Imaginarium

Long Life to Death

2011-12-05T02:27:00.000-08:00

In the Spanish language, viva la muerte is an expression of the both-and phenomenon in communication. For it means both the exclamation "long life to death!" and an equivocal idea, "live death!," meaning "feel it" or "die," or even "death is alive."

1. A 2008 creation by Julia deVille from New Zealand

Curiosity killed the cat.[1] Satisfaction brought it back.[2]

CINERARIA

In a conversation with Peter Beard in 1975, Francis Bacon notes that discarded newspapers changing colour in the sunlight, bones and carcasses that have been in the sea or sun for a long time, gradually change into other things. There is a kind of beauty in that—a kind of magic.[3]

The magic to which Bacon vaguely refers is the deterioration and subsequent decomposition of organic matter.[4]

Unlike Bacon, who along his long career evoked that which once had been but no longer was, Julia deVille recovers that which was so that in a way will keep on being.

With this idea in mind, DeVille studies and practices the techniques of jewelers and taxidermists. Her creations frequently are the result of having combined both.

2. Four works by Julia deVille, showing a strange mixture of taxidermy and jewelry

Julia deVille’s work communicates a fascination with death and the solemn rites usually associated with it. The traditional theme of vanitas or the nineteenth-century funerary aesthetics are in this case important sources of inspiration.

DeVille explains that her output as a whole is like a memento mori, a reminder of the limited and transitory character of our lives. Thus, the artist uses elements and symbols having to do with death, because she believes it’s important to accept that sooner or later all of us are going to die. DeVille intends to provide her own answer to the fact that “our culture obsesses us with planning the future, but in doing so, we forget to enjoy the present.”[5]

Throughout her work, DeVille defies us to face such a reality and in some way also denounces the hypocrisy of society and its permanent destruction of animal life. A proof of the artist opposition to the latter is her deliberate use of “animals that only have died of natural causes.”[6]

Paradoxically, DeVille regards her creations based on dead matter are “a celebration of life, a preservation of something beautiful.”[7]

Aesthetically, Julia deVille has something in common with Francis Bacon. Like her surprising predecessor, she also detects some kind of magic and beauty in the bones and bodies of animals that are not alive anymore. Consistent with her artistic goals and somehow disquieting aesthetical principles, Cineraria is the title of the macabre solo exhibit of Julia deVille in the Sophie Gannon Gallery of Melbourne, Australia (July-August 2009).[8]

3. A view of Cineraria, the recent show held by Julia deVille in Melbourne – A complete cabinet of curiosities.

Heterogeneity characterizes the show, which includes dead beasts, funerary urns, Corinthian columns, feathers, necklaces, glass domes, skeletons, ornaments made in precious metals, eggs of considerable size, lace, glass eyes and some ruby hearts.

With its exquisitely suggestive character, the exhibit proves to be very interesting and hair-raising as well. Above all, it surprises and opens the valves of imagination. Despite the artist’s declarations, the ultimate raison d’être of Cineraria remains, at least in part, uncertain and equivocal. Karen Thompson aptly observes the exhibit awakes one’s curiosity and that it’s fascinating, but also a bit scary too [Figs. 1-2, 6, 9-10, 12, 14].[9]

4. Executed in a precious metal and recalling a crow, Silver Rook displays an admirable bone structure.

5. The skeleton of the bird contains an unexpected heart of rubies.

Such mixed emotions and feelings can be linked to a certain grotesqueness in the artworks. Indeed, the Grotesque is an aesthetical phenomenon, with a long tradition in the visual arts. Importantly, it explodes all conventional categories and disorients the spectator. Symptomatically, Victoria Mason writes of having no words to describe Julia deVille’s style,[10] one in which various incompatible elements coexist.

Visitors admire the “magical” nature of the artworks, describing them as delicate, but also disturbing.[11] An example of this is Stillborn Angel (2009), with is movingly macabre fetal position and sparrow wings.

6. DeVille, Stillborn Angel – at once macabre and moving.

Some criticism has also been expressed concerning the [perhaps] too great diversity of materials, forms and ideas present in Cineraria, not to forget the suggestion that in the future the artist should simplify the whole thing. Marcus Bunyan quotes (in capital letters) a well-known slogan by Mies van der Rohe: “less is more.”[12] But he seems to have forgotten Robert Venturi's powerful antidote to it, “less is a bore.”[13]

The artwork of Julia deVille is rich, complex and even contradictory. As a show, Cineraria has unity in its diversity and also recalls a long tradition of Baroque vanities and Victorian funerary rituals (to which deVille herself often refers).

If Julia deVille’s work conveys something a bit truculent, this is due mostly to her broad knowledge on the topic she deals with, and so eloquently, not to mention its symbols and connotations, which she knows by heart.[14]

Memento mori, ars moriendi, rigor mortis - all of them emerge in one way or another in the macabre creations of Julia deVille.

Even in Disce mori, her official website suggesting us to Learn to Die, the artist introduces her jewelry and other bizarre accessories with the help of exquisite Baroque coming from the above-mentioned vanitas tradition and its insistence on the brevity of life and the unavoidable triumph of death.

7. Michel Mosyn of Amsterdam, Cartouche in auricular style (Ohrmuschelstil or Kwabornament, Holland, seventeenth century), with an inscription added by DeVille (Disce Mori, 21.9.2009).

Such cartouches are compatible with the nature of Julia de deVille’s work: both of them are persuasive in its forms and grotesque insinuations.

Cineraria captures the attention of the public. So Leydeej, for example, appreciates the delicate, attractive appearance of each animal included in the show and prizes the DeVille’s respectful modus operandi involving a combination beauty and grace.[15]

However, there is sometimes something unsettling and even disturbing in some of the pieces DeVille exhibits. Yet, this is often counterbalanced by playfulness and humor.

8. DeVille, Infant Funerary Urn, 2009 – Existing for a second

In this context, it is important not confusing the artist’s intentions and the effect her artwork has on us.

DeVille may have a lot of respect concerning the dead beasts she works with, but this does not necessarily neutralizes the fact that some of her pieces can engender mixed responses in the viewer.

Playful and malicious are the words DeVille uses to describe her own work, to which she refers as "peacefully dark."[16]

Bacon comments that today all art has become a game with which artists entertain themselves, until death arrives. In Julia deVille's case, it is clear that does play with the Big Certainty Itself, which is Death.

Elegant and solemn, Cineraria suggests the monstrous. That is, the monstrosity of knowing that one day all of us will be dead.

Having maybe found inspiration in the poetry of Charles Baudelaire,[17] DeVille persistently invites us to explore the aesthetical possibilities offered by organic matter which is no longer alive.

9. Twentieth-first century unsettling taxidermy - Anatomy of a Rabbit, 2008

In Anatomy of a Rabbit, DeVille's "favourite" piece,[18] the upper part of the rodent’s trunk seems to have been amputated brutally. The beauty of the animal’s fur is all of a sudden interrupted to display pitilessly some bones, preciously executed in silver. From the mixture of taxidermy and jewelry emerges then a sinister figure. The rabbit looks alive, although it is as if it has escaped its own vivisection.

Right below the rabbit's head, and precisely where its throat once was, the ribcage now contains a ruby heart. Somehow it seems to have got stucked there.

10. Detail from Anatomy of a Rabbit – "the only safe thing to us is insecurity" (Ortega y Gasset).

Carrying her aesthetics from the macabre towards the Grotesque, Julia deVille is adamant in transforming dead matter into accessories of personal embellishment. For that purpose, she may use a whole bird and a bone, or a featherless chick, or just a few bones.

11. Delicate - Sparrow Brooch

12. Bird Pin

13. Bones and silver - Ring of Bones is a refined piece inspired by Bacon’s Three Studies for a Crucifixion of 1962 (right-hand panel), which is preserved in The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of New York.

The fur of the once majestic Malayan tiger has today been substituted by that of some cat, possibly found dead in the neighborhood.

14. Because of its size, Cat Rug (2008) may be, among other things, an ideal bathroom mat.

Often black is the beauty of Julia deVille’s works, as can be corroborated in the equine skull or the amazing egg with three legs.

15. Superb necrophilia - Black Beauty (2008) is a artwork to those who indulge themselves in Saturday night fetishism.

16. Cinerarium - A masterpiece made of Jarrah wood and sterling silver

Cinerarium is also a magnificent memento mori. In a minimalist and effective way, it reminds the viewer of the simple fact that one is born to die.

With Cinerarium, the egg-shaped object becomes a funerary urn for keeping uncertain ashes.[19] Grotesquely, the archetypal form of life acquires its opposite meaning and becomes a receptacle of death.

A double-silence, Cinerarium is the prima donna of the show, or, to recall Celan, the black milk that solemnly and systematically DeVille provides us with.

It is with works like this sophisticated receptacle, made of Jarrah wood and silver sterling, that DeVille celebrates life, in grotesque terms though.

From the information so far provided by DeVille and her followers online, it is hard to establish whether Cinerarium holds ashes or not. Were ashes in it, their nature would not be evident either: should they be the ashes of a cremated human being or the leftovers of some carbonized omelet?

It is almost impossible to know. But Cinerarium is a hermetic grotesque in its own right.

On Cinerarium, DeVille depicted a legend in silver hues. It looks like a curly band, but it has no inscription whatsoever. This cannot but open the valves of one’s imagination. Yet, it is impossible to determine the origin of the ashes tha are or will be inside the black urn, which now becomes ominous and disquieting.

Contradictory in this macabre creation is the dialogue DeVille establishes between the real convexity of the eggshell and the illusory depth of the band in silver painted on it.

This work in particular is an outstanding visual paradox. Having no inscription, the legend of Cinerarium proclaims nothing univocal, except from Death.

Unlike the Baroque Juan de Orozco y Covarrubias, contemporay Julia DeVille doesn't need to write any “QVOTIDIE MORIMVR” on the band to remind us that “En la vida está la muerte” (There is death in life).[20] Cinerarium subtly conveys this and with no words at all.

With Cinerarium and her Claw Brooches, DeVille convincingly demonstrates that she is well aware of the fact that less is more.[21]

17. Claw Brooch with Pearl – A unique taste for funerary minimalism

The rose, the beautiful rose, as Bacon liked to comment, is a dying thing.[22]

Throughout her macabre configurations, Julia deVille recalls Bacon's observation, with grace.

18. Claw Brooch with Rose – somewhere between redundancy and variation, it's still admirably minimalist

“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).[23] Cineraria is an extraordinary show. With pomp and ambiguity, it proclaims " Long life to Death ! "
......................................................Mariano Akerman

19. Cineraria – An admirable variety of funerary urns, 2009

Notes and references
1. Curiosity killed the cat reminds us that being too curious can be dangerous: cats are curious animals and like to investigate, but their curiosity can lead them to places where they might get hurt (GoEnglish.com Idioms, retrieved 25.9.2009).
2. The Coe College Cosmos, Iowa, February 1933 (Gary Martin, The Phrase Finder, 1996).
3. Bacon, interview with Peter Beard, edited by Henry Geldzahler (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Francis Bacon, Recent Paintings, March-June 1975).
4. Mariano Akerman, The Grotesque in Francis Bacon’s Paintings, 1999, pp. 14-15.
5. Julia deVille, “Artist’s Statement,” declaration published in her official website, Disce mori, retrieved 23.9.2009. According to her, the title of that website has been inspired by the inscription of a sixteenth-century piece of jewlery.
6. Ibid.: “I feel strongly about the fair and just treatment of animals and to accentuate this point I only use animals that have died of natural causes.” The artist picks up the dead bodies of birds and mice that can be found in the area she lives; she later treats them so they can be incorporated in her work.
7. Ibid.: “I consider my taxidermy to be a celebration of life, a preservation of something beautiful.”
8. Cineraria means in Latin any group or collection of funerary urns. Cinerarium is the receptacle in which are kept the ashes of a cremated corpse.
9. Karen Thompson, “Julia deVille ‘Cineraria’ at Sophie Gannon Gallery,” Melbourne Jeweller, 3.8.2009
10. “I really don't have words to describe her style but it's beautiful & (for a brief moment) sad & respectful all at once.” Victoria Mason, “I have a total art-crush,” Earl & Cookie, 30.7.2009.
11. Marcus Bunyan, “Review: ‘Cineraria’ by Julia deVille at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne,” Art Blart, Australia, 19.8.2009
12. Ibid.: “LESS IS MORE.” Talking about architecture, Van der Rohe used that maxim to give support to the so-called machine aesthetics. What he said has nothing to do with DeVille, who deals with art and organic aesthetics, facing the supreme challenge of death. The idea that less is more has its origin in Wieland, who included in the Teutsche Merkur in January 1774: „Und minder ist oft mehr.” The expression was used once again by Robert Browning in 1855: “Well, less is more, Lucrezia.” From this emerges that Bunyan is recommending DeVille no other than the quote of the quote of the quote (Bunyan quoting Van der Rohe, who was quoting Browning, who was quoting Wieland).
13. Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1966, chap. 2: “less is a bore.”
14. In her notes, DeVille indicates that one of her aims of Cineraria is the study of the rituals and the feeling surrounding funerary traditions from various places and times: “CINERARIA is a study of the ritual and sentiment behind funerary customs from various cultures and eras” (Art Blart). See also Disce mori, Influential Periods: “Brief History of Memento mori and Victorian Mourning Jewellery.”
15. “As I looked around the exhibition I was fascinated by the glamorous and delicate appearance of each animal in the exhibition. It seems that even in death Ms deVille can give reverence, beauty and grace to the life that the animal led.” Laydeej, “Vintage Fur & Taxidermy,” A Square Peg and a Round Hole, 29.7.2009
16. "Interview with Julia DeVille," Australian Edge, 9.1.2009; my emphasis.
17. See, for instance, Baudelaire’s poem “Une charogne” (Les Fleurs du Mal, 1857-61).
18. "Interview with DeVille," Australian Edge, 9.1.2009
19. At least one of the egg-shaped urns executed by DeVille contains real ashes: Thodey Tomb serves to preserves the actual ashes of Albert and Jean Thodey (Melbourne, Craft Victoria Gallery, Julia deVille: Ossuarium, October-November 2008).
20. Juan de Orozco y Cobarruvias, Emblemas Morales, 1589. Emblem II, IX includes the expressions “QVOTIDIE MORIMVR” and “En la vida está la muerte” (We die everyday; there is death in life).
21. See supra, text and n.10
22. For a discussion, see The Grotesque in Francis Bacon’s Paintings, pp. 47, 126 (n. 49). In Bacon’s imagery, beauty and death go pretty frequently hand in hand. See his interviews with David Sylvester (1967-68) and Melvyn Bragg (film, 1985).
23. "Vanity of vanities" has its source in the book of Ecclesiastes (הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים, HeVeL HaVaLIM; commonly translated into Latin language as Vanitas vanitatum). The poetic expression conveys the idea that nothing lasts. Vanity (or illusion) refers to everything that is empty, inconsistent and transient. It is used to stress the fragility and briefness of all human life.

Photographic credits. Disce mori, figs. 1, 4-5, 7, 9, 10-14, 17-18; Sophie Gannon Gallery, figs. 6, 14; Acidolatte, fig. 2, 8, 15-16; Art Blart, figs. 3, 6; Melbourne Jeweller, fig. 19.

For further discussion
Akerman, Mariano. "Grotesqueness in the Triptych," Efimeronte, 25.1.2008
_____. "Double-Edged" (film, 1.4.2008; clip, 17.5.2008), Imaginarium, 20.3.2009
_____. "Double-Edged" (clip, 17.5.2008), Encyclopedia.com, retrieved 30.9.2009
_____. "To Be and Not To Be," Plenitud, 14.8.2008
_____. "The Grotesque in Bacon's Paintings" (1999-2009), Baconian, 20.2.2009
_____. "Foam of Feeling and Existential Wasteland," Enthusiastic Despair, 21.3.2009
_____. "Resources," Imaginarium, 20.3.2009

About this document. Idea, research and design: Mariano Akerman - Original text published in Knol. Initial English version: 25.9.2009 - Updated: 30.11.2011

Jesús González: 1/2 Project

2011-11-08T02:42:00.000-08:00

Everest

Jesús González Rodríguez, Medio Proyecto (1/2 Project), 2011. For his series "1/2", the Venezuelan artist creates unsettling portraits by collaging multiple photographs of individuals while "cutting" out along their edges. Each image is composed of a full face and profile view of the subject against a blank white wall, creating a nearly optical-illusion in which the portraits can appear momentarily normal until one's eyes fall upon an outlying characteristic. Ref. "freaks; multidirectional face illusions" (S).

Diego Ramírez

1/3

1/2

Fischli und Weiss

2011-08-22T02:56:00.000-07:00

Zurich, Kunsthaus, Questions and Flowers, 2007

Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss have been collaborating since 1979. Their photographs, sculptures, installations and moving images explore extraordinary transformations of the commonplace through a comic childlike spirit and love of play. The world of everyday objects is in a precarious balance and sometimes comprising an absurd chain of reactions between different objects colliding and setting off explosions. Chance encounters of objects and precariuos balance characterize their series of photographs Equilibres of 1984–87; chain reaction prevails in their film The Way Things Go of 1987. In the case of Fischli & Weiss, gravity may seemingly work in reverse, creating unexpected states of suspension.

Équilibres, photograph, 1984-87

The Maid, from Équilibres series, photograph, 1984-87

Équilibres, photograph, 1984-87

The First Blush of Morning | A New Day Begins, 1985
from the Équilibres series, 1984-87

The Way Things Go, 2009. Fischli and Weiss remove ordinary things from their original context and restructure their relationships in new ways. The artists aim neither to glorify nor to alienate the objects, but merely to create new references in order to be reconsidered. The Way Things Go is a chain reaction, self-destructing performance that includes physical effects and chemical reactions, to suggest a precisely crafted chaos.

Simple Science, from Équilibres series, photograph, 1984-87

The Way Things Go (Der Lauf der Dinge), 1987

Ibid.

A faster variation, with a tempo matching the tunes of the overture "William Tell" by Gioachino Rossini. The film by Fischli and Weiss documents a long causal chain assembled of everyday objects. It is in a warehouse, about 100 feet long, and incorporates materials such as tires, trash bags, ladders, soap, oil drums, and gasoline. Fire and pyrotechnics are used as chemical triggers. The original film is nearly 30 minutes long; this one is just 7 minutes long and shows the integrity of the Swiss duo's installation.

De monstruos, prodigios y maravillas

2011-08-02T05:21:00.000-07:00

John Ruskin advances his theory of the grotesque in Modern Painters and The Stones of Venice, which is an immense three volume work wherein he talks about the history of Venetian art and architecture; sometimes generally, sometimes literally stone by stone.
In the second volume of Stones, Ruskin argues that "grotesqueness" is one of the fundamental ingredients of Gothic architecture, along with savageness, changefulness, naturalism, rigidity and redundance. On this grotesque quality he comments that: "every reader familiar with Gothic architecture must understand what I mean, and will, I believe, have no hesitation in admitting that the tendency to delight in fantastic and ludicrous, as well as in sublime, images, is a universal instinct of the Gothic imagination" (LXXII).
In the third volume of Stones, Ruskin discusses the grotesque "corruption" of the Renaissance style, which is understood by Ruskin to reflect a wider corruption of Christian values and the loosening of religion's hold upon the minds and souls of the citizens of Venice (Groteskology: Ruskin I).

Ruskin argues that the "corruption" of Venice's beautiful Gothic architecture, during what he calls the "grotesque renaissance," accords with a more general collapse of social values that is reflected in the worst kind of grotesque [his example].[+] Having already commented on the grotesque as an essential quality of Gothic, he now comes to exploring the difference between the new, heinous grotesquerie and the earlier, more positive kind: "It must be our immediate task, and it will be a most interesting one, to distinguish between this base grotesqueness, and that magnificent condition of fantastic imagination, which was above noticed as one of the chief elements of the Northern Gothic mind" (III, XVI).
Ruskin detects two components in the grotesque: "It seems to me that the grotesque is, in almost all cases, composed of two elements, one ludicrous, the other fearful; that, as one or other of these elements prevails, the grotesque falls into two branches, sportive grotesque and terrible grotesque; but that we cannot legitimately consider it under these two aspects, because there are hardly any examples which do not in some degree combine both elements; there are few grotesques so utterly playful as to be overcast with no shade of fearfulness, and few so fearful as absolutely to exclude all ideas of jest. But although we cannot separate the grotesque itself into two branches, we may easily examine separately the two conditions of mind which it seems to combine; and consider successively what are the kinds of jest, and what the kinds of fearfulness, which may be legitimately expressed in the various walks of art, and how their expressions actually occur in the Gothic and Renaissance schools" (III, XXIII).
Numerous contemporary discussions maintain the validity of this structure in which the grotesque finds expression as a combination of the comic and the fearful. According to Ruskin, "the mind, under certain phases of excitement, plays with terror" (XLV). The grotesque is thus understood as that which enables terrible things to be set out in the open, to be played with in a form of personal and cultural exorcism.
Ruskin discussed this earlier, in the fourth volume of Modern Painters, where he commented that: "A fine grotesque is the expression, in a moment, by a series of symbols thrown together in bold and fearless connection, of truths which it would have taken a long time to express in any verbal way, and of which the connection is left for the beholder to work out for himself; the gaps, left or over-leaped by the haste of the imagination, forming the grotesque character" (97-98). Groteskology: Ruskin II; [+] Maschera in pietra sulla porta del campanile in Campo Santa Maria Formosa. John Ruskin la definisce, ne "Le pietre di Venezia", "una testa --colossale, bestiale, mostruosa-- ammiccante in una degradante volgarità, troppo brutta per essere descritta o per essere guardata più che per un attimo."

