of the preternatural category of the ''lusus naturae'', in natural history writings and in cabinets of curiosities.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mauries|first=Patrick|title=Cabinets of Curiosities|year=2002|publisher=Thames and Hudson}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park|title=Wonders and the Order of Nature|year=1998|publisher=Zone Books|location=USA: New York}}</ref> 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 Andrews'' and ''Tom Jones'').

Grotesque ornament received a further impetus from new discoveries of original Roman frescoes and stucchi at [[Pompeii]] and the other buried sites round [[Mount Vesuvius]] from the middle of the century. It continued in use, becoming increasingly heavy, in the [[Empire Style]] and then in the [[Victorian architecture|Victorian]] period, when designs often became as densely packed as in 16th-century engravings, and the elegance and fancy of the style tended to be lost.

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Groteskmask i guldtråd på schabrak, 1600-1650 - Skoklosters slott - 102320.tif|[[Baroque]] – grotesque on a saddle pad, 1600–1650, gold thread
Parlement de Bretagne - Grande Chambre porte.jpg|[[Baroque architecture|Baroque]] – grotesques on a door in the [[Palais du Parlement de Bretagne]], [[Rennes]], France, unknown architect, sculptor and painter, 17th century ([[Louis XIV]] era)
Hôtel Colbert de Villacerf 1.jpg|Baroque – grotesques on the [[boiserie]] of a room from the [[Hôtel Colbert de Villacerf]], now in the [[Musée Carnavalet]], Paris, unknown architect, sculptor and painter, {{circa}} 1650<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.carnavalet.paris.fr/collections/lambris-du-cabinet-de-lhotel-colbert-de-villacerf|website=carnavalet.paris.fr|title=LAMBRIS DU CABINET DE L'HÔTEL COLBERT DE VILLACERF|author=|access-date=31 August 2023}}</ref>
Detail of the Galerie d'Apollon (14).jpg|Baroque – grotesques on a door in the [[Galerie d'Apollon]], [[Louvre Palace]], Paris, by [[Louis Le Vau]] and [[Charles Le Brun]], after 1661<ref>{{cite book|last1=Sharman|first1=Ruth|title=Yves Saint Laurent & Art|date=2022|publisher=Thames & Hudson|isbn=978-0-500-02544-4|page=147|url=|language=en}}</ref>
Boudoir de la reine, Château de Fontainebleau.jpg|[[Louis XVI style]] – the Boudoir of Marie-Antoinette, [[Palace of Fontainebleau]], [[Fontainebleau]], France, decorated with arabesques in the Pompeiian Style, by the Rousseau brothers, 1785
Pierre Rousseau - Double-Leaf Doors - 1942.2.12 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif|[[Neoclassicism#Architecture and the decorative arts|Neoclassical]] – door, by [[Pierre Rousseau (architect)|Pierre Rousseau]], 1790s, oil on panel, [[Cleveland Museum of Art]], [[Cleveland]], US
Vase with scenes of storm on land MET DP335261 (cropped).jpg|Neoclassical – vase with scenes of storm on land and grotesques, by the [[Dihl and Guérhard porcelain|Duc d'Angoulême's porcelain factory]], {{circa}} 1797–1798, hard-paste porcelain, [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], New York
Boulevard du Temple (Paris), numéro 42, portail 06 grille en fonte.jpg|[[Renaissance Revival architecture|Renaissance Revival]] – [[cast iron]] door window grill of a building on the [[Boulevard du Temple]] no. 42, Paris, unknown architect, {{circa}} 1850
File:Paris 7e 34 rue du Bac 27.JPG|Renaissance Revival – cast iron door window grill of [[Rue du Bac, Paris|Rue du Bac]] no. 34, Paris, unknown architect, {{circa}} 1850
File:Paris Palais Royal Restaurant Grand Véfour Säulen 1.jpg|Neoclassical – interior of [[Le Grand Véfour]], Paris, by M.L. Viguet, 1852<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/merimee/PA00085851|website=pop.culture.gouv.fr|title=Immeuble en bordure du Palais-Royal, restaurant Le Grand Véfour|access-date=15 October 2023}}</ref>
File:Paris Palais Royal Restaurant Grand Véfour Säulen 2.jpg|Neoclassical – interior of [[Le Grand Véfour]], Paris, by M.L. Viguet, 1852<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/merimee/PA00085851|website=pop.culture.gouv.fr|title=Immeuble en bordure du Palais-Royal, restaurant Le Grand Véfour|access-date=15 October 2023}}</ref>
File:Paris Palais Royal Restaurant Grand Véfour Säulen 3.jpg|Neoclassical – interior of [[Le Grand Véfour]], Paris, by M.L. Viguet, 1852<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/merimee/PA00085851|website=pop.culture.gouv.fr|title=Immeuble en bordure du Palais-Royal, restaurant Le Grand Véfour|access-date=15 October 2023}}</ref>
Decorative arts in the Louvre - Room 545 (06).jpg|Eclectic – grotesques panel in the [[Napoleon III]] Apartments of the Louvre Palace, unknown painted and designer, {{circa}} 1860
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