Collection database: The British Museum, London

A Cruel Caricature? This particular vase is a type of pottery called Knidian Relief Ware, which was manufactured in large quantities in and around Cnidus in south-east Turkey. In Knidian Relief Ware grotesque heads were a very popular motif, along with animals such as rams, lions and dogs. Cruelly caricatured representations of people were a very popular motif in pottery vases, as indeed they were in other areas of art, for example sculpture and terracottas. Bibl. J.W. Hayes, Handbook of Mediterranean Roma, London: British Museum, 1997; S. Walker, Roman Art, London, 1991; P. Roberts, "Mass-production of Roman Fine Wares" in Pottery in the Making: World-5, London: British Museum, 1997, pp. 188-93 (British Museum).

Dragón en el románico aragonés

Basilisco
Este reptil fabuloso, cuyo nombre significa precisamente “reyezuelo” (βασιλίσκος basilískos: «pequeño rey») es sin lugar a dudas el rey del Fisiólogo, un animal que pertenece por entero a la esfera de la imaginación o al acervo simbólico y al que jamás se le ha encontrado su análogo en la fauna animal.
Su aparición en la mayoría de los bestiarios es una referencia obligada; casi todos los textos aluden a esta criatura describiéndola como un animal de pequeño porte, pero “tan ponzoñoso, que mata a los hombres con su sola mirada. Son reyes -basileus- de las serpientes; y no hay en el mundo bestia, grande o pequeña, que se les quiera enfrentar. Y allá por donde pasan, debido al gran veneno que tienen, secan los árboles y las hierbas. Y todos los años mudan la piel, como hace la serpiente, y después las renuevan.
La imagen del basilisco evoluciona a lo largo del tiempo, aunque permanecen algunos elementos en su descripción general, como el parentesco con las serpientes y lo mortífero de su mirada: ” En el siglo VIII, el basilisco era considerado una serpiente con unos cuernos en la cabeza y una mancha blanca en la frente en forma de corona. (…) Más tarde, en el medievo, pasa a ser un gallo con cuatro patas, plumas amarillas, grandes alas espinosas y cola de serpiente, que podía terminar en garfio, cabeza de serpiente o en otra cabeza de gallo. Hay versiones de esta criatura mitológica con ocho patas y escamas en vez de plumas. Plinio el Viejo lo describe como una culebrilla de escaso tamaño y pésimo genio ya que "su potente veneno hace marchitarse las plantas y su mirada es tan virulenta que mata a los hombres."
En otras fuentes las descripciones lo hacen semejante al gallo, con el que comparte su cresta, tamaño y porte: “Se figura como un gallo con cola de dragón o una serpiente con alas de gallo.” Todo su simbolismo deriva de esta asociación con el gallo y la serpiente: “El basilisco representaría el poder real que fulmina a quienes le faltan al respeto; a la mujer casquivana que corrompe a quienes de antemano no la reconocen y no pueden en consecuencia evitarla; los peligros mortales de la existencia, que uno no advierte a tiempo, y frente a los cuales son los ángeles divinos la única salvaguarda”. Esta asociación simbólica del basilisco con la mujer, de clara ascendencia judeocristiana, procede de la misma fuente que vincula a Eva con la Serpiente, y es más frecuente en el Renacimiento; así “durante el siglo de Oro, la literatura española aparece salpicada de referencias a la bestia, normalmente para compararla a la mirada de la amada. Lope de Vega, Quevedo o Cervantes usan a la criatura en sus textos.)
A propósito de esta extraña criatura dice el Bestiario de Brunetto que “cuando avanza, la mitad anterior de su cuerpo se yegue verticalmente, la otra mitad queda como en las demás serpientes, enroscada. Y por muy feroz que sea el basilisco, lo matan las comadrejas (…) Y sabed que Alejandro (Magno) los vio; mandó hacer entonces unas grandes ampollas de vidrio, en las que entraban hombres que podían ver a los basiliscos, mientras que éstos no los veían, y los mataban con sus flechas; y mediante tal añagaza, libro de ellos a sí mismo y a su ejército.”
E Isidoro en sus Etimologías: «Basilisco es nombre griego; en latín se interpreta regulo, porque es la reina de las serpientes, de tal manera que todas le huyen, porque las mata con su aliento y al hombre con su vista; más aún, ningún ave que vuele en su presencia pasa ilesa, sino que, aunque esté muy lejos, cae muerta y es devorada por él. Sin embargo le vence la comadreja, que los hombres lanzan a las cavernas en las que se esconde el basilisco. Cuando éste la ve huye y es perseguido hasta que es muerto por ella. Nada dejó el Padre de todas las cosas sin remedio. Su tamaño es de medio pie y tiene líneas formadas por puntas blancas. Los régulos, como los escorpiones, andan por lugares áridos, pero cuando llegan a las aguas se hacen acuáticos. Sibilus es el mismo basilisco, y se le da este nombre porque con sus silbidos mata antes que muerde.»
Más curiosas son las explicaciones que sobre el origen de este enigmático monstruo nos brindan los diferentes bestiarios conocidos, pues casi todos coinciden en afirmar que el basilisco “nace de un huevo de gallo viejo, de siete o catorce años, huevo redondo depositado en el estiércol y empollado por un sapo, una rana o una sierpe venenosa. “
Algunos autores ya en la antigüedad manifestaron sus dudas sobre estas peregrinas historias sobre el origen de la mítica bestia: “que nazca de un huevo puesto por n gallo viejo, es difícilmente creíble; no obstante, algunos afirman con gran confianza que, cuando el gallo se vuelve viejo y cesa de montar a sus gallinas, nace en su interior, de su simiente corrompida, un huevecillo cubierto con una delgada película en vez de cáscara; incubado por un sapo alguna criatura semejante, el huevo produce el gusano venenoso, aunque no este basilisco, este rey de las serpientes. ”
Advierten las leyendas que es extremadamente difícil capturar vivo un basilisco. El único medio, como en el caso de otras criaturas que matan con sólo mirar, es un espejo: “en él la mirada terrible de letal potencia, reflejada y vuelta sobre el basilisco mismo, lo mata; o bien los vapores ponzoñosos que lanza le procuran la muerte que él quiso dar.” En este episodio es evidente la relación con la Gorgona, cuya visión causaba la muerte petrificando al individuo; del mismo modo que la representación de la cabeza de la Medusa en el escudo de Atenea era capaz de destruir a los enemigos de la diosa: “Lucano refiere que de la sangre de Medusa nacieron todas las serpientes de Libia: el Áspid, la Anfisbena, el Amódite, el propio Basilisco; el pasaje está en el libro noveno de la Farsalia”.
El salmista equipara al basilisco con el áspid, poniéndolos en relación con el dragón y otros símbolos del Adversario: “Los ángeles te llevarán en palmas, para que tu pie no tropiece en la piedra, pisarás el áspid y el basilico; hollarás el léon y el dragón (Sal. XC, 12-13) “
En el ámbito alquímico también prolifera la imagen del basilisco, simbolizando el poder devastador y regenerador del fuego, en un simbolismo cercano al de la salamandra. La aparición del basilisco preludia en cierto sentido el inicio de la transmutación de los metales. En algunos tratados antiguos de medicina tradicional el basilisco se usa –como se usaba antaño el polvo de cuerno de rinoceronte– como remedio medicinal, mezclado con otros ingredientes que resultarán en ungüento o pócima de milagrosos efectos.
La representación del basilisco nos sugiere, al margen de la carga moralizante que le prestaron los autores de los bestiarios, asociaciones con el dios Abraxas de los gnósticos, a menudo representado con cabeza de gallo y cuerpo de serpiente, y nos trae a la memoria el recuerdo de algunas criaturas fantásticas de la ciencia ficción moderna, verbigracia aquel octavo pasajero vermiforme y ponzoñoso que, como el basilisco, gozaba de idéntico mal genio.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilisco_(criatura_mitol%C3%B3gica)
http://marinni.livejournal.com/498964.html
http://www.jungba.com.ar/editorial/body_texto_editorial27.asp
http://www.viajesconmitia.com/2011/02/07/el-basilisco-rey-del-fisiologo/

http://www.revistamirabilia.com/

John Mandeville, Libro de las maravillas del mundo, 1540
Como grandes apasionados de los viajes y las mirabilia naturae, no podíamos faltar a esta cita ineludible con el aventurero y expedicionario de leyenda Juan de Mandávila, y su obra, conocida como Libro de las Maravillas:
“Nos encontramos ante uno de los libros de viajes más emblemáticos y populares del género en su modalidad de “viaje imaginario” (…) Junto con el Libro de las maravillas de Marco Polo (…) es sin duda, el de mayor difusión en la Europa medieval, desde su aparición en la segunda mitad del siglo XIV hasta el periodo renacentista . (…) Sin embargo, cabe preguntarse por qué la materia de viajes - en sus distintas manifestaciones- adquiere una presencia autónoma y constante a lo largo de la Edad Media y la sigue manteniendo durante muchas décadas después, independientemente de las nuevas variantes del género (largas navegaciones, naufragios, diarios de a bordo, etc.) que responden a las nuevas exigencias de “aventura” y entretenimiento en los siglos XVI y XVII”
“El viaje de Mandeville (…) combina la forma de peregrinación, con la adición de dos tipos de materia fabulosa: las varias leyendas devotas asociadas con iertos lugares de la Tierra Santa y buena cantidad de monstruos“ en la tradición de la Naturalis Historia de Plinio el Viejo– “ todo eso enmarcado en la presentación del viaje como aventura caballeresca relatada a posteriori, es decir, desde el recuerdo de los peligros y las hazañas del pasado que el Mandeville anciano revive desde el presente.”
“El hombre medieval, en su condición de homo viator, va a intentar aprehender estos otros mundos -tradicionalmente susceptibles de todo tipo de especulaciones y mitologías- como parte insólita de la realidad conocida(…)Viajero y también erudito parece ser Mandeville - o, como mínimo parece pretenderlo- al combinar en su relato la elaboración más genuinamente novelesca tan característica de los libros de viajes con el tratamiento más descriptivo y teórico de la noticia geográfica”
Textos tomados de Juan de Mandávila, Libro de las maravillas del mundo, Valencia, 1540; edición realizada por Estela Pérez Bosch
http://valdeperrillos.com/book/export/html/3272

Teratologia
http://valdeperrillos.com/books/pasos-perdidos/teratologia-renacentista
http://www.flickr.com/photos/renzodionigi/tags/%E2%80%9Cmonstrous/

Conjoined twins
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/conjoined/index.html

Ambroise Paré (1510-90), Oeuvres, 1585
http://www.viajesconmitia.com/2010/03/28/los-monstruos-y-prodigios-de-ambroise-pare/
NLM http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/paregallery.htm

Conrad Gessner, Historiae Animalium, 1551
http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/Gesnergallery.htm

Olaus Magnus, Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, 1555

Conrad Lycosthenes (Conradus Lycosthenes, Corrado Licostene), Prodigiorum ac ostentorum chronicon, 1557; engravings by Theodor de Bry (1528-1598). Obra renacentista. El término “crónica” corresponde con exactitud con el espíritu y el contenido de las obras, y sus descripciones maravillosas y fantásticas de los fenómenos y prodigios procedentes de la cultura medieval. Compuesta por magníficas xilografías de Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) en las que se representan aves con malformaciones teratológicas, que eran vistas a menudo como presagios de infortunio o desgracias, o anunciadores de calamidades y catástrofes cercanas.
http://www.propheties.it/nostradamus/prodigiorum/prodigiorum1.html
http://www.summagallicana.it/Licostene%20Lycosthenes%20Conrad%20Wolffhart/Licostene.htm

Fortunio Liceti, De Monstrorum natura, caussis et differentiis (On the nature, causes and differences of monsters), 1616. Fortunio Liceti, absoluto seguidor de Aristóteles, en su De Perfecta Constitutione hominis in utero, fundamentará sus argumentos en la irreflenable fuerza y capacidad generativa de la Naturaleza que no teme a obstáculos o límites en su infinita variedad de expresión, viendo aquí la razón primera de la presencia de monstruos en la Creación. En 1616 Licetti publicaría su De Monstrorum Natura, obra seminal que marcaría el inicio de los estudios de las malformaciones teratológicas del embrión. En ella describe numerosos monstruos, reales e imaginarios, y busca las razones para explicar su extraña apariencia. Su aproximación al tema difiere de la perspectiva al uso entre los expertos europeos de la época, puesto que veía a los monstruos no como un castigo divino sino como el producto de una anomalía o rareza natural. Asímismo sostendría la idea de la transmisión de caracteres similares de padres a hijos, presagiando los estudios de genética.
La obra de Liceti parte de una definición del “monstruo” que retoma el significado etimológico original: con el término monstrum se indica todo aquello que suscita admiración, sorpresa y maravilla -res mirabilis- sea en modo positivo o negativo –véase el horror sagrado–. El monstruo, asociado a la capacidad de asombro y maravilla, fuente y principio de toda búsqueda en pos de la sabiduría, vuelve a retomar su antigua función de custodio y guardián del tesoro, que en este caso simboliza la gnosis, el verdadero conocimiento.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortunio_Liceti
http://www.taringa.net/posts/imagenes/1829245/Monstruos-imaginarios-antiguos_-Excelentes_.html
http://marinni.livejournal.com/417783.html
http://www.linguaggioglobale.com/mostri/txt/31.htm
http://www.viajesconmitia.com/2011/03/13/los-monstruos-de-liceti/

Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605), Monstrorum Historia, 1642. A los “monstruos marginales del arte y la literatura, a los prodigios y maravillas, a su mundo y a sus paisajes” (1) está consagrada esta entrada sobre la Monstrorum historia de Ulisse Aldrovandi (1662), una obra antigua que no deja de maravillarnos por su temática, que aborda todo tipo de aberraciones y deformaciones naturales, anatomía mórbida, monstruos y criaturas extraordinarias, naturales o mitológicas. Escrita originalemente en latín, el texto se ilustraba profusamente con innúmeras imágenes sumamente descriptivas, que aún hoy poseen una gran fuerza visual.
http://www.filosofia.unibo.it/aldrovandi/pinakesweb/compdetail.asp?Pag=1&compid=3431
http://www.filosofia.unibo.it/aldrovandi/pinakesweb/compdetail.asp?Pag=6&compid=3431
http://www.filosofia.unibo.it/aldrovandi/
http://www.filosofia.unibo.it/aldrovandi/pinakesweb/main.asp?language=it
http://num-scd-ulp.u-strasbg.fr:8080/189/
http://www.viajesconmitia.com/2010/03/03/monstrorum-historia/

Cabinet of Curiosities
http://www.mundieart.com/cabinet/museums.htm

C.J. Grant, "Singular Effects of the Universal Vegetable Pills on a Green Grocer," lithograph, London 1831. A man in bed with vegetables sprouting from all parts of his body; as a result of taking J. Morison's vegetable pills. Wellcome Images, London
Ref. alternative medicine

José Guadalupe Posada
http://www.viajesconmitia.com/2010/04/23/%C2%A1viva-la-muerte/

Human Marvels
Pueden llamarles monstruos, fenómenos, prodigios, aberraciones, engendros del infierno -como ustedes quieran- pero yo los llamaré increibles y maravillosos seres humanos, en esta crónica de sus inspiradoras historias del triunfo del espíritu y la voluntad sobre la naturaleza, el destino y el juicio del hombre.
Así se presenta al mundo el artífice de The Human Marvels, donde nos presentan a esta “gente peculiar”. Disfruten del espectáculo trágico de la vida humana. De esta fabulosa y altamente recomendable página hemos sacado algunas de las fotografías que les ofrecemos, con ánimo esclarecedor, for your enlightenment.
http://thehumanmarvels.com/
http://www.phreeque.com/
http://www.viajesconmitia.com/2010/03/29/la-feria-de-las-vanidades/

Freaks, dir. Tod Browning, USA, 1932. La palabra “Freak” equivalía, en los primeros años del siglo XX, a la expresión “monstruo de feria”, pues hacía referencia concretamente a engendros, prodigios o fenómenos de la naturaleza, “a personas -que no monstruos- diferentes, que por azares y caprichos de la biología, nacieron o crecieron con taras, deformidades o configuraciones especiales. Gente que ” también formaba parte de la sociedad y que llegaron a mover millones de dólares como atracción de feria en la época de la Gran Depresión Americana y fue a partir de ahí cuando los diccionarios en inglés empezaron a recogerla.”
“La película de 1932 de Tod Browning Freaks (La Parada de los Monstruos) refleja esa realidad, en la que un grupo de actores circenses va de ciudad en ciudad mostrando a un público deseoso por ver algo diferente con un éxito arrollador y delicioso; sin embargo, casi un siglo después, La Parada de los Otros Monstruos, claramente la nuestra, en la que los abominables seres anormales somos nosotros, aún no está preparada e incluso discrimina lo diferente, lo que está fuera del mainstream; exactamente igual que Browning lo recogió en película hace ya casi un siglo.”
No podemos hacernos una ligera idea del profundo impacto que la película Freaks, de 1932, tuvo en la audiencia de su época. Incluso hoy día un espectador medio puede sufrir un ligero shock ante la potencia primigenia de este film y los terroríficos pero tiernos monstruos de feria, los actores reales de circo que actúan en él. Han tenido que transcurrir varios lustros hasta que esta cinta lograra su actual estatus de película de culto, porque hasta no hace mucho estuvo prohibida por la crudeza de la historia y sobre todo por sus imágenes. Lo más curioso es precisamente que todos los actores que interpretaron un papel en Freaks eran personas con deformidades reales y casi no se usaron efectos especiales ni de maquillaje. El director, Browning, escogió cuidadosamente en el casting a los “freaks”(fenomenos) protagonistas de su cinta, antes que usar disfraces o artificios de ningún tipo, para dar más verismo y credibilidad a la narración.
“Vista hoy en día, la película resulta [...] rodada con sencillez [...], Browning plantea un cuento de terror moral en una atmósfera extraña pero en todo momento realista. Tal y como sucedió en el mismo rodaje, los freaks del film parecen tener un comportamiento mucho más noble que el de la sociedad que les rodea y les aparta por el simple hecho de haber sufrido alguna deformidad.
http://www.cinetelia.com/friquis-otra-parada-monstruos.html
http://www.miradas.net/0204/clasicos/2003/0312_freaks.html
http://www.viajesconmitia.com/2010/03/29/la-parada-de-los-monstruos/

Jean-Paul Sartre, Preface to Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, (Les damnés de la terre ), 1961: "There is nothing more consistent than a racist humanism, since the European has only been able to become a man through creating slaves and monsters" (source).

François Houtin, Jardins, c. 1983-2000. Sorprendente maestro del grutesco y el arabesco, adepto del asunto simbólico del Árbol de la vida y sus múltiples ramificaciones iconográficas, desde el laberinto vegetal al hortus conclusus, pasando por el capriccio ornamental ampliamente inspirado en ramas, vástagos, raíces y formas arborescentes y orgánicas. Su dibujo abigarrado y barroco, en un sobrio blanco y negro y dominado por el rigor de la línea grabada o burilada, es capaz sin embargo de evocar los más singulares y remotos lugares de la imaginación. El jardín soñado es el tema central de la obra de este grabador francés, François Houtin (1950- ), a cuya descripción detallada [h]a dedicado buena parte de su trayectoria artística, con singular fortuna. Su infancia en el entorno de Craon, cerca de Mayenne, en la región rural de Anjou, propiciaría su acercamiento al tema del paisaje y el jardín imaginario. El propio Houtin trabajaría un tiempo como jardinero y florista, mientras completaba su formación de arquitecto y paisajista, dos disciplinas cuya influencia se intuye en su monumental e inspirador trabajo, entre las visiones de Piranesi y la atmósfera apasionada y misteriosa del paisaje romántico (Flegetanis; Galleria del Leone; Marinni).

Thomas Mangold
„Aus einer Mücke eine Elefanten machen”
To make an elephant out of a mosquito, 2010
photograph and computer graphic design
Artist's remark: "If you rearrange reality and/or approach it in a new and unfamiliar angle there are endless possibilities to create stunning stuff."

Ian McCormick, Encyclopedia of the Marvelous, the Monstrous, and the Grotesque, including illustrations list, London, 2000

Jahsonic 2006-9
Gargoyle
Natural History
Ugly
Awe of nature, taste for the bizarre, thirst for knowledge
Monsters are not signs of God’s punishment
Tumors and other major deformities in medical illustration
Surrealism avant la lettre

GROTESCOLOGY
Ancient hybrids
Graeco-Roman figurines
Franco-Spanish grotesques
Andrea Riccio
Castillo Pedro Fajardo
Arent van Bolten
Nicasius Roussel
Baroque heads
Ruskin pt1
Ruskin pt2
Double_Dichotomy
Patricia Piccinini
Lucy McRae
Eco_ads

Trampantojo
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trampantojo
http://www.viajesconmitia.com/category/las-uvas-de-zeuxis/

William Hogarth: The Analysis of Beauty

Early Comics: TS Sullivant
http://www.old-coconino.com/sites_auteurs/sullivant/menu.htm

George Quaintance 1950s Covers

Jean-Jacques Lequeu

2011-07-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

Lequeu, Grotesques, 1786. Composition: Mariano Akerman

Jean-Jacques Lequeu, né le 14 septembre 1757 à Rouen et mort le 28 mars 1826 à Paris, est un architecte et dessinateur français. Il est plutôt un visionnaire qu’un architecte. À part deux « folies » aux environs de sa ville natale, il n’a rien construit. Tout le reste de son œuvre architecturale consiste dans des dessins de bâtiments souvent inconstructibles. Le reste de son œuvre picturale, tels ses autoportraits en travesti, appartient au fantasme et a constitué une inspiration pour le surréalisme qui a vu en lui un précurseur. On ne sait pas grand-chose de sa vie. On sait qu’il a travaillé dans sa ville natale avec l’architecte Le Brument.
Lequeu a été architecte de l’Académie royale des Sciences, Belles-Lettres, et Beaux-Arts. Il a reçu deux prix de l’Académie de Rouen en 1776 et 1778. En 1779, il travaille comme dessinateur ou inspecteur au bureau des bâtiments de l’église Sainte-Geneviève (c’est-à-dire l’agence de Jacques-Germain Soufflot). En 1793, il est employé au bureau du Cadastre. En 1802, il travaille au bureau des bâtiments civils du ministère de l’Intérieur. En juillet 1825, il donne l’ensemble de ses dessins et manuscrits à la Bibliothèque Royale.
Il est souvent considéré comme un architecte « révolutionnaire », au même titre que Étienne-Louis Boullée et Claude Nicolas Ledoux. Cette épithète ne vient pas de ce qu’ils ont révolutionné l’architecture ou qu’il aient été particulièrement engagés à cette période, mais qu’ils sont contemporains de la Révolution française.

Dessin d'un ornement grotesque pour l'hôtel de Montholon, 1786

Jean-Jacques Lequeu (1757–1826) was a French draughtsman and architect. Born in Rouen, he won a scholarship to go to Paris, but following the French revolution his architectural career never took off. He spent time preparing the Architecture Civile, a book intended for publication, but which was never published. Most of his ornamental drawings can be found at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Jean-Jacques Lequeu (1757-1826)
Dessins d'ornements grotesques pour l'hôtel de Montholon, 1786
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris
Gallica : Ornements et Frises de Grotesques
Addenda: 1, 2, 3

Lequeu, Grotesques, 1786. Composition: Mariano Akerman

Pour des buts éducatifs seulement | For educational use only.

Lequeu Grotesques by Mariano Akerman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at picasaweb.google.com.

Louis-Léopold Boilly

2011-07-24T08:20:00.000-07:00

Boilly (1761-1845), Les Grimaces, 3, lithographie, 1824

Grimacer est un art. Disparate, feinte ou spontanée, fine ou grossière, acrimonieuse ou affable, la grimace subjugue de sa présence expressive toutes les époques et captive toutes les disciplines artistiques. Couchée sur papier, colorée de pigment, taillée dans le marbre, sculptée dans l’albâtre ou encore fixée sur cliché, elle est envisagée dans tous ses états. Elle peut questionner les rapports entre le moral et le physique, là où les « visages insolents, excessifs ou hors de contrôle son aperçues comme une offense à l’encontre des règles de la beauté idéale » (Martial Guédron, L’art de la grimace, Paris : Hazan, 2011).
Spontanée, la grimace fut aussi perçue comme expression des caractères et des passions, comme l’indice d’une nature humaine à l’image d’un langage « primitif » prompt à trahir une animalité. Simulée ou envisagée du point de vue de l’artiste, de Jean-Jacques Lequeu aux productions photographiques contemporaines en passant par Franz Xavier Messerschmidt, elle rompt avec les canons fixant les représentations du corps. Aussi les caricaturistes de presse en feront- ils un vaste champ d’exploration. Travaillée enfin, la grimace put être perçue comme apparentée à l’hypocrisie sinon à la conspiration (Véronique Fau-Vincenti, « Caricatures », Le monde diplomatique, juillet 2011, p. 25).

Boilly, Une loge, un jour de spectacle gratuit, 1830. 32,5 x 41,7 cm. Musée Lambinet, Versailles

Boilly, Les cinq sens, lithographie, 1823

The five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Sight (at top centre) is portrayed as a man using an eyeglass to look at himself in a hand-held mirror. Hearing (at centre left) is shown as a man listening to a watch. Smell (at centre right) is shown as a young woman sniffing at a bottle of perfume. Taste (at lower centre) is portrayed as a fat man greedily eating food from a plate. Touch (at bottom left) is shown as a physician taking Smell's wrist pulse.

EMPIRICISM. Roughly characterised, the backbone of empiricism is a simple claim: opinions are reasonable if, and only if, they are supported by evidence that is ultimately grounded in experience.
Experience, here, can mean everyday observation using one or more of the five senses, but it is also meant to include rigorous scientific experimentation. Respect for this principle is what supposedly sets the scientific age apart from the pre-scientific age. In that earlier age, unsupported speculation was purportedly rampant; since the scientific revolution, experience served to constrain such speculation.
Empiricists claimed that experience was the source of all genuine knowledge; claims that didn‘t ultimately spring from the senses were to be dismissed as fanciful. Boilly's caricatured personification of the senses reveals how not everyone was so convinced of the effectiveness of scientific methods at yielding all the truth and only the truth.
Expressed more negatively, empiricists are claiming that we should refuse to accept as true anything that has not been observed to be true. By this criterion, many religious doctrines are no more than unsupported speculation. Empiricists often denounced them as such in the period under discussion.
Empiricism as expressed in the simplified statement above has some embarrassing consequences. Moral and mathematical platitudes (e.g. that torturing people for fun is morally objectionable, or that 55 plus 55 necessarily equals 110) do not seem to require observational support, yet few would be prepared to denounce these judgements as unreasonable. The evidence for these and other reasonable opinions must come from some other source than the senses (openlearn).

Boilly, Réunion de 35 têtes d'expression. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tourcoing

Boilly, Les Grimaces, 7

Boilly, Le pouvoir de l'Eloquence, 1824

Boilly, Ah! le chic-en-lit, lit, lit, lithographie, 1824

Two boys tease a carnival reveller wearing a grotesque mask, while a third boy blows a horn.

Commons | Marinni
Facial expression | Expression faciale | Expresión facial
Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne | Images
Paper Mate | World Historical Comics

Ref. caricature, series of ridiculous facial expressions, types.

Domus Aurea, Rome

2011-07-09T04:02:00.000-07:00

Roman wall painting. Fabullus, Decorations in fantasy style, 1st century CE. Fresco detail. Domus Aurea, Rome

View of the cryptoporticus with illusionistic candelabra and figures from the Domus Aurea (Golden House of Nero), Rome (German Archaeological Institute, Rome).

Fabullus, Decorations in the 4th Pompeyan Style, 1st century CE. Domus Aura, Rome

Fresco details from the Domus Aurea of Nero, Rome

Influence

Roman mosaic. Border with half-figure and grotesque head from the Baths of Trajan, Acholla, early 2nd century CE. Bardo Museum, Tunis (Photo by P. Perkins). Discussion

Roman mosaic from Carthage, Tunisia. Bardo Museum, Tunis

Italian Renaissance Grotteschi, sometimes also referred to as La grottesca. Grotteschi (Grotesques, digital montage of images) by Mariano Akerman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at 3.bp.blogspot.com. For educational use only.

Sacred Hybrid

2011-06-14T08:23:00.000-07:00

Lamasu. Human-headed winged bull facing. Bas-relief from King Sargon II's palace at Dur Sharrukin in Assyria (now Khorsabad in Iraq), c. 713–716 BCE. | Taureau androcéphale ailé tourné de face. Bas-relief du palais bâti par Sargon II à Dur Sharrukin, en Assyrie (actuelle Khorsabad, Iraq), v. 713–716 av. J.-C. Musée du Louvre, Paris

Motif of an Afro-Roman mosaic from Carthage, Tunisia. Bardo Museum, Tunis (David Simmer)

Ibid., context

Jean Dubuffet

2011-06-12T03:58:00.000-07:00

Born July 31, 1901, in Le Havre, France, Jean Dubuffet attended art classes in his youth and in 1918 moved to Paris to study at the Académie Julian, which he left after six months. During this time, Dubuffet met artists such as Raoul Dufy, Max Jacob, Fernand Léger, and Suzanne Valadon, and became fascinated with Hans Prinzhorn’s book on psychopathic art. He traveled to Italy in 1923 and South America in 1924. Then, Dubuffet gave up painting for about ten years, working as an industrial draftsman and later in the family wine business. He committed himself to becoming an artist in 1942. Dubuffet’s first solo exhibition was held at the Galerie René Drouin, Paris, in 1944. During the 1940s, the artist associated with André Breton, Georges Limbour, Jean Paulhan, and Charles Ratton. His style and subject matter in this period owed a debt to Paul Klee. From 1945, he collected Art Brut, spontaneous, direct works by untutored individuals, such as mental patients. The Pierre Matisse Gallery gave him his first solo show in New York in 1947.

The term Art Brut was first used by the painter Jean Dubuffet to refer to a range of art forms outside the conventional dictates of the art world. He amassed a large collection of graffiti art and art made by the mentally ill, prisoners, children, and other naive (untrained) artists, whose raw or innocent vision and directness of technique he admired. In turn, he sought to emulate these qualities in his own work, and in 1948 he established a society to encourage the study of Art Brut. This kind of art has also been referred to as “outsider art;” that designation has been applied to Dubuffet’s own work (Guggenheim Online).

1. Musical experiences (Experiences musicales), 1960

2. Ancien Combattant, 1945. Oil on canvas

3. Cow with a Beautiful Tail, 1954. Oil on canvas, 97 x 130 cm. The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

4. Jean Dubuffet, Woman trying a Hat, 1943

5. Corps de Dame: Olympia, 1950

6. Brunette with a Fleshy Face (Chataine aux hautes chairs; Brunetta dal volto carnoso), 1951

7. Miss Cholera, 1946

8. Spotted Cow (Vache Tachetée), 1954. Oil on canvas

9. Cow, 1954

10. The Cow with a Subtile Nose, 1954. Oil and enamel on canvas, 88.9 x 111.8 cm. MoMA, New York

11. Corps de Dame, 1950

12. Corps de Dame

13. Triumph and Glory (Triomphe et gloire), 1950. Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 96.5 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

14. The Hairdresser (La coiffeuse), 1950. Oil on canvas, 116 x 89cm

Two women: one in academic style by Bouguereau (Baigneuse, 1890); the other conceived as "art brut" by Dubuffet.

15. Tree of Fluids, oil on canvas, 1950

16. Corps de dame: jardin fleuri, 1950. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania

17. Woman's Body (L'hirsute), 1950. National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

18. Corps de Dame—Château d’Étoupe, 1950. Oil on canvas, 114.4 x 87.5 cm. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College

19. Corps de Dame: Bloody Landscape, 1950

20. Corps de Dame: Le Metafisyx, 1950

21. Corps de Dame, 1950

22. Corps de Dame, 1950. Ink on paper, 27 x 21.2 cm. MoMA, New York

23. Seize corps de dames, lithograph, 1950

24. Corps de Dame, 1950. Ink on paper, 32.3 x 24.9 cm. MoMA, New York

Online resources
Post-WWII Figural Art

Bakhtin: The Body Grotesque

2011-06-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

"Grotesque," Déjà vu, Russia

Grotesque (from IT. grottesca, derived from the "Grotto"). Ornaments, which combines a fantastically ornamental and figurative motifs (animals and plants, chimeras, human forms and masks), discovered in the Renaissance during the excavation of underground rooms (caves).
Grotesque - the kind of artistic imagery, based on a comic, caricature, burlesque and quirky effect. Grotesque is perceived as a significant distortion of the known or recognized regulatory forms.
Grotesque appeared long before it was coined by the term. Centaurs, chimeras, griffins of Greek mythology, the gods of ancient Egypt with the bodies of humans and animal heads - are the essence of the grotesque body.
Chimera's body are the three bodies - a lion, goat and serpent. Carelessly assembled puzzle or a riddle that had to solve? Ra, the sun god, who headed the Egyptian Ennead of gods, incarnated in the form of a falcon with a human body, crowned with a sun disc. Very long recognized deformity is ambivalent - as a sign of rejection and the election.
Below you can see the thumbnail of XII century. in which nations are represented on the "World's End. The characters of myths and legends depicted on the medieval "maps" (mappae Mundi); with the reality of the monsters are not questioned. mappa Mundi, incidentally, is also a grotesque body, it is like a sponge soaked past, present, and indicates that reveals the future, all three Time does not coexist in the sequence, but at the same time.

Mikhail Bakhtin: Creativity Francois Rabelais and Folk culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Chapter Five: The grotesque image of the body in Rabelais and his sources

As we have analyzed a group banquet images, we met with pronounced exaggeration, hyperbole. The same dramatic exaggeration inherent and body image and bodily life of Rabelais. They are inherent and other images of the novel. But most strikingly, they still expressed in body image and the images of food. Here and to look for the main source and creative principle of all other exaggeration and hyperbole Rabelaisian world, the source of all and any excess and redundancy.

Exaggeration, hyperbolism excessive, the excess is, admittedly, one of the main signs of the grotesque style .

The most consistent and rich on borrowed material attempt to give the history and theory of the grotesque in part by the German scientist G. Schneegans. In his book "History of grotesque satire" (1894) a significant place (about half of the book) devoted Rabelais. Moreover, we can directly say that the history and theory of the grotesque satire Schneegans focuses specifically on Rabelais. Suggested Schneegans understanding of the grotesque image differs clarity and consistency, but it seems fundamentally wrong. At the same time they admitted the error is extremely typical, and they are repeated in the vast majority of works on the grotesque satire before Schneegans, and especially after. Schneegans ignores the profound and essential ambivalence of the grotesque and sees it only denies exaggeration in uzkosatiricheskih purposes. In view of the typicality of such an approach to grotesque we begin this chapter with a critique of views Schneegans.
Schneegans insists on a strict distinction between three types or categories of the comic: dunce (possen haft), burlesque and grotesque . To clarify the differences between them, he analyzes three examples.
As an example of buffoonery is a scene from one of the Italian "commedia dell'arte" (this scene was first brought Flegel, then Fisher). Stuttering in conversation with Harlequin can not utter a single hard word: he makes extraordinary efforts, pants with this word in the throat, covered later , open his mouth , shaking, gagging, face swells and his eyes get out of orbit , "it seems that it comes to birth pangs and spasms . Finally Harlequin, tired of waiting for the word, comes to the aid of a stutterer unexpected way: he hits a running head stutterer in his stomach , and the hardest word finally born . This is the first example.
As an example of burlesque is skarronovskaya travesty of Virgil. Scarron, in order to reduce the high way "Aeneid, everywhere highlights the domestic and material bodily points: Hecuba diaper wipes, a Dido, like all African women, a blunt nose, Aeneas draws its freshness to their physical health, etc.
As examples of the grotesque are such images of Rabelais: the assertion of Jean's brother that "even the shadow of the monastery's bell tower fertile", his assertion that the monastic robe returns the dog lost a productive force, a project to build Panurge Parisian wall of the genital organs.
Schneegans shows different nature of laughter in each of these three types of comic. In the first case (buffoonery) laughter - spontaneous, naive and good-natured (and the stutterer would laugh). In the second case (Burlesque), to laughter mixed with schadenfreude over the decline of high, in addition, laughter is devoid of spontaneity, as you need to know travestiruemuyu "Aeneid." In the third case (the grotesque) is a mockery of certain social phenomena (monastic debauchery, corruption Parisian women) by their extreme exaggeration, there is also no immediacy, as it is necessary to know these mocks social phenomena.

The difference between these three types of laughter and humor Schneegans substantiates the basis of the provisions of the formal psychological aesthetics. Humor is based on the contrast between the feeling of pleasure and displeasure. Based on this contrast all the types of humor, the same distinction between different types are determined by different sources of feelings of pleasure and displeasure, and various combinations of these feelings.

In the first case (buffoonery) feeling of displeasure caused by an unexpected and unusual nature of the healing stutterer, a sense of fun generated by the same good nature of the antics of Harlequin.

In the second case (burlesque), the pleasure generated by the humiliation of a high. All high inevitably tiring. Tired of looking up, and I want to lower his eyes downward. The stronger and more lasting than it was a high dominance, the stronger and the pleasure of his dethronement, and decline. Hence the huge success of parodies and travesties, when they are timely, that is, when the high has already become weary readers. Thus, the travesty Scarron against despotism Malerba and classicism were timely.

In the third case (grotesque) feeling of displeasure and failure generated incredible images: it is impossible to imagine that a woman could get pregnant from the shadow of the monastery's bell tower, etc. This impossibility, the nonlinearity creates a strong sense of dissatisfaction. But this is overcome by a feeling of pleasure in two ways: first, we learn in an exaggerated image of a real expansion and immorality in the monasteries, that is, find for the exaggerated image of a place in reality, and secondly, we feel moral satisfaction, because of the immorality and degradation hit by a sharp caricature and ridicule.

In the first case (buffoonery), no one laughed at - no stuttering or Harlequin. In the second case the object of derision is the sublime style's Aeneid and generally classical, but there is no moral reason to ridicule: it's just frivolous joke. In the third case (grotesque), ridicules a certain negative phenomenon, then there is something improper («Nichtseinsollendes»). It is in this Schneegans sees the main feature of the grotesque: it is a caricature exaggerates a negative thing, then there is something improper. This is what distinguishes the grotesque buffoonery of and from burlesque. And in buffoonery and burlesque can also be an exaggeration, but they denied there is a satirical focus on the improper. In addition, a grotesque exaggeration of an extreme, fantastic character, brought to the monstrosity.

In the visual arts grotesque, on Schneegans, is primarily a caricature, but a caricature carried to fantastic limits. Schneegans examines a number of caricatures of Napoleon III , built on an exaggeration of the large nose of the Emperor. Grotesque are those where the size of the nose are brought to the impossible, where the nose turns into a pig snout or beak of a crow.

Exaggeration of the negative (improper) to the limits of the impossible and monstrous - that is, by Schneegans, the main feature of the grotesque. Therefore, the grotesque - always satire. Where there is a satirical focus, there is no grotesque. From this definition, the grotesque Schneegans and displays all the features of Rabelaisian imagery and its verbal style: redundancy and redundancy, the desire to transcend all borders, immensely long enumeration heaps of synonyms, etc.

This is the concept Schneegans. She, as we have said, is very typical. Understanding of the grotesque image as a purely satirical, that is negative is very common. For Rabelais, as we know, the title stuck satirist, although he was a satirist not to a greater extent than Shakespeare, and to a lesser extent than Cervantes. The fact that Schneegans carries on its narrow Rabelais, in the spirit of modern times, the understanding of satire as a negation of individual private events, rather than as a negation of the whole structure of life (including the dominant truth), denial, inextricably fused with the approval of a new being born .

Schneegans concept is fundamentally wrong. It is based on completely ignoring some very essential aspects of the grotesque, and above all - his ambivalence. In addition, Schneegans completely ignores the sources of folk grotesque.

Schneegans himself compelled to admit that not all Rabelaisian exaggeration can be, even at a stretch, to reveal a satirical thrust. He explains the nature of exaggeration, always striving to go beyond all boundaries: the author of the grotesque in his enthusiasm, even the "intoxication" hyperbole sometimes forget about the real purpose of an exaggeration, losing sight of the satire.

As an example of exaggeration from oblivion the original purpose of his satirical Schneegans leads a fantastic picture of growth of individual members of the body in the first book of "Pantagruel."

Moment of exaggeration (hyperbole) is indeed one of the essential features of the grotesque (in particular, and Rabelaisian of images), but it's still not the most significant sign. All the more intolerable to him to reduce the whole essence of the grotesque image. But the most pathos of exaggeration, the beginning of his motive Schneegans interpreted incorrectly.

One might ask: where does this pathos, this "intoxication" an exaggeration, if exaggerated something negative, improper? On this question Schneegans book does not give us any answer. And the character literally rolling very often in sharp qualitative changes, they are not disclosed.

If the grotesque nature of satire is to exaggerate something negative and improper , it is absolutely nowhere to take that joyful excess of exaggeration, speaks of himself Schneegans. Nowhere to take the qualitative richness and diversity of the image, its diverse and often unexpected connections with the seemingly distant and alien phenomena. Purely satirical exaggeration of the negative could at best explain only a purely quantitative time exaggeration, but not the diversity and richness of the image and its relationships. Grotesque world in which exaggerated if only improper, would be great to quantify, but it would at the same high quality extremely poor, poor, deprived of colors and is not gay (this is the kind of dull world of Swift). That the total would be in a world of fun and rich world of Rabelais? Hola satirical thrust can not even explain the positive pathos purely quantitative exaggeration, there is nothing to talk about the pathos of the quality of wealth.

Schneegans, based on an idealistic aesthetics of the past half century and the narrow artistic and ideological norms of his time, could not find the correct path to the grotesque, he could not understand the possibility of merging into a single image and the positive and negative poles. Still less could he understand that an object can move not only their quantitative and qualitative limits that he may outgrow itself, can be mixed with other items. Fraught and dvutelye grotesque images were not clear Schneegans, he does not notice that in becoming a grotesque world the boundaries between things and events are conducted very differently than in the static world of contemporary art and literature Schneegans.

Let us return to the starting point of analysis Schneegans: given them an example to the buffoonery, burlesque and grotesque. His analysis he was trying to open a purely formal psychological mechanism of their perception, instead of focusing on the objective content of the images themselves. But if we proceed from this objective content, rather than from formal psychological moments, you'll find substantial similarity and relationship of all three above examples, the same set Schneegans differences will be far-fetched and random.

In fact, what is the objective content of the first example? Schneegans himself describes it in such a way that leaves no doubt: the stutterer playing childbearing . It is pregnant with the word, and can not be delivered. Sam Schneegans said: "It seems that it comes to labor contractions and spasms. Gaping mouth, bulging eyes, sweat, trembling, choking, swollen face, etc. - All these are typical signs and symptoms of a grotesque life of the body, in which case they are interpreted is playing an act of birth. Absolutely clear and gesture Harlequin: it helps to leave and, therefore, his intervention very consistently focused on the abdomen , and the word is really born. We emphasize that here is born exactly the word. Highest spiritual act down here and debunked by transferring the material bodily birth plan of the act (which played quite realistically). But thanks to deconstruct the word is updated and how to be born anew (we keep moving in a circle of birth and descent Act). Further, there is obvious and significant topographical moment inverted bodily hierarchy: bottom here, took the top and the word is localized in the mouth and in my thoughts ( in my head ), but here it is transferred to the abdomen , from Harlequin and pushes his head blow. And this is the traditional gesture of hitting his head in the stomach (or back ) is essential topographic: here is the same logic back to the top of the contact with the bottom. Further, there is also an exaggeration: the physical phenomena that accompany the difficulties in the organs of articulation stutterer (tension in the eyes, perspiration, etc.) are so exaggerated that go into effect generic act, as a result of all the event moves from the utterance of the word articulation apparatus in the stomach. An objective analysis reveals, therefore, in this little skit basic and essential features of the grotesque. Scene is very rich and very often, in all the smallest details, meaningful. She, however, and universalistichna: it is like a little satyr play words , the drama of his material birth, or the drama of the body, a generating word. The unusual realism, richness and fullness of comprehension and profound universalistichnost characterized this great skit, like all images of genuine popular comedians.

An objective analysis of the images Skarronovoy travesty would have discovered the presence of the same points. But the images have Scarron poorer simplification; they have a lot of random, made-up literary. Schneegans sees here only to reduce the high, which has already weary the reader. He explains the decline of formal psychosocial considerations: the need to lower his eyes down to rest from looking up. In fact here is debunking the images "Aeneid" by translating them into the material and bodily sphere : the sphere of food, drink, sex and the adjacent bodily manifestations. Scope of this has a positive value . This is - generates low . Therefore, images of the "Aeneid" is not only debunked, but updated. I repeat, Scarron all this is more abstract and surface-literary nature.

Let us turn to the third example Schneegans - a Rabelaisian images. Consider the first of them. Friar says that even the shadow of the monastery's bell tower fertile. This image immediately introduces us to the grotesque logic. It is not easy grotesque exaggeration of the monastery "debauchery". In this way the subject is beyond the boundaries of their quality, ceases to be himself. It blurs the boundaries between body and world, to confuse the body with the outside world and things. It must be emphasized that the bell tower (the tower) - the usual grotesque image of the phallus [ annotated.: Understanding the tallest tower as the phallus was familiar to Rabelais and his contemporaries of the ancient sources. Here is an excerpt from Lucian ("On the Syrian Goddess"): "These are Propylaea phallus height of thirty fathoms. At one of these Fallot twice a year gets to people, and remains on top of it within seven days. The majority explains this practice by the fact that this man with his height comes into close communion with the gods and seeks their benefits for the whole of Syria. " ] And the whole context, prepares this image, creates an atmosphere to justify this grotesque transformation. Should lead Rabelaisian text in the script:

"C'est (dist Le moyne) rentré bien de picques! Elle pourroit Estre aussi layd Que Proserpine, Elle Aura, par Dieu, la saccade puisqu'il ya moynes Autour, UN car bon ouvrier MECT indifferentement toutes Pieces EN oeuvre. Que la j'aye verolle EN CAS Que Ne les trouviez, engroissées á vostre Retour, car seulement l'Ombre du clochier Abbaye d'UNE feconde est " ( the book . I , Sec. XLV ). [ cites the Russian translation: Well, that's Grandma in two said! - Said the monk. - Your wife may be as ugly as Proserpine, but if somewhere nearby infested with the monks, they certainly will not let her pass, and then say: good for the master of all things will find application. Suppose I get sick a bad illness, if on returning you find that your little wife put on weight, because even in the shadow of the monastery's bell tower is something fertility. ]

The entire speech is filled with his brother Jean unofficial and reducing elements, prepare the atmosphere for our grotesque image. First of all, we see an expression borrowed from the game cards ( "rentré de picques" in the sense of - a bad move). Then - the ugly image of Proserpine, the queen of hell, it's certainly not an antique reminiscence and the image of "mother of the devils" medieval Diablerets, this image is, moreover, was colored topographically, as the grave in Rabelais is always connected with a solid bottom. Further, there is also oath («pardieu») and the curse associated with solid bottom ("so I got syphilis"). Further, there are two metaphors for sexual intercourse: one borrowed from the riding («saccade»); another - saying (good craftsman knows how to use it in any material "). In both cases the decline and renewal in terms of the lower stratum of subjects of a different order (horseback riding, crafts), it also prepares our grotesque image.

All these elements create a specific voice arbitrary atmosphere, most of them directly related to the material bodily lower stratum, and they otelesnivayut and reduce the things that confuse the body with the world and it prepares the final transformation of the bell tower in the phallus .

Does this grotesque image of pure satire on the monastic debauchery, as claimed Schneegans?

We analyzed fragment is part of a fairly large scene with the pilgrims, swallowed by gargantuan, together with the salad, but then escaped safely. This episode really sharpened against the pilgrimage, and against the belief in the miraculous power of relics, avoid the disease (in this case the plague). But this particular and private satirical thrust is far from exhausts the meaning of the whole episode and did not determine all components of the scene images. At its center is a typical grotesque image ingestion of pilgrims, then no less than a typical image of the flooding of their urine and, finally, the travesty of the Psalms, ostensibly to predict all of these misadventures pilgrims. Travesty, this gives an interpretation in some way reduces the Psalms. All of these motifs and images have a wide universal significance, and it would be absurd to think that they are all mobilized only to mock parasitism of pilgrims and their faith in the rough relics - it would mean to shoot from guns on sparrows. The fight against pilgrimages and a gross superstition - it's completely official trend of the episode. In his speech to the pilgrims, Granguze openly and frankly expressed it at a high official language of a wise government. Here Rabelais stands straight as an official royal writer, expressing his day public views on the abuse of pilgrimage. It does not deny the faith, but only a rough superstition pilgrims [ annotated.: Criticism of superstition expressed in the spirit of moderate evangelism, which at the time when Rabelais wrote these lines seemed to be supported by royal authority. ] This is the official idea of the episode, expressed open. But the unofficial, popular-festive marketplace and the language of images of this episode says something quite different. Formidable material corporeal elements of these images unleashes and renews the whole world of medieval philosophy and system, with his faith, saints, relics, monasteries, false asceticism, fear of death, eschatology and prophecy. Pilgrims in this sour world - just petty and pathetic details that do not really noticing, swallowed with a salad and almost drowned in the urine. Material and bodily element is here a positive nature. And that material bodily images and exaggerated to epic proportions: the grandiose, like the bell tower, the nuns phallus, and the flow of urine Pantagruel and his all-consuming vast mouthful.

Therefore, the monastery bell tower, debunked and updated in the form of grandiose phallus, impregnates his shadow of a woman, least of all exaggerating here monastic depravity . It debunks the whole monastery, the very ground on which it stands, its a false ascetic ideal, its abstract and barren forever . Shadow of the bell tower - the shadow phallus, regenerating a new life. Absolutely nothing remains of the convent - remains a living person - a monk's brother Jean, a glutton and a drunkard, relentlessly sober and candid, powerful and heroic daring, full of inexhaustible energy and thirst for the new.

We should also emphasize that the image of the bell tower, fertilizing a woman like any other images, topographic: tending upwards , the sky tower turned into a phallus ( solid bottom ), like a shadow, it falls to the ground (topography low ) and impregnates a woman (again bottom ).

Image Panurgovyh walls also prepared context. "My friend! - Said Pantagruel. - Do you know what Agesilaus said when asked why the great lakedemonsky city is not enclosed by a wall? Pointing to its residents and citizens, experienced in military arts, strong and well armed, he exclaimed: "That the city walls!" By this he meant that the strongest wall - is the backbone of a warrior, and that cities do not have a reliable and strong bulwark, than valor of the inhabitants and citizens "(Book II , Ch. XV ). Already here in this ancient reminiscences of high style, is prepared by the grotesque otelesnenie walls . Prepares his metaphor: the most sturdy walls consist of bones of soldiers . The human body here becomes building material for walls, the boundary between the body and the world is weakened (though in high metaphorical sense). All this is prepared by the project Panurge. Here it is:

"According to my observations, the main female lures are cheaper stones. Here are some of them, and must build the wall: first, to place these lures all the rules of architectural symmetry - any more, those at the bottom, then, slightly slanted, middle, top to the smallest, and then larded it all spiky like buttons, such as on the large tower of Bourges, those hardened shpazhonkami that finds in the monastery codpiece. What the devil would destroy such walls? They are stronger than any metal, they are not afraid of any attacks. That devil take them! And the lightning that they never hit. And why? And because they are sacred and blessed "( ibid. ).

It is quite clear that the cheapness of the Parisian women are only incidental motive, and even in the motif that does not have the moral conviction. Leading the same motive - fertility, as the most powerful and strong force . It would be wrong to rationalize this image in this example, the spirit: the fertility of citizens, the population growth are very strong military defense of the city. This idea is not alien to this way, but in general such a narrow rationalization grotesque images is not allowed.

Image Panurgovyh walls and more complex and wider, and most importantly - he is ambivalent. It is a moment of topographical and denial. Panurgovy wall explodes and update and fortifications, and military prowess, and bullets, and even lightning, which is powerless here. Military power and strength were powerless over the material and bodily productive start.

Elsewhere in the novel (in the Third Book, ch. VIII ) have a long argument Panurge that the very first time and most important piece of military armor is a codpiece , which protects the genitals . "If you lose the head, then lost only its owner, and only if eggs are lost, it dies the whole human race" - he says here, and adds that the genitals were those stones with which Deucalion and Pyrrha restored the human race after the deluge . Here, the same image of solid productive start, as the best building stone.

This argument Panurge interesting in another respect: the utopian moment it is clearly marked. Panurge notes that the nature, wanting to keep all of the vegetable kingdom, well armed the seeds and buds of plants, covering them with husks, bony shell, shells, thorns, bark, prickly needles, while the man is born naked and productive bodies of its no protected. The place is inspired by Rabelais similar thoughts of Pliny (they opened VII of his book "Natural History"). But Pliny, in the spirit of his gloomy outlook comes to the pessimistic conclusions about the weaknesses of the human race. Conclusions same Panurge deeply optimistic. From the fact that people are born naked, and his genitals are not protected, he concludes that man is called for peace and peaceful domination over nature. Only the "Iron Age" made him to arm (and he began to adopt it, according to Biblical legend, with a codpiece, ie, with a fig leaf), but sooner or later people will come back to their peaceful purpose and fully disarm [ annotated.: A similar motif is at Erasmus («Adagia», III, 10, 1): it also begins with the fact that only a man is born naked, and makes this the conclusion that man is born "not for war, and for friendship." ] Here explicite, but in a slightly constricted sound form, disclosed that the implicite were made in the image of an invincible body wall , purging any military force.

A mere comparison of these arguments Panurge, to see how inconsequential to the whole image Panurgovyh walls is a satirical motive cheap Parisian women. Stones, which offers Panurge for construction of walls, are the very stones, with which Deucalion and Pyrrha again erected a destroyed building of the human race.

This is the real objective content of all the examples cited Schneegans. From the standpoint of the objective content, the similarity between them is more important than their differences. The latter, of course, there are, but not where they are looking for Schneegans. Artificial theory of the psychological mechanism of perception, on the one hand, and narrow aesthetic norms of the time - on the other hand, prevent Schneegans see the real essence of the phenomenon under study - the grotesque.

First of all, we have analyzed examples - and the scene with Zaika from the commedia dell'arte, and skarronovskaya travesty "Aeneid" and, finally, the images of Rabelais - to a greater or lesser degree linked to the medieval culture of folk humor and grotesque realism . The very nature of the construction of images and especially the concept of the body are the legacy of the comic folklore and grotesque realism. This special concept of the body more substantial all together and have in common with each other all the above example. In all three cases before us the same mode images of bodily life, as dramatically different from "classical" as well as from the naturalistic type of image the human body. This gives us the right to strike, all three events (ignoring, of course, their differences) under the general notion of the grotesque.

At the heart of grotesque imagery is a special presentation of a solid whole, and the borders of the whole. The boundaries between body and world and between individual bodies in grotesque place quite differently than in classical and naturalistic images.

Touch on one more example provided Schneegans: caricatures of Napoleon III, built on the dramatic exaggeration of the nose of the Emperor. Grotesque, according Schneegans, begins where the exaggeration is a fantastic size and human nose turns into a beast. We will not talk about these cartoons to the point: all this is - superficial caricatures, devoid of any genuine grotesque. But we are interested in the motive of the nose - a very common grotesque motifs and in the world literature, and in almost all languages (such expressions as "left holding the bag", "show the nose", etc.), and common human fund abuse and reduces gestures Schneegans correctly notes the grotesque nature of the transition to a beast is the nose. Indeed, mixing human and animal traits - one of the oldest types of the grotesque. But the most important of the nose into a grotesque images Schneegans not understand. Nose they always replaces phallus . The famous doctor XVI century, the younger contemporary of Rabelais, Laurent Joubert, the theory of laughter that we have already mentioned, wrote a book about people's prejudices in medicine [ annotated.: Joubert Laurant. Erreurs populaires et propos Vulgaires touchant la médicine et Le régime de Santé, Bordeaux, 1579 ] Here, it is (in the book V , ch. IV ) tells the story of an extremely widespread among the people the belief that the size and shape of the nose can judge the value and power of the productive body. This idea was expressed by the Friar to his monastery jargon. This is also the usual understanding of the nose in the literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance associated with the popular-festive system of images. Is called as the most famous example, the famous Shrovetide game Hans Sachs' Dance noses " ("Nasentanz").

Of all the features of human faces in a grotesque image of the body play a significant role only your mouth and nose , though the latter as Deputy Falla. Shape of head, ears and nose get the same grotesque character only when they go into animal shapes or forms of things . Eyes also does no role in the grotesque image of a person does not play. Eyes express a purely individual and, so to speak, self-contained inside a person's life, which for the grotesque is not important. Grotesque deals only with bulging eyes (for example, we have analyzed the grotesque scenes with stuttering and Harlequin), since he is interested in everything that comes out, sticks, and sticks out from the body , all that tends away from the body. In the grotesque special significance any shoots and branches , anything that keeps the body and connects it with other bodies or with extracorporeal world. In addition, the bulging eyes so interested in the grotesque, they suggest a purely bodily tension . But the most important in the face for the grotesque is the mouth . He dominates. The grotesque face is reduced, in essence, a gaping mouth - everything else is just the backdrop to this breath for this yawning abyss and the absorbing body .

Grotesque body , as we have stressed repeatedly - becoming the body . It never is not ready, not completed: it is always under construction, is created and self-builds and creates another body , in addition, the body is absorbing the world and self absorbed world (recall the grotesque image of the body in an episode of the birth of Gargantua and holiday slaughter). Therefore, the most significant role in the grotesque body are the parts of those places where it grows itself, beyond its own limits, conceives a new (second) body : the belly and the phallus . They have a leading role in a grotesque image of the body, they are the predominant positive exaggeration - hyperbole, and they may even become detached from the body, lead independent lives as they overshadow the rest of the body as secondary (to stand apart from the body may in part and nose ). Next in importance after the role of the stomach and penis is the grotesque body of his mouth , which is absorbed by the world, and then - back . After all, these convexity and holes are characterized by the fact that it is in them overcome the boundary between two bodies and between the body and the world , there is their interchange and vzaimoorientatsiya. Therefore, the main events in the life of the grotesque body, acts of physical drama - eating, drinking, bowel movements (and other emissions: sweating, blowing nose, sneezing), mating, pregnancy, birth, growth, old age, sickness, death, torn apart, dismembered into pieces absorption of another body - are committed on the boundaries of the body and the world , or at the boundaries of the old and the new body , in all these events corporeal drama beginning and end of life is inextricably intertwined with each other .

Thus, the artistic logic of the grotesque image ignores the closed, flat and desolate plane (surface) of the body and captures only the convexity - shoots, buds - and the holes, that is, only that lead outside the body, and that leads into the depths of the body [ annotated.: Incidentally, this grotesque logic applies to the images of nature and images of things, which also recorded depth (hole) and the convexity of ] mountains and the deep - that's a relief the grotesque body, or, at the architectural language - the towers and dungeons.

Of course, in a grotesque image may appear and any other members, organs and body parts (especially in the images of dismembered body) but they only play the role of extras in the grotesque drama of the body, emphasis on them, never falls (unless they do not replace any lead agency).

In fact, in a grotesque way, if you take it to the limit, not at individual body: because the image consists of dips and bumps that are already conceived by another body, this is - thoroughfare eternally renewed life, the inexhaustible vessel of death and conception.

Grotesque, as we said, ignores the blank surface, which encloses and delimits the body as a separate and complete effect. Therefore, the grotesque image shows not only external but also internal shape of the body: blood, guts, heart and other internal organs. Often, internal and external appearance are mixed into a single image.

We already talked about that grotesque images build in essence, dvuteloe body. In an infinite chain of physical life they fix those parts, where one unit set behind the other, where the life of one's body is born from the death of another - the old .

Finally, we note that the grotesque body is cosmic and universal: it highlights common to all space elements - earth, water, fire, air, and it is directly connected to the sun, the stars, in it - signs of the zodiac, it reflects the cosmic hierarchy; this body could blend in with the various phenomena of nature - mountains, rivers, seas, islands and continents, it can fill in themselves the whole world.

Grotesque mode of body image and physical life was dominated in the art and literary art for millennia. In terms of actual prevalence, he is dominant and now : the grotesque body shapes dominate not only the art of non-European peoples, but also in European folklore (especially the comic), and moreover, grotesque images of the body predominate in vneofitsialnoy voice of life of peoples , especially where body image related to the oaths and laughter ; general themes of battle and laughter , as we have said, almost exclusively grotesque bodily subject , body, appearing in all expressions of the informal and familiar speech - is a body-fertilizes fertilizing, give birth, gives birth, devouring- devoured, drinking, defecating, sick, dying , in all languages, there is an enormous number of expressions associated with these body parts like the genitals, back, stomach, mouth and nose - but at the same time, very little of such expressions, which appeared to other parts of the body such as hands, feet, face, eyes, etc. But even those relatively small numbers of expression, where these negrotesknye parts of the body and figure, are in the vast majority of cases, narrowed, practical in nature: they are related to the orientation in the near space, the definition of distance, size or with a score, and denied any enlargement of the symbolic and metaphorical power They also lack any significant expression (and therefore in the battlefield and laughter, they are not involved).

In particular, where people were laughing and swearing in familiar intercourse, their speech is replete with images of the grotesque body - the body copulating, defecating, overeat, it flooded the productive organs, stomach, feces, urine, disease, noses and mouths, dismembered body parts on. But where are the dam of speech rules, this flow of the grotesque body is still breaking out even in the literary speech noses , mouths and stomachs , especially when the speech is expressive nature - a cheerful, or abusive. The basis of universal stock familiarity and warlike gestures is also a distinctly grotesque image of the body.

In this boundless in space and time ocean grotesque images of the body, filling all languages, all the literature and a system of gestures, a small and limited island is a solid canon of art, literature and respectable voice of modern times. In ancient literature, the canon was never dominant. In the official literature of the European nations it has become completely dominant, in fact, only in the last four centuries.

We will give a brief description and a new, now the dominant canon, focusing less on the visual arts as in literature. Characterization of a new canon, we will build on the background of the grotesque concept, all the time fixing their differences.

For the new body is characteristic of the canon - with all its significant historical and genre variations - a completely finished, completed, strictly circumscribed, closed, displayed outside, unmixed and individually expressive body . Everything that sticks out, gets out of the body, all sorts of sharp bumps shoots and branches, that is all what the body goes beyond its borders and begets another body, is cut off, eliminated, locked, moderated. Also closed and all openings leading into the depths of the body. At the heart of the image is an individual and strictly delimited body weight, its massive and dull facade. Deaf surface, plain body , takes the leading role, as the border closed and undrainable with other bodies and with the world of individuality. All the signs of incompleteness, unprepared this body carefully removed, also removed all of its manifestations vnutritelesnoy life. Speech rules official and literary language defined by this canon, impose a ban on anything related to fertilization, pregnancy, childbirth, etc., that is exactly all that is associated with incomplete and unprepared body and with his pure vnutritelesnoy life. Between familiarity and formal, "decent" speech in this regard is held very sharp boundary.

Fifteenth century in France was in this respect, age is relatively very great voice of freedom. In the XVI century, the same speech rules are much stricter and the boundaries between familiarity and formal speeches are pretty sharp. This process is especially strong to the end of the century, when we finally emerged that the canon of propriety of speech, which became dominant in the XVII century. Against a sharp increase in speech norms and prohibitions in the late XVI century protested Montaigne (Essays, Bk. III , Sec. V ): "What is responsible to the people intercourse - are so important, so vital and so justified - that all, as one, do not dare talk about it without a blush on his face and not allow themselves to deal with this issue in a serious and respectable conversation? We are not afraid to say: kill , rob , betray - but this is a forbidden word gets stuck in our teeth. "

Such body parts like the genitals, butt, belly, nose and mouth, a new canon cease to play a leading role. Also, instead of generic values they are set to only the expressive nature that is expressed only individual life of the unit and limitation of the body. Abdomen , nose and mouth , of course, always remain in the body image, they can not hide - but in the individual and complete body they are either, as we have said, purely expressive function (in essence, only the mouth ), or the function of characterological and personalized. Neither of which is symbolically expanded the meaning of these organs in the individual body can not, of course, no question. If they are not understood characterological or expressively, they are mentioned only in banausic plan that is simple to explain the remark. In general we can say that the literary image of the body all that has characterological and expressive values, converted into a simple remark to bodily words and actions.

The image of the individual body of the new time sex life, eating, drinking and defecation dramatically changed its meaning: they moved to a private household and individual-psychological terms, where their value is a narrow and specific, and cut off from direct communication with society and with the cosmic whole . As such, the new meaning they can no longer carry the previous mirosozertsatelnyh functions.

In a new bodily canon leading role goes to the individual characterological and expressive parts of the body: the head, face, eyes, lips, to a system of muscles, to the individual position occupied by the body to the outside world. At the fore reasonable position and movement of the finished body ready as the external world in which boundaries between the body and the world did not weaken.

The body of a new canon - one body, no signs dvutelosti it does not remain: it dominates itself, speaks only for himself, all that happens to him, only applies to it, that is only of the individual and the closed body. Therefore, all the events taking place with him, acquire an unambiguous meaning : death here - just death, it never coincides with the birth, old age, divorced from his youth; blows are striking given body, and nothing helps to be born. All activities and events are interpreted in terms of one individual's life: they are closed between the limits of individual birth and death of the same body, and these limits - the absolute beginning and end, which can never come together within the same body.

In contrast, the grotesque body of death nothing substantial comes, because the death does not apply to a generic body, it is, in contrast, updates to new generations. The events of the grotesque body is always deployed on the borders of one or other of the body, as if the point of intersection of two bodies: one body gives her death, the other - his birth, but they are merged into one dvutelom (within) the image.

The body of the new Canon retained a faint glow dvutelosti only one of his motives: the motive of breastfeeding [ annotated.: we have given our above arguments from the conversations of Goethe with Eckermann on the painting by Correggio "weaning" and the image of a cow nursing a calf ("Cow "Myron). Goethe draws in these images is retained in them in a weaker degree dvutelost. ] But the images of the body - and the nursing mother and child - is strictly individualized and completed, the boundaries between them are perpetual. This is a completely new level of artistic perception of the interaction of bodies.

Finally, a new solid canon is completely alien to exaggeration. The image of the individual body for it is no ground. Here is admissible only to emphasize the purely expressive accentuation or characterological order. Impossible, of course, and detachment of individual organs to whole body and their independent existence.

These are the main line of rough solid canon of modern times, as they are mainly manifested in literature and speech norms [ annotated.: This is the classic representation of the body lie at the heart of the new rules of conduct in society. Among the requirements of good parenting is: do not put elbows on the table, walk, not protruding shoulder blades and swinging hips, remove the stomach, there are not champing not sniff, do not blow, keep your mouth closed, etc., ie every possible clogging, mark off the body and smooth out its projections. It is interesting to trace the struggle of grotesque and classical concepts of the body in the history of clothing and fashion. Even more interesting issue of combating these concepts in the history of dance. ]

Rabelais' novel completes a grotesque concept of the body, inherited from the folk culture of laughter, from the grotesque realism and familiarity of the verbal element. In all the episodes we have analyzed and selected images of the novel, we only saw the grotesque body. Through the entire novel is a powerful stream of grotesque bodily elements dismembered body parts on, isolated grotesque bodies (eg, Panurgovyh walls), guts and entrails, gaping mouths, devouring, swallowing, eating and drinking, acts of feces, urine, feces, death, birth Acts, infancy and old age, etc. Body blended with one another, with things (for example, in the form of Karemprenana) and with the world. Everywhere betrays a tendency to dvutelosti. Everywhere emphasize family time and space of the body.

The trend towards dvutelosti cash from more or less clarity in all we have analyzed the episodes. We give an example of its more external and crude expressions: "His (ie, Gargantua) badge was a gold plate weighing sixty eight marks, a plank was fastened to the enamel figurine depicting a man with two heads, turn to each other, with four arms , four legs and two bottoms, because, as Plato says in the Symposium, is human nature in its primordial essence of the mystical "(Book I , Ch. VIII ). We must stress that the motive of "androgyne" in this sense it was extremely popular in the time of Rabelais. In the field of visual arts will mention, as a parallel phenomenon, the figure of Leonardo da Vinci «Coitus», depicting the act in its vnutritelesnom aspect.

Rabelais, not only portrays the grotesque image of the body in all its essential points, but it gives the theory of the body at the family aspect. In this regard, a revealing already given us the argument Panurge. In another passage (Book III , Chap. XXVI ) he says: "And here I am on what they decided: from now on in all my stew every criminals sentenced to death by the court, be granted a day or two to steal the monkey, so that in the vas deferens He had nothing to portray the letter igrek. Such a precious thing must necessarily be employed in the business. You'll see from him and someone is born. Then he will die with a clear conscience, because instead of himself to leave the other person. "

In a famous argument Panurge on debtors and creditors, representing a perfect utopian world where everything is given and every one of them get a loan, Panurge is also developing the theory of descent of the body:

"This lend, be extended and holding the world is so good that, completing his food, he begins to think about how to lend to those who are not yet born, and with the help of such loans, bude possible, to immortalize themselves and multiply in such exactly the same beings, that is, in children. To this end, every body worships it necessary to highlight some of the most valuable food and send it down, and then nature has already prepared a suitable receptacle and receivers through which this food is devious and winding paths down to the genitals, take the proper form, and both men and women finds a suitable place for the preservation and extension of the human race. And all this is accomplished through mutual loans and debts - hence the fact and went expression: the marriage debt "(Book III , Chap. IV ).

In the same "Third Book" is the argument about "why the couple are exempt from the obligation to go to war." It develops the same theme generic body. This is generally one of the leading themes of all the theoretical arguments in the Third Book.

We will see in the next chapter, that the same generic theme of the body, but in the historical aspect, as the theme of immortality and the growth of human culture develops in a famous letter of Gargantua to Pantagruel. Subject relative seed of immortality is given here in close connection with the theme of the historical progress of mankind . The human race is not just updated with each new generation, but every time he rises to a new higher stage of historical development . The same theme, as we shall see, the sounds and the glorification of "pantagryuelona.

Thus, the theme of descent of the body merges with the theme of Rabelais and a living historical sense of immortality of the people . We have seen that it is a living experience of people of their collective historical immortality is the core of the whole system of popular-festive image . Grotesque conception of the body is so inseparably part of that system. Therefore, in the images of Rabelais' grotesque body is intertwined not only with space but also with the socio-utopian and historical motifs and, above all with the motive of changing times and the historic renovation of culture.

*

In all the episodes we have analyzed and images of the novel featured predominantly solid bottom in the narrow sense of the word. But in the grotesque images of playing a leading role as the gaping mouth . And it is bound, of course, with topographical bodily lower stratum: it is - open gate leading into the bottom, in the bodily grave.

Gaping mouth - one of the central nodal obrnarodno-festive system. Not for nothing dramatic exaggeration of the mouth-core traditional reception of external design appearance of the comic: the comic masks, all sorts of "funny monsters" carnival (for example, "Mashkruta" Lyons Carnival), the devils in the Diablerets, Lucifer himself.

It is understandable that the gaping mouth, throat, teeth, absorption, ingestion are essential in the Rabelaisian system images.

Especially important, directly leading role played by the gaping mouth of the chronologically first book of the novel - in "Pantagruel." We can assume that the hero of this book is just a human mouth gaping.

Neither the name nor the kernel image was not created Pantagruel Rabelais. Same name existed before him and in the literature, as the name of one of the devils in Diablerets and in the language as the common noun (name) throat disease - loss of voice as a result of booze disease (drunks). Thus, the common noun (name of disease) is associated with a mouth to mouth with a drink, a disease that is a very complex characteristic grotesque. With the same, but with a broader and more complex space-related and the image of Pantagruel in Diablerets.

We have already said that Diablerets, who formed part of the mystery, the character of their images belong to the people's festive polygon shapes. And the images of the body they were pronounced grotesque character. In this grotesque bodily atmosphere Diablerets and appears first image Pantagruel.

First of all, we find this image in the mystery of the second half of XV century - "The Mysteries of Acts" Simon Fucking. Here in Diablerets, Proserpine - "mother of the devils" - represents the four devils Lucifer (petits dyables). Each of them is the embodiment of one of the four elements - earth, water, air and fire. Posing as Lucifer, each imp represents the activity in the corresponding element. Obtained a broad picture of life in space elements. One of the four devils and bears the name of Pantagruel. It embodies the elements of water . "It's easier, I flew a bird of prey of the Seas" - he says about himself. Obviously, here he is impregnated with sea salt , and therefore receive special treatment to salt and a wake up thirsty . In the same mystery of Lucifer says to Pantagruel, that "the night he was waiting for other things, engaged in that throwing salt into the throat of drunkards. "

In the same role appears hell Pantagruel and another mystery, namely the "Mystery of St. Louis." Here he delivers a monologue in which recounts how he was busy all night with young people, propirovavshimi all evening: he "poured them softly with careful movements, not to wake up, the salt in your mouth. Honestly, wake up, they felt thirsty and a half times greater than before! ".

We see here that the image of Pantagruel as misteriynogo trait associated with one party with the cosmic elements (with the element of water and sea salt ) and on the other hand - with grotesque images of the body (open mouth, thirst, alcoholism ), and finally, with purely carnivalesque gesture nasypaniya salt in the gaping mouth . All of these points which form the basis of the image Pantagruel, deeply related to one another. This is the traditional core of the image is fully preserved, and Rabelais.

Must be emphasized that Pantagruel was conceived and written by Rabelais, during an unprecedented heat and drought in 1532. People then actually went with gaping mouths. Abel Lefranc rightly believes that the name dyavolenka Pantagruel and his treacherous role arouse thirst repeatedly commemorated in an environment of Rabelais and caused a lot of humorous comments or curses . Heat and drought have made this way is particularly popular. It is quite possible that part of why Rabelais and used it for his novel.

The first chapter immediately introduces the grotesque image of the body with all its characteristic features. It tells the story of the origin of kinds of giants, to which he belonged Pantagruel. After the murder of Abel's blood-soaked soil was exceptionally fertile. Here is the beginning (second paragraph) of the first book:

"I must let you know that at the beginning of the world (I keep my story from a distance - if you count in the way of the ancient Druids, this was more than forty times forty nights ago), shortly after Abel fell into the hand of his brother Cain, the earth, having absorbed a righteous blood, bore all sorts of fruit, which only grow in her womb, and especially so many dogwood that memorable this year was called the year a large dogwood, for three of its berries were a Boissy (Book II , ch. I ).

This is the first solid theme of this chapter. His grotesque carnival character is obvious, the first death (of the Biblical legend, the death of Abel was reckoned the death on the ground) updated the fertility of the soil , fertilized it . Here - already familiar combination of murder and childbirth , but in outer aspect of the world's fertility . Death, corpse, blood, like a seed buried in the ground, rises from the earth new life - is one of the oldest and most widespread motives. Another variation of it: death obsemenyaet Mother Earth and forces her to give birth again . This variation often comes over the erotic images (of course not in the narrow and specific sense of the word). Rabelais says in another place (Book III , Chap. XLVIII ): "Sweet, the coveted kiss of our great nurse - the land, which is called in our funeral." The image of the burial , as the latter 's embrace of mother earth, obviously inspired by Pliny, which detail develops the theme of motherhood and the death-land burial as a return to her bosom ("Natural History", II , 63). But this ancient image of death-renewal, in all its variations and shades of Rabelais is not inclined to take in the grand style of ancient mysteries, and the carnival, the people's festive spirit, as cheerful and sober confidence in the relative historical immortality of the people and themselves in the people.

Thus, the motif of death, renewal, fertility was the first motive of Rabelais, who discovered his immortal novel . We emphasize this.

Especially fertile land was "on the dogwood" (EN mesl). But people who ate the dogwoods were beginning to grow abnormally: any one part of the body grew to monstrous proportions. And Rabelais typically deploys several grotesque images of individual monstrously exaggerated limbs, the rest of the sheath completely human. Given, in fact, painting dismembered body parts, but only parts of these shows in the grand scale. First of all, people are portrayed with monstrous bellies (typical grotesque exaggeration) to this fun race, pot-bellied belong to the holy Pansar and Fat Tuesday. Holy Pansar (ie St. Paunch) - comic name of the saint, which is usually associated with the carnival. Characteristically, the pot-bellied assigned to the race itself and a carnival. Then Rabelais depicts the incredible value of humps and monstrous noses , extremely long legs , huge ears . Details are shown those who have grown extremely long phallus (they can wrap it around your body, as are six times), as well as those who have grown testicles. As a result, we face a grand image of the grotesque body, while a series of carnival figures (in fact the basis for design of these figures are placed usually the same grotesque motifs).

Directly in front of the gallery of grotesque limbs Rabelais depicts cosmic upheavals in the sky of the same carnival nature: for example, "Sheaf" from the constellation of the "Virgin" has moved into the constellation of the Scales. But these space images Rabelais directly intertwined with bodily grotesque: stellar perturbations were so difficult to understand that "astrologers broken off about them all the teeth, and teeth, then they must assume, were oh what a long, if they could so far get! ". Grotesque image long before the stars of the teeth was born as a result of the metaphor - "chew" difficult astrological question

Rabelais then gives a long list of giants, the ancestors of Pantagruel. It is called many names biblical, ancient, medieval and fictional giants. Rabelais was well acquainted with the vast material images and legends of giants (the ancient giants were, however, already grouped scholar Raviziusom Textor, a book which Rabelais used). Images of giants and legends about them are closely related to the concept of the grotesque body. We have already noted the enormous role of giants in ancient satyr drama (which was precisely the drama of the body ). Most of the local legends about giants connects the various phenomena of nature and the terrain (mountains, rivers, rocks, islands) with a body giant and its individual organs. The body of a giant, thus not bounded away from the world of natural phenomena, the geographical terrain. We have noted also that the Giants belonged to the compulsory repertoire of popular-festive masquerade.

This is the content of the first chapter. Grotesque images of bodies intertwined here with cosmic phenomena. Opens the entire series of images of the novel motif of death, renewal, fertility .

The same motif of the opening and the second chapter: "In the age of Gargantua пятисотдвадцатичетырехлетнем clamping son Pantagruel with his wife Badbek, daughter of King amavrotov living in Utopia. Badbek died in childbirth, as the child was unusually big and heavy and could be born only at the cost of the mother's life. "

It is already known to us by the Roman carnival motif combination of murder and confinement. Murder committed here he is born by an act of birth.

Birth and death - opened, mouth and womb of the earth . Later on stage by the gaping mouth of humans and animals.

Represented by a terrible drought in the birth of Pantagruel: "... the animals were lying dead on the fields, with gaping mouths. For people pitiful sight. They wandered around, tongue hanging out, like greyhounds after a six-hour hunt; others were thrown into wells, some in search of shade climbed in the belly of a cow ... in the church ... you can always see a few dozen casualties thirst, surrounding the one who handed out water, and opened their mouths ... Blessed was he who had then a cold cellar with a fair supply of water! "

It should be noted that the "well", "cow's belly" and "cellar" as the images are equivalent to the "gaping mouth." After all, his mouth in a grotesque topography corresponds belly and «uterus»; so close to an erotic way «trou», ie the "hole", the entrance to the underworld is depicted as open; fall of Satan ("hell mouth"). Well - a well-known folk images are born of the womb, similar in character and has a cellar, but it is stronger than the moment of death-absorption. Thus, even the land here and the holes in it receive additional grotesque bodily significance. This is prepared by further involvement of the land and sea into a solid number .

Rabelais concerns on the ancient myth of Phaeton, who, driving the chariot of the sun, too close to the ground and almost burned her land by the so sweaty that the sweat from her sea became salt (according to Plutarch, this explanation marine salinity gave Empedocles). Rabelais translates these grotesque physical representations of mythical high plan plan cheerful folk-festive cuts: "... in one word, the earth from the terrible heat is then covered with an incredibly abundant and saturate them to sea, that's why the sea and become salty, because every pot solon. You're at it easily can be sure it is worth to you only try to either your own sweat, or sweat venerikov, which doctors forced to sweat - there is no difference. "

The whole complex of images of this small fragment is extremely characteristic: it is cosmic (after all, is sweating the land here and then saturates the Sea), the leading character is played by a typically grotesque image of sweating (sweating is similar to other secretions, sweat - urine), it further includes an image of the disease - syphilis Diseases, "fun" and related bodily lower stratum , in it, finally, the image is associated with sweat edoyu (invited to try the pot to taste) - is weakened by the degree skatofagii characteristic of the grotesque medical (already in Aristophanes). In this passage implicite contained and traditional kernel-image Pantagruel dyavolenka associated with the marine element and awakens desire. At the same time, the hero of the passage is land : in the first chapter of it, filled with the blood of Abel, was fertile and gave birth here, in the second chapter, she is sweating and thirsty .

Next Rabelais gives a bold parody travesty procession and wonder. During molebctviya organized by the church, believers, asking God for rain, suddenly saw how out of the ground are the big drops of sweat , like a heavily sweating man. People thought this dew, sent down by God for their prayer. But they were wrong, because when it started the procession and everyone wanted to drink plenty of dew, it turned out that this brine and saltier, and that he is worse than sea water. Thus, the miracle of pious hopes deceived believers. And here the material and corporeal element acts in its role of purging.

Just in this day and hour, and was born Pantagruel. And therefore gave him the name "Pantagruel," which means, according to the burlesque etymology Rabelais - vsezhazhduyuschy.

Most birth of the hero is in the same grotesque situation: from razverzshegosya mother's womb , first leaves a train loaded with salt which awakens the thirst snacks , and only then appears and he Pantagruel, "a shaggy as a bear."

The third chapter develops an ambivalent theme of death-birth : Gargantua did not know whether to cry about the death of his wife or laugh for joy that a son was born, and then he laughs, "like a calf" (a young infant), then roared "like a cow" give birth, dying ).

The fourth chapter portrayed the early exploits of Pantagruel, committed by him in the cradle, they are all expressed in devouring and swallowing . At every meal, he sucked the milk of four thousand, six hundred cows. Gruel he was fed in a huge bell. 's teeth he had and then so strong and powerful that he chewed off by them from a decent chunk of the old tub. One morning, want to suck on one of the cows, he freed one hand, which was tied to the crib, grabbed the cow's legs and otel her udder and polzhivota together with the liver and kidneys . He would have devoured it all, but people came running and took the cow from Pantagruel, but they could not deprive him of cow's leg, she remained in his hands, and he swallowed it like a sausage. One day he approached the cradle handmade bear Gargantua, Pantagruel grabbed it, ripped apart and swallowed like a chicken. He was so strong that it had to be chained to the crib, but one with a cradle on his back he walked into the room where Gargantua gave a huge feast, because his hands were tied, he stuck out his tongue and began to take off the table language.

All of these feats, as we see associated with sucking, devouring, swallowing, torn apart . We see here a gaping mouth, protruding tongue, teeth, throat, udder, belly.

Will not trace the further development of interest to us images of the heads. Touch on only the most striking examples.

In the episode with limousin Pantagruel student grabbed him by the throat , causing him a few years "died the death of Roland," that is, from thirst (traditional kernel-image Pantagruel dyavolenka).

Chapter XIV is a distinctive image. During the banquet , arranged at the end of the process and Lizhizada Peyvino, drunk Panurge says: "Hey, buddy! If I'd just as quickly he could go up as down wine to my womb, I would too, along with Empedocles ascended above the Moon's sphere! However, what the hell? Does not take an expert in: the wine is superb, prevkusnoe, and the more I drink it, the more I thirst. One can see the shadow of Monsignor Pantagruel as easily makes you thirsty, as the moon - cold " (Book II , Chap. XIV ). We emphasize here topographical point: the higher realms of heaven and the bottom of the stomach. Here again we see the traditional core of the image Pantagruel - awakening of thirst. But here in this role serves his shadow (note the analogy with the fruit-bearing shade the monastery bell tower). Grotesque character is an ancient and traditional idea of the influence of the moon (celestial body) on a cold (illness).

At the same banquet Panurge tells the familiar story that it was almost like roasted roast in Turkey, as he roasted on a spit of a Turk, as it was almost torn to pieces on the side of the dog , he got rid of "toothache" ( ie, from the pain of the teeth of dogs), throwing the dogs a fat, which he was wrapped. There is also the image of the fire , slept all the Turkish city, and the image of healing in the fire : roasting on a spit healed by Panurge lumbago; this purely carnivalesque episode ends with a glorification of a spit and roasts.

The traditional core of the image Pantagruel again revived in the episode with Taumastom. After the first meeting with Pantagruel Taumast felt so thirsty that night was forced to drink wine, and rinse the throat with water. At the time of the dispute, when the audience was clapping, Pantagruel shouted at her: "At these words the congregation froze and more so did not dare to cough like every one of them had swallowed fifteen pounds of feathers, and although he managed to cry out only once, but to drink all wanted desperately, and the thirst for all stuck out his tongue at polfuta, like Pantagruel poured them into the mouth of salt "(Book II , Chap. XVIII ).

In an already familiar to us burning episode of knights and banquet also featured the gaping mouth of Pantagruel. Taken captive by the knight "was not quite sure what Pantagruel not swallow it whole, and precisely: sip at Pantagruel was so broad that it would swallow him as easily as you - pellet, and in his mouth he took captive would be no more space than a grain of millet in the mouth of a donkey "(Book II , Chap. XXV ).

In the image of the war with King Anarchus bitterly opposed by all leading images of the first book: the gaping mouth, pharynx, salt, thirst, urine (instead of sweat), etc. These images run through all the episodes of the war. Pantagruel sends King Anarchus with the captive knight box with spurges and seeds of red pepper to excite his lust. "But as soon as the king had swallowed a spoon in the same moment his throat as if scorched by fire: the tongue formed an abscess, but the language was peeling, and no public funds nor gave him, nothing helped, he only drank without end, and a little shall lead glass from his lips - the language he again lit. I had to constantly pour into his throat wine through a funnel. " Following the king began to drink and his generals. "And for them, and suck all the army, get drunk and cut. In short, drunk to the point that in the middle of the camp fell to sleep like a pig "(Book II , ch. XXVIII ). At the same time, Pantagruel and his companions in his own way was prepared by the battle. He brought with him two hundred thirty-seven casks of wine, and tied to his belt a vat of salt . Then they drink all this great quantity of wine, in addition, Pantagruel takes a diuretic drug . Then they set fire to the camp of the King of anarchy, in which all still continue to sleep after drinking. Subsequent development of the images are so characteristic that we present here in full the relevant passage:

"In the meantime Pantagruel began to pour salt in the tub, as well as enemies slept with open and gaping mouths, he scored them with salt throats, why the poor zaperhali like sheep, and yelled:

- Oh, Pantagruel, because you all have inside us is on fire!

Pantagruel then suddenly wanted to moisten slightly camping, because it had action Panurgovo drug, and he was so abundantly watered and watered the enemy's camp, had been there for the people one and all drowned - it was a real flood, spread to ten miles in circumference, and History says that if there was still a huge mare Pantagryueleva father and the same naprudila, the flood would have been even worse than when Deucalion, because every time she mochilas appeared more rivers Rhone and Danube.

Seeing this, coming from the city said:

- They died a cruel death. See how much blood!

But they were wrong - in the light of burning tents and the pale moonlight , they took urine Pantagruel for blood enemies.

Enemies just awakened and saw the fire on the one hand, and with another flood mochetop not know what to say and what to think. Some said that come the end of the world and the Last Judgement , and that now all burned up, others - that they are persecuted Neptune, Proteus, Triton and other sea gods, and that it is in fact salt water "(Book II , Chap. XVIII ).

We see here how to return all the main images of the first chapters of the book, only salt water is not sweat, urine, and allocates it does not land, and Pantagruel, but he, like a giant cosmic significance gets here. The traditional core of the image Pantagruel are widely deployed and giperbolizovano: an army of gaping mouths, a vat of salt, pour into these mouths, water element and sea deities, the flood of salty urine . Typical images of the game: urine - blood - seawater . All these images are added here in the now space catastrophe, the destruction of the world in fire and flood.

Medieval eschatology is reduced and updated in the images of the absolute of the lower stratum. Here is a carnival fire, renewing the world . Let's remember the "feast of fire" in Goethe description of the Roman carnival, with its "Death to you!". Let us also remember the carnival image of world catastrophe in the prophetic puzzle ", streams of water which fills all were there then , and the world a fire was cheerful fire hearth . In this episode erased all boundaries between bodies and things, there is also erased the boundaries between war and the feast: a feast, wine, salt, and an awakening desire for becoming the primary means of warfare. Blood is replaced with abundant flow of urine after excessive drinking.

Do not forget that the urine (and feces) - a cheerful matter , and simultaneously reduces ulegchayuschaya that turns fear into laughter . If Cal is like a cross between the body and the earth (it - laughter connection between the earth and the body), the urine - a cross between the body and the sea . Therefore misteriyny features Pantagruel, the embodiment of salty sea disaster , it is Rabelais to some extent, the embodiment of fun elements of urine (urine it, as we shall see later, and has special healing properties). Feces and urine otelesnivayut matter, the world space element , making them than something intimate, close and body-friendly (after all, is matter and elements generated and allocated by the body). Urine and feces make cosmic horror in carnival fun monster.

Must take into account the role of an ambitious space of fear - fear of the immensely large and immensely powerful: in front of a starry sky, the masses of material in front of mountains, sea front, and the fear of cosmic upheavals and natural disasters - in the ancient myths, philosophies, systems, images of themselves and related languages with them ways of thinking. some dark memories of cosmic upheavals of the past and a vague fear of the upcoming cosmic shocks inherent in the very foundation of human thought, word and image . This cosmic fear, basically not a mystic in the strict sense (after all, is the fear of the material in front of a large and material force majeure), used by all religious systems in order to suppress the man and his consciousness. But even in the earliest images of folk art finds its expression and control of that space of fear, struggle with memory and anticipation of cosmic shocks and death . In popular imagery, reflecting the struggle, and to forge a truly human consciousness fearless [ annotated.: The images that express the struggle, often interwoven with images that reflect a parallel struggle in the individual body with the memory of a painful birth and the anticipation of agony. Space fear deeper and more substantial, he breeds like, and in the generic body of mankind, so he got into the very foundations of language, images and thoughts. This cosmic fear a significant and strong individual bodily fear of death, although their voices were sometimes mixed in the images of folklore and in particular the images of literature. This cosmic fear - the legacy of ancient human powerlessness before the forces of nature. Popular culture was alien to this fear and overcome it with laughter, comic otelesnivaniem nature and the cosmos, because at the heart of this culture has always been unwaveringly confident in the strength and the final victory of man. The official culture is often used, and even, so to speak, cultivated this fear in order to belittle and oppression of man. ] This struggle with the cosmic terror in all its forms and manifestations is not based on abstract of hope, not an eternal spirit, and on top of the same material in the man himself . People like osvoyal cosmic elements (earth, water, air, fire), finding and keenly conscious of them himself, in his own body, he felt the cosmos in itself .

This exploration of space elements in the elements of the body is particularly acute and deliberately carried out during the Renaissance. Its theoretical expression is found in the idea of the microcosm that is used by Rabelais and in the above argument, we Panurge (about debtors and creditors). These phenomena of Renaissance philosophy, we'll come back. Here it is important to emphasize that osvoyali and feels the material cosmos, with its elements in a purely material also acts and departures of the body: in food, in the faeces, in acts of sexual intercourse , it is they find in themselves and to probe as to the inside of his body and land, sea and air, and fire, and generally the entire world of matter in all its manifestations and this osvoyali it. That images of solid bottom had mainly microcosmic significance .

In the field of figurative art space fear (and all fear) is overcome with laughter . Therefore, feces and urine , both funny and a body-clear matter , play a role here. That's why they appear here in the hyperbolic quantities and on a cosmic scale. Cosmic catastrophe is illustrated by images of the lower stratum is reduced, humanized, and transformed into a funny monster . Space fear defeated laugh.

Go back to the episode of the war with anarchy. We give a detailed picture of the giant Pantagruel combative ghoul. It continues to play the same images. Ghoul approached Pantagruel with gaping jaws (la gueule ouverte). Pantagruel "sprinkled on Ghoul eighteen-plus barrels and one barrel of salt, and salt nabilas Ghoul in the mouth of the larynx in the nose and eyes. " In the ensuing battle Pantagruel struck Ghoul in the groin and shed the remaining wine, "at the sight of whose ghoul concluded that Pantagruel pierced his bladder, because the spilled wine ghoul took for his own urine."

In the next chapter episode Epistemon resurrection and his story about visiting the underworld kingdom. If we remember that the grave in bodily topography depicted in the images of the solid bottom or in the images of gaping jaws of Lucifer, and that death is swallowing or return to the bosom of the earth , it becomes clear that we remain in the circle of the same images gaping mouth or razverzshegosya womb . The episode visits the underworld, we will analyze in detail in the next chapter.

Completes the entire episode fight with King Anarchus two images purely carnival type.

The first image - the carnival-utopian "feast for the whole world": the winners arrived in the country amorotov, everywhere a sign of joy were lit fires, and the streets are arranged beautiful round table with all sorts of foods. It seemed that once again fallen on times of Saturn - a was arranged a banquet. " The second image - Carnival dethroning King Anarchus , which we have already discussed elsewhere. Thus ends the war carnival feast and dethronement.

The next chapter describes how during a heavy downpour Pantagruel covers his "tongue hanging out" a whole army. Then describes the journey of the author (Alcofribas) in the mouth Pantagruel. Once inside the gaping mouth of his hero, Alcofribas found in it a whole unknown world : extensive grasslands, forests, fortified cities. In his mouth was more than twenty-five kingdoms. Inhabitants of the mouth Pantagruel, are convinced that their world is more ancient than the earth. Alcofribas lived at the mouth of his hero six months, fed it to those that passed through the mouth of Pantagruel, and defecate in his throat .

This episode was inspired by Lucian ("true stories"), but it perfectly completes the entire expanded our range of images gaping mouth. In the mouth in the end it turns the whole world, a sort of nether mouth. As the grave in a vision Epistemon, this oral world organized to some extent as "the world inside out: here, for example, do not pay for the work, and for sleeping.

In the episode with a more "ancient than the earth, world, located in the mouth Pantagruel, disclosed the idea of relativity of space and time estimates, but in the comic grotesque aspect.

Chapter XXXIII told about illness and healing Pantagruel. Blockage of the stomach, he fell ill. During the illness of its abundant hot urine formed in several places of France and Italy, hot springs possessing curative power . Pantagruel here again appears as the embodiment of gay body-space elements of urine.

In an episode of illness is portrayed on the descent people in the stomach Pantagruel to clean it. These men, armed with picks, shovels and baskets, include the big brass balls, which Pantagruel swallowed (the image of swallowing), as a pill. Once inside the stomach, people go out of balls and make your cleaning job. As in the previous chapter 's mouth , because there stomach is depicted in the grand, almost cosmic scale.

Finally, in the final - final - chapter contains grotesque images of the body. Here's a plan for subsequent parts of the novel. Among the alleged episodes planned, and the defeat of Pantagruel underworld , where he throws Proserpina into the fire, and Lucifer himself knocks four teeth and break the horn. Further, the planned trip Pantagruel to the moon in order to ascertain whether three-quarters of the moon at the time of injury are in the minds of women.

So from beginning to end throughout the first (chronologically) of the book of the novel takes place as the leitmotif of this book, the image of gaping mouth, throat, teeth and tongue. This gaping mouth belongs to a traditional native kernel image misteriynogo feature Pantagruel.

The image of the gaping mouth is organically combined with images of swallowing and devouring the one hand, and with images of the abdomen, the belly, birth - the other side. At the same time for him gravitate banquet images, as well as images of death, destruction and hell. Finally, with his mouth open and connected the other highlight is the traditional way of Pantagruel - a thirst, water element, wine, urine.

Thus, all the leading bodies and places and all main events of life the grotesque body are deployed and are pictured around a central image - open mouth.

The image of the gaping mouth - the most vivid expression of an open, not closed body. This is - wide-open gate into the depths of the body . Openness and depth of the body is further enhanced by the fact that inside the mouth is a populated world, but in the depths of the stomach down people like in underground mines. Expression of the same body of openness is the image of razverzshegosya bosom of mother Pantagruel, the fertile womb of the earth, drinking the blood of Abel, the underworld, etc. These physical depth of fertile: they die old and new are born with excess, the entire first book is literally filled with images of the productive forces of fertility , abundance. Next to this body are constantly open and codpiece appear phallus (as a substitute phallus). Thus, the grotesque body is deprived of a facade, devoid of hollow closed surface is devoid of well and expressive appearance: the body is - or the fertile depths of bodily or productive conceiving convexity. This is the body absorbs and produces, takes and gives.

Constructed from the depths of fruitful and productive convex body has never clearly bounded away from the world: it goes into it, mixes and merges with him, in him (as in the mouth Pantagruel) lurk new unknown worlds. The body takes the cosmic scale, and space otelesnivaetsya. cosmic elements are transformed into jolly bodily elements of growing, producing and winning body.

"Pantagruel" was conceived and written during the natural disasters that struck France in 1532. These disasters were not, however, particularly dramatic and catastrophic, but nevertheless they were sufficiently strong and palpable, to hit the consciousness of contemporaries and revive it cosmic fears and eschatological view .

"Pantagruel" was pretty much fun at a remark aroused by these natural disasters cosmic terror and religious and eschatological mood. Before us again a wonderful example of Renaissance journalism at People's areal basis. This is - fighting response to topical events and topical thoughts and sentiments of the historical moment.

In 1532 a severe and prolonged heat and drought that lasted from spring to November, that is six months. This drought threatening crops and especially vineyards. Church suit in connection with the drought are numerous Rogation and religious processions, parody travesty which we find in the beginning of the novel. In the autumn of that year in several places of France an outbreak of plague, which lasted well into the next year. At this plague of "Pantagruel" There is also an allusion, she explains malign fumes from the stomach of a hero who suffered from indigestion.

Natural disasters and epidemics of plague, as we have said, awakened in those years, as it was in the XIV century, the ancient cosmic fear and the related system of eschatological imagery and mystical ideas. But the same phenomenon, as it does all sorts of catastrophes, usually evoke historical criticism and the desire for a free review of all dogmatic positions and evaluations (for example, Boccaccio and Lenglend in XIV century). Something similar, albeit in a weaker degree, was in the days when we created the "Pantagruel." For Rabelais, it served as a starting point for his book. It is possible that the image of imp Pantagruel , the causative agent of thirst, and the very tone of this image emerged from the freestyle element of the speech area and familiarity table talk , where the image was a direct target gay curses at the world and the nature and character voluntary travesties on eschatology, fishing, the worldwide disaster, etc. But around this image of Rabelais has concentrated an immense millennia is composed , the material culture of folk humor , reflects the struggle of cosmic awe and eschatology , created the image of gay material and solid, ever-growing and ever-renewing space.

The first book of the most novel is cosmic. The following books are currently weakened and on the foreground themes of historical and socio-political order. But overcoming the fear of cosmic eschatology and remained until the end of the novel one of its leading themes.

In developing this theme the grotesque body has an enormous role. This is a popular , growing and ever-triumphant body feels in space, as in his own house . It - flesh and blood of the cosmos, there are the same cosmic elements and forces , but they are there better organized; body - the last and best floor space , it's - the leading space power , space, with all its elements are not afraid of him. Not afraid of him, and death: the death of an individual - only a moment of triumphant life of the people and of humanity, the time - needed to update and improve them.

Proceed to consider some sources of the grotesque body. Grotesque conception of the body lived in the images of the language itself, especially in the forms of familiar verbal communication; grotesque concept was the basis of all abusive, purging, teasing and amusing forms of gestural Fund (showing of FICO, nose, backside, spitting, a wealth of obscene gestures), this concept of body finally gets many forms and types of folklore. Images of the grotesque body were scattered everywhere, they were understandable, common and familiar to all contemporaries of Rabelais. Those groups of sources, we are here we touch, are the only individual characteristic expressions of the dominant and pervasive concept of the body are directly related to the topic of Rabelais' novel.

First take on the legends of giants and giants. The image of a giant in its very essence is a grotesque image of the body. But, of course, the grotesque nature of the images of giants can be developed to a greater or lesser degree.

In the romances, are extremely common in the era of Rabelais, the images of giants - they are here quite often - almost completely lost their grotesque features. In these images in most cases only show exaggerated physical strength and devotion to his suzerain-winner.

In Italian iroi-comic tradition - in Pulci (Morganti) and especially in Folengo (Frakassus) - the images of giants, translated from the courtly to plan a comic come to life grotesque features. The Italian tradition of comic giants was well known to Rabelais and must be considered as one of the sources of its grotesque bodily imagery.

But the direct and immediate source of Rabelais was well known, popular book "The Great Chronicle of Gargantua (1532). Anonymous work is not without some elements of burlesque travesty romances Arthurian cycle, but it is not in the slightest degree is not, of course, literary parody in later terms. The image of the giants is here a distinctly grotesque bodily nature. The source of this book was an oral folk legend about the giant Gargantua. This legend existed in oral tradition before the advent of the "Great Chronicle" and continues to live in the same oral tradition to the present day, and not only in France but also in England. Different versions of the legend recorded in the XIX century, are collected in P. Sébillot , Gargantua dans les Traditions populaires, Paris, 1883. berrishonskie Modern legends about the giants Gargantua and others collected in the book Jean Baffier , Nos Géants d'autrefois. Récits berrichons, Paris, 1920. The image of Gargantua, even in this late oral tradition is quite grotesque bodily nature. In the foreground is a tremendous appetite for giant, and then the other grotesque administration body is still alive in France the expression: "Quel Gargantua", which means "a glutton!".

All the legends of giants are closely related to topography, wherever it exists one or another legend: the legend always finds a vivid visible support in the local relief , she finds a dismembered , scattered or crushed body giant in nature. And still more in different places of France has a huge amount of rocks, stones, megalithic monuments, dolmenov, menhirs, etc., associated with the name of Gargantua: all this - the different parts of his body and various objects of his everyday life. We find such names: "finger Gargantua," "tooth Gargantua", "spoon Gargantua, Gargantua the boiler," "bowl Gargantua, Gargantua the chair", "stick Gargantua, etc. Here, in fact - Rabelaisian complex Members dismembered body of a giant, kitchen utensils and household items . In the days of Rabelais this stone world of things and dismembered body giant was, of course, even richer.

Scattered throughout France dismembered body parts of the giants and their utensils have exclusive grotesque clarity , and therefore could not have known effects on the images of Rabelais. For example, in "Pantagruel" refers to a huge bowl, which was brewed for the hero pulp, the cup of this, adds the author, can be seen now in Bourges. Currently Bourget no such exists, but the extant evidence of XIV century, that there really existed a huge stone in the shape of the basin, called «Scutella gigantis», that is "a giant cup; it once a year, sales of wine poured wine for the poor. Rabelais, therefore, took this image of reality [ annotated.: Big folk material on the dismembered body of a stone giant and its utensils gives Salomon Reinach , Cultes, Mythes et Religions, T. III: Les monuments de pierre brute dans le langage et les croyances populaires, pp. 364 - 433; see also Sébillot P. Le Folklore de France, t. I, pp. 300 - 412. ]

In addition to bodily grotesque "Great Chronicle", one must also mention the "Student Pantagruel" - anonymous book published in 1537. This book reflects the influence of Rabelais and the influence of Lucian (The "true stories"), but next to it is here and the people's holiday time, and the direct influence of oral tradition of legends about giants. This book had the opposite effect on Rabelais.

Need to emphasize the role of popular-festive giants. Giant was the usual figure of Fair balagan repertoire (where he is next to the dwarf remains to this day). But he was also the obligatory piece in the carnival procession, in the process of "Corpus Christi", etc., at the end of the Middle Ages had a number of cities along with the regular "town clowns" and permanent "urban giants," or even "family of giants", contained at the expense of the city and obliged to act in all the popular-festive processions. This institute urban giants in several cities and even villages of northern France and Belgium in particular has lived up to the XIX century: for example, in Lille, Douai, Kassel and others in Kassel in 1835 at the festival, established in memory of hunger in 1638, involved a giant who was present at the ceremony for free distribution of the soup to the entire population. This communication giants from eating is very characteristic. Belgium has had a special holiday "songs about giant, where the image of the giant's closely linked with domestic hearth and cooking food .

The figure of popular-festive giant and an integral moment of area folk amusements and carnival ceremonies was, of course, well known to Rabelais, although we do not have any specific data on this issue. Were known to him also, and various local legends of giants before us does not come down. The novel mentions the names of legendary giants, talking about their special relationship with eating and swallowing: Engoulevent, Heppemouch, Maschefein etc.

Rabelais knew at last, and antique images of giants, as we have said, particularly need to emphasize his familiarity with the "Cyclops" by Euripides, to whom he refers in his novel twice.

These are the sources associated with the image of the giants. We believe that, for Rabelais, the greatest importance were the popular-festive figures of giants. They enjoyed immense popularity, were familiar to everyone, were deeply imbued with the atmosphere of the popular-festive marketplace liberties, finally, they were closely associated with traditional notions of material and bodily excess and abundance. The image and the atmosphere festive fairground giant certainly had an impact on processing the legend of Gargantua in popular books - "Great Chronicle". The influence of the giants of folk in their fair and marketplace on the interpretation of images of the giants in the first two books of Rabelais' novel seems to be unquestionable.

As for the "Great Chronicle, its impact was more external and reduces, in essence, to simply borrow some moments of pure nature of the plot.

One very important group of sources of grotesque bodily imagery - a series of legends and literary texts, coupled with so-called "Indian miracles." Images of Indian Wonderland had a decisive impact on the medieval fantasy, their influence - both direct and indirect - we find in Rabelais' novel. Let us briefly recall the history of the tradition of "Indian Wonders".

The first who collected all the stories about the wonders of India, was a Greek who lived in Persia - Ktesias Cnidus. He lived in the IV century BC. He collected all the stories about the treasures of the wonderful flora and fauna of the extraordinary physique inhabitants of India. Ktesiasa product did not reach us, but it was used by Lucian (in his "true stories"), Pliny, Isidore of Seville and others.

In the II century AD in Alexandria came «Physiologus», also did not come down to us. "Physiologist" - natural history, mixed with legends and miracles. 3des described minerals, plants and animals. "The kingdom of nature" is often confused most grotesque manner. "Physiologist" has been widely used in the subsequent periods, in particular, Isidore of Seville, whose work served as the main source for the medieval "bestiaries.

Summary of this legendary material was produced in the III century AD, the pseudo-Kallisfenom. There are two Latin versions of his work: one of Julius Valerius, composed around 300 AD, and another, called "History Wars of Alexander the Great", compiled in the X century. Further summary kallisfenovskih legends included in all cosmographical works of the Middle Ages (Bryunetto Latini, Gautier of Metz and others). All these works were deeply imbued with the concept of the grotesque body, inherited mainly from kallisfenovskoy reports "Indian Wonders".

Legends of Indian wonders penetrate further into travel stories as real (eg Marco Polo) and fictional (eg, in an extremely popular book by Jean de Mandeville). In the XIV century, all these trips have been combined in the composite manuscript titled: "Merveilles du Monde", that is "Wonders of the world". In this manuscript there are interesting miniatures depicting the typical grotesque images of people. Finally, Indian wonders penetrate into the poem, written in heroic verse - "Le Romans d'Alexandre" .

Both folded and spread the legend of the Indian miracle. It identified and the motives of many works of art of the Middle Ages.

Which character are all these Indian miracles? Legends tell of fabulous wealth, the exceptional nature of India as well as about the wonders of the purely fantastic order: the devil, spewing flames, magical herbs, the enchanted forest, the source of his youth. A great place is a description of the animals. Near real (elephant, lion, panther, etc.) described in detail and fantastic - dragons, harpies, likorny, phoenixes, etc. So, Mandeville describes in detail the griffin, Bryunetto Latini - the dragon.

But of particular importance for us a description of an unprecedented human beings. These creatures are merely grotesque character. Some of them are half-animal, for example, gippopody, legs are provided with hoofs, sirens, tsinotsefaly, barking instead of talking, satire, onotsentavry etc. We give, therefore, a gallery of images of a mixed body . There are, of course, giants and dwarfs and pygmies. Finally, there are people endowed with a variety of deformities: stsiopody having one leg leumany deprived of his head, his face on his chest, there are people with one eye on his forehead, and eyes are on her shoulders, her eyes on the back, there shestirukie people There are those who eat with the nose, etc. All this - the unbridled grotesque anatomical fantasy , so beloved in the Middle Ages.

Such a fantasy, a free play of the body and its organs and loved Rabelais: it is enough to recall his pygmies, born out of gas Pantagruel, in which the heart is located near the anus, monstrous children Antifizis, the famous description Karemprenana etc. In all these images shows the same character anatomical phantasying.

A very important feature of the legends about the wonders of India - it is their essential connection with the motive of the underworld. The set of demons that appear in the forests and valleys of India, suggests that in some places there are hidden holes , leading to hell. The Middle Ages, it was also confident that it is here in India, is an earthly paradise, a place of the original residence of Adam and Eve: it was placed in the three days' journey from the source of his youth. It was said that Alexander of Macedon had seen in India closed on all sides by tightly "the abode of the righteous, where they will live until Judgement Day. The legends of Prester John and his kingdom (it localized in India) also discusses the ways to hell and an earthly paradise. Through the kingdom of Prester John Fizon river flowing out of the earthly paradise. The presence of paths and holes (trous), leading to hell or paradise on earth, creating a very special character of the space of these wonderful countries. This is due to a common feature of the artistic and ideological perceptions and understanding of space in the Middle Ages. Terrestrial space built as a grotesque body: it consists of the heights and valleys. Deaf plane of the earth all the time is divided desire up or down - in the depths of the earth, the underworld. In these holes and the depths, like Pantagruel's mouth, suggest the existence of another world. Wandering the earth, looking for gates or doors leading into other worlds. Classic expression of such wanderings - a wonderful "Journey of St. Brendan," about which we shall speak in the next chapter. In folk legends this earthly space, consisting of heights and gaps ("holes") to a greater or lesser extent otelesnivalos.

In CE it created the specific nature of the medieval topography and a special understanding of the cosmos. To these questions we will look at in the next chapter.

Terms of legends about Indian miracles enjoyed exceptional popularity in the Middle Ages. In addition to these we cosmographical literature in the broad sense (including travel literature), he had a tremendous impact on all the literary works of the Middle Ages. Moreover, the Indian found a mighty miracles reflected in the visual arts: they are, as we have said, identified the reasons for the numerous miniatures that illustrate the manuscript, and wall sculptures in cathedrals and churches.

Thus, due partly to Indian miracles, the grotesque body was accustomed to the imagination and the eyes of medieval man. And in literature and visual arts, he met a mixed throughout the body, met a stranger anatomical fantasy, free play members of the human body and its internal organs. Violation of the boundaries between the body and the world was for him as usual.

Indian wonders, therefore, very important source of the grotesque concept of the body. I must say that in an era of Rabelais, these legends were still alive and aroused public interest.

In the last chapter of Pantagruel Rabelais, throwing a further plan of his novel, indicates an episode of his hero travels to the country of Prester John, that is, to India, for this was directly followed an episode of the defeat of the underworld, and the entrance to which was obviously in a country priest John. Thus, in the original design of the novel Indian miracles meant a significant role. Particularly large, of course, the direct and indirect effects of the legends of the Indian miracle to grotesque anatomical fiction of Rabelais.

Another very important source of the grotesque concept of the body was misteriynaya medieval scene, in particular, of course, Diablerets.

Body image in Diablerets - the grotesque. Very often appears on the dismembered body parts, broiling, burning, swallowing the body. Rabelais is the images of devouring sinful souls, surely related to the Diablerets.

Extremely important as a source of the grotesque concept of the body, most had a device misteriynoy scene. This scene reflects the medieval idea of the hierarchical organization of global space. Foreground of the scene had a special design, race sites, serving the first floor stage. This area is signified the earth . Background scene took on an elevated, heaven, heaven (now that name is not preserved for the scene, and the highest of places for the public, ie for the gallery, Raika ). Under the same platform, depicting the earth, was the deepening of hell . It was arranged as a broad curtain on which was depicted a vast and terrible head bar (Harlequin). Curtain that parted with cords, and the Devils jumped out through the gaping maw of Satan and jumped on a platform-land.

Thus, the open; mouth is exactly what is seen directly in front of him, all the spectators mysteries. After all, this entry in the hell was placed in the middle of the foreground of the scene, and just at the eye level of spectators. This "hell mouth" ("la gueulle d'Enfer", as she was usually called) to engage the whole attention of the medieval public. All curiosity was focused specifically on it. We have already said that Diablerets - this popular marketplace of mysteries - always enjoyed exceptional success with a wide circles of people and often overshadowed by the rest of their mystery. Therefore, such an organization misteriynoy scene could not have much impact on artistic perception of the spatial world in general medieval audience: the audience to stick with the image of gaping mouths in its cosmic aspect , learned to look into this open mouth and wait it out appearance of the most interesting and grotesque actors. Given the huge proportion of misteriynoy scene in the artistic and ideological life of the late Middle Ages, you can just say that the image of the gaping jaws of srossya with an artistic representation of how the world itself, and about his theatrical spectacular incarnation.

Otto Driesse, who has spent the scenic mouth "Harlequin" series of beautiful pages of his book "The Origin of Harlequin", plays in it on page 149 (Fig. 1) an outline of the ballet XVII century (the sketch is preserved in the archives of the Paris Opera House). Here in the heart of the scene is a huge head with a gaping maw. Inside the gaping jaws of sitting devil, two feature peep from her eyes, one hell sitting in the ears, around her head dancing devils and clowns. This sketch shows that the XVII century image of a huge gaping mouth and stage action inside the mouth were more common and completely understandable. Incidentally, Driesse indicates that even in his time, the expression "Harlequin's Cloak" (Manteau d'Arlequin) served as a technical term in a Parisian theater to describe the whole foreground of the scene.

Thus, topography misteriynoy scene was in its main part grotesque bodily topography. There is no doubt that the gaping mouth, as the leading image of Pantagruel, is associated not only with the traditional core of the image of the hero (throwing salt in his mouth, etc.), but also we have analyzed the device misteriynoy scene. The organization of images of Rabelais, of course, is reflected grotesque bodily topography of the scene. In rablezistskoy literature, to our knowledge, no one said a leading role gaping mouth in the first book of Rabelais and contrasted this with the organization misteriynoy scene. Meanwhile, this fact is extremely important for a proper understanding of Rabelais: he suggests that a great influence had theatrical folk entertainment forms on its first product and the whole character of his artistic and ideological vision and thinking. It also shows that the image of the gaping mouth in his grotesque cosmic significance, so strange and incomprehensible to new readers, for contemporaries of Rabelais was a deeply close and clear : he was quite familiar to the eye , was accustomed, and its universalism and its cosmic connection usual was the fact that out of the gaping mouth popping grotesque figures on the scene, depicting world events and biblical Gospel drama. Clearly and evidently, it was also topographical significance of this gaping mouth, as the gates to the underworld. Such is the influence misteriynoy scene and Diablerets for development of the grotesque concept of the body in Rabelais.

*

Some influence on the development of grotesque bodily representations provided and relics, which played a huge role in the medieval world. We can say that all over France (and around the medieval Christian world) have been scattered body parts of saints. There was no such churches or monasteries, which have not kept such a relic, ie part or particle of the body, sometimes quite bizarre (eg, a drop of milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary, the sweat of some saints, which mentions Rabelais); stored arms, legs, head, teeth, hair, fingers, etc. - You can give the enumeration of the longissimus grotesque bodies dismembered body. At the time of Rabelais ridicule relics were quite common, especially, of course, the Protestant satire, even agelast Calvin wrote a pamphlet about the kind of memorabilia, not without a comic tone.

Dismembered body of the saint in medieval literature has repeatedly given rise to grotesque images, and transfers. In one of the best medieval parody travesties - in "Treatise Garcia" (1099), which we have already said, the hero, a wealthy Simonist archbishop of Toledo, brings to Rome as a gift dad miraculous relics of holy martyrs Rufus and Albina. The language of the travesties and parodies of the time these non-existent saints designated gold and silver. Represented a special love for this holy father. He praises them and asks to carry him all the precious relics of the saints, giving a completely grotesque transfer parts of the dismembered body: "... from the kidneys Albina, from the innards Rufina, from the stomach, the stomach, from the back, from the backside, from the edges of chest from the legs, the hands, from the neck. What else? - From all the members of both bodies of the martyrs. " We see that already in the XI century relics gave rise to a purely grotesque anatomy of the dismembered body.

Medieval Latin recreational literature in general was very rich in images of grotesque anatomy. We have already talked about the parodic grammar, where all the grammatical categories of meaning in most cases in terms of solid bottom . Update of abstract categories and abstract philosophical concepts in the material bodily level in general is extremely typical of recreational literature of the Middle Ages. In the famous dialogue of Solomon and Markolfa (the dialogue in quotes, and Rabelais' Gargantua) and high moral sayings of Solomon's contrasted answers cheat Markolfa, in most cases, transferring the issue to a very coarse material and corporeal realm.

I will mention another interesting example of medieval grotesque anatomy. With the XIII century, almost all European countries was very common poem, "Will the donkey." It settled when dying, bequeathed the various parts of his body to various social and professional groups of the Middle Ages, beginning with the pope and cardinals. So here is given by the dismemberment of the body, accompanied by appropriate dissection of the social hierarchy: the head of a donkey - the popes, the ears - the Cardinals, his voice - a chorister, cal - farmers (for fertilizer), etc. The source of this grotesque anatomy donkey's body is very ancient. According to the testimony of Jerome, is already in IV century AD, among the schoolmen were distributed "Will Pigs" ("Testamentum Porcelli"). This old testament was enumerated in the Middle Ages (and it came down to us), it is something, apparently, and was the main source of "Wills ass."

In such a travesty, as "Will the donkey, interesting mix of dismembering the body with the dismemberment of society . That - parody travesty ancient and widespread mythical ideas about the origin of various social groups from different parts of the body of the deity (the oldest monument of the social and physical topography - Rigveda), in most cases sacrificially dismembered [ annotated.: In the Rig Veda ( X, 90) depicted the emergence of the World from the body of the Purusha (Purucha): the gods have brought a sacrifice, and Purusha razyali his body into pieces, according to the technique of sacrificial dismembered; from different parts of the body have different groups of society and various cosmic phenomena: the mouth - the Brahmins, from the hands - the soldiers, from the eyes - the sun out of your head - the sky, from the legs - the land, etc. In hristianizovannoy Germanic mythology we find a similar concept, but here the body is created from different parts of the world: the body of Adam was created out of eight parts - meat from the land, the bones of stone, blood from the sea, the hair from the plants, the thoughts of clouds, etc. ] Here, instead of the body god given in this role, the body of a donkey . The donkey , just as we have said, a very ancient traditional travesty deity . In medieval travesty role of the donkey, its organs, donkey cry, cries of prodding by a donkey - is enormous. Rabelais we meet shouting drovers ass, occurs several times, and very characteristic expletive «viedaze», that is asinine phallus. The topographical nature of the expletive is quite obvious. We mention the Rabelaisian expression: "It is so hard as to extract a sound (pet) from the backside dead donkey ". This is - a kind of potentiation (raising to a higher degree) topographic bottom: butt , and even donkey, and even a dead donkey . These potentiated curses found in the Rabelaisian tongue repeatedly.

Consulted source: Déjà vu Russia

More on The Grotesque
Les Grotesques, Louvre, 2000
Thierry Bézecourt, Grotesques, Bloc-notes, 2.10.2006
HE Yuvalova, Grotesque in Gothic Art, History of Classical Art of the West, 2003, pp. 52-73.
Igor Smirnov, On the grotesque and its related categories, Semiotics of Fear, Moscow: Russian Institute, 2005, pp. 204-221.
Walter S. Arnold, Gargoyles and Grotesques of the World

Shell and Content

2011-06-03T03:26:00.000-07:00

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
A noble horse-guard, one of the king's men,
Urgently contacted old Mother Hen.

Humpty's mother was quite surprised,
She clucked- 'my son had been advised,
But as eggs go he had always been queer
And wont to wear the most outrageous gear'.

The Rooster said, 'he wouldn't hatch,
He was the odd one of the batch'.
Despite all the cock's paternal power,
Humpty preferred to be a wall-flower.

Thus Humpty sat on Humpty's wall
Which sadly led to Humpty's fall.
A less futile fate he could well have met,
Either boiled, or poached, or as an omelette.

The earliest version of the nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty was published in 1803, a manuscript addition to Mother Goose's Melody (Mirino).

___

Mariano Akerman, Detail from Three Figures before the Window, mixed media, Buenos Aires, 1989

You're a monster

2011-05-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

"Chacun a en lui son petit monstre à nourrir."
Madeleine Ferron : La Fin des loups-garous

Kris Kuski

2011-04-15T04:35:00.000-07:00

Kris Kuksi, Limbo, drawing, 2007. See also Jeff VanderMeer, The Art of the Grotesque, Dark Roasted Blend, 29.10.2007

A post-industrial Rococo master, Kris Kuksi obsessively arranges characters and architecture in asymmetric compositions with an exquisite sense of drama. Instead of stones and shells he uses screaming plastic soldiers, miniature engine blocks, towering spires and assorted debris to form his landscapes. The political, spiritual and material conflict within these shrines is enacted under the calm gaze of remote deities and august statuary. Kuksi manages to evoke, at once, a sanctum and a mausoleum for our suffocated spirit (Guillermo del Toro).

A Heroic Abduction, mixed media assemblage, detail, 2010
Ref. The Living Cross, Ecclesia et Synagoga

La grottesca

2011-03-22T07:37:00.000-07:00

Grottésco. Da gròtta. Si disse in origine degli arabeschi, a imitazione di quelli che sono stati trovati negli edifici antichi seppelitti sotto terra, e cioè nelle cripte o grotte antiche, specialmente nella esumazione delle terme di Tito a Roma. Per estensione dalla idea di fantastico, irregolare, che è nel significato precedente si applicò alle figure, che fano ridere offendendo o contraffacendo la natura in una maniera bizzarra, ed è divenuto sinonimo di Ridicolo, Bizzarro, Stravagante.
Deriv. Grottéscaína, Grottescàto, Grottéscamente (Francesco Bonomi, Dizionario Etimologico della Lingua Italiana, 2004-8).

Marco da Faenza, Decorazione grottesca, fresco detail, 16th century. Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (Ugo Muccini and Alessandro Cecchi: Le Stanze del Principe in Palazzo Vecchio, via florenceart.net).

GROTTESCA. Tipo di decorazione (a fresco o a stucco) che interpreta liberamente temi ispirati all’antichità classica e propriamente alle raffigurazioni parietali come: sfingi, arpie, mascheroni, prospettive architettoniche, paesaggi. Il suo uso si diffonde nel Rinascimento parallelamente alla riscoperta dell’antico dovuto agli innumerevoli ritrovamenti archeologici.
Il suo nome deriva da “grotte”, termine con il quale si designavano gli edifici semisepolti della Roma Imperiale (ad esempio la Domus Aurea neroniana) che gli artisti rinascimentali studiavano. Detta anche “raffaellesca” per l’uso che ne fece Giovanni da Udine (scuola di Raffaello) nelle Logge Vaticane. In epoca Neoclassica ebbe nuovo impulso con molti riferimenti alle decorazioni pompeiane.
Ne fecero largo uso. Luca Signorelli, il Pinturicchio, Filippo Lippi, Perino del Vaga, Vasari, A. Allori (Arteglobale).

Grottesca. Le grottesche sono un soggetto pittorico molto popolare a partire dal Cinquecento.
Il nome, come spiega Benvenuto Cellini nella sua autobiografia, deriva dalle grotte del colle Esquilino a Roma che altro non erano che i resti sotterranei della Domus aurea di Nerone, scoperti nel 1480 e divenuti immediatamente popolari tra i pittori dell'epoca che spesso vi si fecero calare per studiare le fantasiose pitture rinvenute. Tra questi vi furono il Pinturicchio, Raffaello, Giovanni da Udine, il Morto da Feltre, Bernardo Poccetti, Marco Palmezzano, Gaudenzio Ferrari e altri che in seguito diffusero questo stile.
Durante il Cinquecento, l'utilizzo di questo tipo di decorazione fu motivo di irritazione e disprezzo per molti teorici dell'arte, tra i quali il Vasari, che le definì "pitture licenziose e ridicole molto". Difatti non è difficile credere come le grottesche, caratterizzate dalla totale negazione dello spazio, dalla presenza di esseri ibridi e mostruosi e senza alcun riferimento intellettuale, siano state considerate opere di puro libertinaggio. Sono figurine esili ed estrose, che si fondono in decorazioni geometriche e naturalistiche, su uno sfondo in genere bianco o comunque monocromo. Le figure sono molto colorate e danno origine a cornici, effetti geometrici, intrecci e quant'altro, ma sempre mantenendo una certa levità e ariosità, per via del fatto che in genere i soggetti sono lasciati minuti, quasi calligrafici, sullo sfondo.
Vitruvio stesso, nell'antichità, condannò la moda di questi ornamenti ma allora, come nel Cinquecento, la loro diffusione fu inarrestabile.
Fasi storiche. Le grottesche erano utilizzate nell'antichità e dopo il ritrovamento di queste decorazione nella Domus Aurea di Nerone (1480), sotto pretesto della imitatio antiquitatis, vennero riproposte.
Pittori illustri come Filippino Lippi, il Pinturicchio, Amico Aspertini e il Sodoma furono tra i primi a utilizzare queste frivolezze antiche ma con rapidità: il pressappochismo con il quale questi artisti s'accostavano alla decorazione tradiva una certa smania di sfruttare il prestigio di un modello antico. Fu l'equipe di Raffaello Sanzio ad effettuare una vera e propria riforma di questo genere aumentando così il numero di richieste da parte dei committenti e arrivando inevitabilmente alla monotonia della pratica.
Giovanni da Udine, contrariamente a Morto da Feltre (che meritò questo appellativo, secondo il racconto delle Vite di Vasari, per aver trascorso più tempo sotto che sopra la terra, studiando e ricopiando i motivi ornamentali delle grottesche), diede vitalità e vivacità a questo genere, ponendo l'accento sugli aspetti più naturalistici ed eliminando le componenti più fantastiche e le inquietanti mostruosità pagane.
Con la fine del Manierismo non si estinse del tutto la grottesca. Il criticato ornamento si nascose per riapparire nel Seicento sotto forma di arabesco e chinoiserie.
Significato metaforico. La parola grottesco è passata poi a significare in italiano qualcosa di bizzarro e inconsueto, assumendo poi la connotazione di "ridicolo", ironizzante e caricaturale (Wikipedia).

La grottesca è un tipo di decorazione, utilizzato in pittura, scultura e arti minori, che si sviluppa alla fine del Quattrocento e deve il suo nome proprio alla sua singolare origine. Il termine era infatti nato per designare quanto fosse derivato dai dipinti che si potevano visionare a Roma attorno agli anni Ottanta del XV secolo nelle cosiddette "grotte", cioè gli ambienti della Domus Aurea neroniana sopravvissuti sotto il colle Oppio, accessibili solo attraverso cunicoli. L'impatto della scoperta della pittura romana antica in un ambiente culturalmente già ben predisposto al recupero dell'antico fu prorompente e stimolò non solo visite di artisti, come quelle descritteci dall'anonimo autore delle Antiquarie prospettiche romane, ma una gran mole di disegni per confrontarsi e imitare quella che era l'autentica decorazione pittorica antica. A questa prima fase seguì immediatamente l'acquisizione in pittura, soprattutto ad opera di artisti quali Pinturicchio, Perugino, Filippino Lippi, Luca Signorelli. Sino a quel momento il linguaggio artistico era riuscito a rielaborare delle forme che richiamassero l'antichità riproponendo soprattutto modelli classici ripresi dalla scultura, sarcofagi o rilievi architettonici come quelli ad esempio della Colonna Traiana, o dai materiali forniti dal collezionismo antiquariale, soprattutto monete, gemme. Tipico prodotto decorativo di questa cultura antichizzante era la candelabra a racemi arricchita con elementi del repertorio appena citato. Su questo terreno s'innesta la scoperta della pittura neroniana ed è per questo motivo che i primi tentativi di acquisizione risultano ancora ibridi con la cultura pittorica precedente. Il momento più importante di questa prima fase è sicuramente rappresentato dai due interventi della fine del primo decennio del Cinquecento di Pinturicchio nella decorazione della Libreria Piccolomini nel Duomo di Siena e nel soffitto del palazzo di Pandolfo Petrucci, sempre a Siena. In essi la grottesca, così come viene esplicitamente menzionata nel contratto del 1502 con il cardinale Piccolomini, non si limita ad essere una ripresa estemporanea di motivi, ma comprende l'adozione di un'intera struttura decorativa a scomparti geometrici, così come si vedevano nelle volte neroniane. In particolare una di esse, la Volta dorata , verrà letteralmente citata nel soffitto del palazzo di Pandolfo Petrucci. Altro aspetto rilevante di novità sarà l'acquisizione di quel ricco repertorio di mostri e figure fantastiche con quella vivacità cromatica che aveva colpito l'occhio dei primi osservatori.
Il secondo momento evolutivo sarà il confronto e l'acquisizione di tale genere da parte di Raffaello e la sua bottega, soprattutto nella persona di Giovanni da Udine, nelle imprese decorative dei palazzi vaticani a partire dal 1516. Il primo intervento sarà la stufetta del cardinal Bibbiena, con la ricreazione completa, volta e pareti, di un ambiente classico. Furono recuperati non solo i partiti classici, l'estrosità, ma anche la freschezza e vivacità di una pittura all'origine compendiaria e leggera, canonizzandola in un genere che verrà ulteriormente diffuso dopo la diaspora romana del 1527 in tutta Italia e non solo.
Dopo tale evento, tra i primi importanti interventi decorativi, nel quale tale genere pittorico ritorna ad assumere un ruolo fondamentale, si segnalano gli affreschi farnesiani di Castel Sant'Angelo a Roma, in particolare la Sala di Apollo: in essa infatti si definisce un nuovo tipo di grottesca, che avrà molto successo in seguito, con valore narrativo grazie all'inserimento di storielle mitologiche.
Alla metà del secolo la grottesca attirò l'attenzione di artisti e teorici per la possibilità, in realtà già manifestatasi nella decorazione di Pinturicchio nell'appartamento Borgia in Vaticano, di inserire nella sua rete di immagini bizzarre simboli di significati riposti, emblemi, geroglifici, imprese, allegorie, secondo la moda e il gusto del tempo. Oltre le affermazioni del Salviati, di Pirro Ligorio, del Lomazzo, si può ricordare come esempio significativo di tale tendenza la decorazione di Palazzo Farnese a Caprarola, eseguita in obbedienza al programma iconografico di Annibal Caro.
Un momento di crisi fondamentale arrivò dal confronto con la Controriforma: biasimata dal Gilio per la sua ridicola inverosimiglianza, fu definitivamente e aspramente condannata dal cardinal Gabriele Paleotti. Pur emarginata nel Seicento per il suo stretto legame con la bizzarria manierista, essa continuò a sopravvivere fino all'importante rinascita di fine settecento con Felice Giani e Liborio Coccetti a Roma, riprendendo lo studio sia di quella antica che di quella cinquecentesca, in uno spirito però neoclassico (Lucia Calzona, Rinascimento: le grottesche, Italica RAI Internazionale, 2001).

L'Art Grotesque. A la fin du XVème siècle, un jeune romain tomba dans un trou sur les pentes de l’Oppius (colline de Rome) et se retrouva dans une sorte de grotte couverte de peintures surprenantes... Les fresques ainsi découvertes inspirèrent un nouveau style de décoration plein de fantaisie que l’on baptisa « Grotesques ». Les célèbres artistes Domenico Ghirlandaio, Raphaël et Michel-Ange descendirent également et eurent à leur tour la révélation de ce qu’était l’art antique oublié. On pense que Raphaël s’en inspira quelque peu pour la réalisation des décors des fameuses "Loges du Vatican".
Ce mot « Grotesque » est donc apparu vers la fin du 15ème siècle, lors de la découverte de décors peints sur les murs de maisons romaines enterrées (semblables à des grottes), à Rome et dans la campagne romaine. La Domus Aurea ou Maison dorée – le palais de l’empereur Néron – est la plus connue et la plus spectaculaire de ces demeures. Les grotesques sont les décorations qui couvraient entièrement les murs des appartements de la Rome du 1er siècle avant J.C.
Ces décors, d'une incroyable élégance, se composent d’architectures illusionnistes, de scènes à personnages, de paysages, d’enroulements de feuillages qui remplacent les colonnes, de baldaquins composés d’enroulements de feuilles et de fleurs, de figures fantastiques mi-humaines, mi-animales, qui naissent des feuillages. Ces motifs non naturalistes, bizarres, furent critiqués par les tenants d’un art rationnel ou classique, qui préconisaient la réalité comme unique objet de l’art. L’art grotesque à connu dès sa redécouverte un grand succès, qui ne s’éteindra qu’au début du 19ème siècle.
Pendant toute la Renaissance italienne des artistes utiliseront ce style de décors, peints, dessinés ou sculptés.
Cette forme d'art, conservant ses caractéristiques premières, servit également pour décorer les plafonds et parties de mur dans lesquelles de grandes peintures ne pouvaient être déployées : ainsi pour les plafonds des escaliers du Palazzo Vecchio, et certains plafonds de la "Galerie des Offices" à Florence.
Quelques artistes célèbres ont pratiqué cette forme d’art :
- Pinturicchio, Raphaël et Giovanni da Udine la loggia du palais du Vatican (1517-1518)
- Bernardo Buontalenti dans la Grotta et la Griotticina della madama (1583) au jardin de Boboli du Palais Pitti des Médicis, à Florence
- Marco Marchetti au Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (1556-1557)
Ces décors ont été diffusés par des estampes dans toute l'Europe. Jacques Androuet du Cerceau fit connaître l’art grotesque en France (Antiochus).

Grotesques. À Florence, sur un plafond du Palazzo Vecchio, une femme, coiffée d'une fleur, se tient en équilibre sur une autre fleur. Elle porte sur son bras un voile, un manteau qui ressemble lui encore à une fleur.
En réalité la fleur qui la soutient est plantée dans un socle en pierre, duquel partent deux longs foulards reliés à un dais. Ce dais est soutenu par quatre êtres composés d'un torse de femme et d'un visage, sans autres membres. Ils ne reposent que sur de très fines tiges.
Reculons encore un peu. Au-dessus de ce dais, des angelots, un autre monstre, à droite des servantes, un feu, un autre dais, d'autres monstres ailés ou non, deux oiseaux au long cou peints sur un fond rouge pompéïen, un personnage dans un grand médaillon.
Dans le monde de l'art grotesque, tout est relié à tout, depuis ces membres humains et animaux assemblés au sein de corps monstrueux jusqu'à un vaste réseau d'êtres vivants, de végétaux et d'éléments architecturaux qui couvre la totalité du mur ou du plafond. Une scène en inclut elle-même d'autres. Sur les plafonds de la galerie des Offices, on verra des petits paysages, de faux tableaux classiques, des scènes de guerre ou d'amour : tandis que les Médicis accrochent sur les murs les plus grands chefs d'œuvre du monde connu, leurs décorateurs peignent sur les plafonds du couloir la parodie de ce musée.
Les lois de la gravité sont remises en cause : les créatures sans membres sont trop grosses pour être soutenues par les piliers filiformes, trop faibles pour soutenir le dais. La verticalité du dais et la position des personnages montrent toutefois qu'il y a toujours un haut et un bas, une force qui va de l'un vers l'autre et courbe les tissus suspendus. Les objets tomberaient s'ils n'étaient pas soutenus ; mais le support le plus infime suffit à les retenir. La pesanteur existe toujours mais n'obéit plus à un corpus de lois physiques cohérent.
Du coup il n'y a plus d'effet ni de cause. Les créatures sans membres soutiennent-elles le dais ou y sont-elles au contraire accrochées ? Dans ce vitrail d'Ecouen, pourquoi le satyre joue-t-il du cor ? Le monstre à la tête d'enfant qui tient un coquillage est-il une sirène dangereuse ou un ange gardien ?
Sur un fond uni blanc, les grotesques tracent un décor en deux dimensions sans aucune profondeur. C'est justement parce qu'on voit tout que la scène est aussi étrange : tout est devant nous et pourtant nous n'y comprenons rien. Dans ce monde transparent, nous ne pouvons pas imaginer quelque chose, derrière, qui puisse donner un sens au dispositif absurde du premier plan.
Les personnages et les objets sont disposés selon des axes horizontaux et verticaux, jamais en diagonale. Ils se répartissent dans une symétrie parfaite de part et d'autre de chaque côté d'un axe central. Ces moyens d'organisation rationnelle, appliqués avec exagération, sont pervertis de leur mission. Au lieu de produire du sens, ils servent à construire des carnavals aberrants.
Parfois, pourtant, l'observateur croit reconnaître une allusion mythologique, la représentation allégorique d'un sentiment moral ou le rappel d'un fait historique. Ces lectures sont toujours incertaines : le sens ne se dégage jamais complètement de la multitude des indices contradictoires. Les grotesques mettent à l'épreuve, stimulent et au bout du compte ridiculisent notre volonté de tout comprendre.
Ce monde fou prend son origine dans un incident infime. Vers 1480, un jeune habitant de Rome, du côté du Forum, tombe dans un trou qui donne sur une cavité étrange. Sur ses parois, les artistes de passage contemplent fascinés, à la lumière de la chandelle, des décors étourdissants de légèreté et d'invention, de folie contrôlée. C'est la Domus aurea, le palais gigantesque et extravagant que Néron s'est construit sur les ruines de Rome. Mais les hommes de la fin du XIVe siècle l'ignorent. Pour eux ce n'est qu'une « grotte » et ils vont, en imitant ces formes, couvrir des murs et des plafonds dans le style a grottesca. Signorelli, parmi les premiers, introduit ces fantaisies dans les interstices de son très sérieux chef d'œuvre, le Jugement dernier d'Orvieto.
Raphaël et Giovanni da Udine en décorent les Loges du Vatican, pour le plaisir personnel du Pape. Les céramistes italiens les imitent dans des décors a raffaellesche que l'on trouve encore aujourd'hui à tous les coins de rue de Florence et de Sienne.
Où peut-on voir des grotesques en France ? Un peu partout. À Fontainebleau, où les rois du XVIe siècle ont ramené d'Italie, avec quelques-uns des plus grands artistes du pays, la nouveauté grotesque. Au château de Chantilly, qui en a orné des pièces entières, dont un extraordinaire cabinet de singes. Au Louvre, où on expose un carrelage et un vitrail grotesques. L'art des grotesques, art mineur qui attire peu l'attention, s'est développé tranquillement sur les murs et les plafonds français. Vers 1700, Jean Berain en a proposé une variante fameuse qui s'est largement diffusée sous son nom, depuis les palais royaux jusqu'aux assiettes de faïence.
En fait les grotesques sont partout. Il faut juste lever les yeux lorsqu'on visite un bâtiment ancien. Il faut penser à regarder, dans les palais, non seulement les tableaux décrits dans les guides mais aussi tout ce qui ne porte pas de notice d'explication. Les grotesques ne s'expliquent pas, c'est leur raison d'être (Thierry Bézecourt, 2006).

Alessandra Zamperini, Les Grotesques, Paris: Citadelles et Mazenod, 2007. Grotesque comme grottes, grotesque comme monstrueux, grotesque comme caprice, le mot eut évidemment plus d’un sens et d’un emploi au cours des siècles. Il partage en effet avec la peinture qu’il désigne une hybridité qui, de tout temps, fut un objet de délectation et de débat, de plaisir et de résistance. Outre qu’elle violente dès l’Antiquité la conception d’une image arrimée au raisonnable et à la vraisemblance, la pratique des grotesques abolit ou trouble d’emblée la frontière entre vocation décorative et fonction hiéroglyphique, forme gratuite et symbole chiffré. Sa nature profonde est de combiner plus que de séparer, d’étonner plus que de conforter, d’appuyer ses métamorphoses sur les libertés qu’offrent ensemble la littérature, les sciences de la nature ou la culture du paradoxe. Généralement, les ouvrages consacrés au sujet s’attardent sur la peinture romaine et son réveil au XVe siècle. Et en dehors des brillants essais d’André Chastel et de Philippe Morel, qui ont réintégré les grotesques parmi les codes de la Renaissance, l’édition française était plus que pauvre en ouvrages de synthèse. Le beau livre d’Alessandra Zamperini, beau à tous égards, décrit une évolution de près de deux mille ans, puisque Toulouse-Lautrec en clôt l’analyse sur une jolie pirouette.
L’auteur revient d’emblée sur l’hostilité que suscita cette peinture, faussement délirante, sous Auguste. Souvent cités et glosés, les textes de Vitruve et d’Horace en disent long sur le rapport ambivalent que l’époque entretient avec cet art de la fantaisie, qui contreviendrait à la mimesis. Le De architectura du premier est d’ailleurs plus catégorique que l’Art poétique du second dans le rejet d’un goût aussi dépravé que répandu. Comme le remarque avec ironie l’auteur, les résidences princières accueillent largement ces grotesques condamnés ailleurs au nom de la saine et sainte beauté. Il faut donc se méfier des lectures (Paul Zanker) qui attribuent ce rejet théorique des grotesques à la politique de rénovation morale et culturelle qu’aurait entreprise Auguste à la fin des guerres civiles. Mieux vaut sans doute relier le succès des figures de fantaisie aux premières phrases des Métamorphoses d’Ovide, un texte quasi contemporain, pour comprendre l’emprise d’une peinture que l’écrivain compare à l’audace involontaire des songes.
Alessandra Zamperini passe en revue, à la suite, les principaux décors conservés, non sans accorder une place centrale à la Domus Aurea. L’usage combiné de stucs et de peintures, le vocabulaire à la fois fantastique et naturaliste, le décor à fond blanc, différent des modèles de Pompéi, tous ces principes allaient guider, après 1480 et la redécouverte du palais de Néron, les peintres soucieux de se réapproprier la peinture antique. Mais l’auteur prend le temps d’examiner la période intermédiaire, ce fameux Moyen Âge, qu’on continue souvent à regarder comme une parenthèse obscure. Or les grotesques n’y font pas que survivre, elles se transforment, tirent l’ornement des manuscrits vers le burlesque, le bestial, l’oriental, l’érotique aussi. A cet égard, une réserve et une question : pourquoi l’iconographie d’Alessandra Zamperini a-t-elle opéré si chastement quand on sait la fréquence des motifs scabreux et lubriques auxquels ont recours les artistes médiévaux ? C’eût été pourtant une bonne manière de souligner la nature équivoque du genre et de s’interroger sur leur présence au cœur du message chrétien : l’édification chrétienne par la représentation de créatures irréelles et de figures diaboliques s’accompagne d’éléments plus ambigus quant aux vertus que les manuscrits enluminés sont censés exalter.
Philippe Morel (1997) a bien montré que les grotesques de la Renaissance ne procèdent pas d’une simple exhumation, en tous sens, de l’héritage romain. Les mutations du Moyen Âge, du monstrueux au lubrique, se prolongent aux XVe et XVIe siècles et enrichissent le débat sur la bonne et la mauvaise licence. Alessandra Zamperini s’attarde non moins sur cette continuité polémique et sur les artistes qui se firent les agents les plus zélés du goût antique. La remise au jour de la Domus Aurea produit ses premiers effets conséquents chez Pinturicchio. En témoignent sa production romaine à Santa Maria del Popolo et cette manière d’art total que réalise, à Sienne, la décoration saturée de la Libreria Piccolomini. Aucun visiteur ne peut y pénétrer aujourd’hui sans être saisi par les références néroniennes. Très vite la fusion entre répertoire antique et fantastique médiéval va essaimer à travers l’Italie et l’Europe entière. Il serait trop long d’y insister autant que le livre s’y emploie de façon très ouverte. La séduction d’une telle peinture était si forte qu’elle ne connaissait ni frontière ni obstacle. On peut même dire qu’elle survécut à la condamnation du maniérisme, largement entamée au temps de la Contre-Réforme, et aux révisions académique et baroque du siècle suivant.
Chassée du cœur de l’image publique, la fantaisie métamorphique se réfugie à ses marges et reste très présente par conséquent dans le décor privé, s’apaisant d’abord, puis retrouvant une verve ornementale et symbolique durant le premier XVIIIe siècle (Alain Mérot l’a bien montré). Sous l’impulsion durable d’un Jean Berain, dont le succès rappelle que le temps de Louis XIV ne fut pas que perruque et cuistrerie, l’époque Régence et Louis XV bénéficie de l’heureuse conjonction entre une réforme profonde des usages décoratifs et l’activité de grands artistes, Watteau comme Jean-Baptiste Oudry. Les récentes acquisitions des musées de Valenciennes et du Louvre sont mises à profit par Alessandra Zamperini, ne craignant plus ici d’évoquer les clefs de la symbolique amoureuse à propos des singes et autre cornemuses rococo. On la suivra moins dans sa présentation du retour à l’antique, celui des années 1760-1800, comme d’une cure d’austérité après l’âge des galanteries plus ou moins salées. Il est temps en effet d’en finir avec cette vision convenue de l’Angleterre de Robert Adam ou du Paris de David, Percier et Fontaine.
En revanche, l’auteur insiste avec raison sur la faveur dont bénéficie alors les décors de grotesques laissés par Raphaël et son cercle. Les Loges du Vatican sont ainsi copiées, tout ou partie, jusque dans les palais de Catherine II. Les pages un peu rapides sur le XIXe siècle ne sont pas dénuées de pertinence cependant. Elles montrent l’évanouissement progressif d’un modèle, en dehors des expériences de survie archéologique, qui furent plus nombreuses qu’on ne le croit. Toutefois la modernité, détachée des nécessités de la décoration murale pour l’essentiel, s’écarte de la fantaisie des Anciens. Sans doute y aurait-il profit à mieux examiner ce qu’un certain romantisme, celui des illustrateurs comme Célestin Nanteuil ou des dessinateurs marginaux comme Hugo, puis maints acteurs du symbolisme, ont retenu de cette leçon de folie très contrôlée. Quant aux arts du XXe siècle, c’est une autre histoire, le et la grotesque se mêlant si aisément (La Tribune de l'Art).

Percorsi iconografici
Quarto stile pompeiano
Francisco de Hollanda, La volta dorata della Domus Aurea, incisione, sec. XVI
Pinturicchio, Libreria Piccolomini, Duomo, Siena
Pinturicchio e aiuti, Soffitto, già nel Palazzo del Magnifico di Siena, New York, Metropolitan Museum
Raffaello, Stufetta del cardinal Bibbiena, 1516, Palazzo Apostolico, Città del Vaticano
Raffaello, Loggetta del cardinal Bibbiena, 1519, Palazzo Apostolico, Città del Vaticano
Logge di Raffaello, 1518-19, Palazzo Apostolico, Città del Vaticano
Perino del Vaga e Domenico Zaga, Gli amori di Apollo, sezione circolare della volta, 1547-48, affresco, Sala di Apollo, Castel Sant'Angelo, Roma
Domenico Zaga, Apollo e Dafne, 1547-48, affresco, volta, Sala di Apollo, Castel Sant'Angelo, Roma

Bibliografia
Acidini, Luchinat Cristina. "La Grottesca," Storia dell'arte italiana, parte III, v.IV. Forme e modelli, Torino Einaudi, 198:159-200
Dacos, Nicole. La découverte de la Domus Aurea et la formation des grotesques à la Renaissance, London, 1969.
Morel, Philippe. "Il funzionamento simbolico e la critica nella seconda metà del Cinquecento," Roma e l'antico nell'arte e nella cultura del Cinquecento, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Treccani, 1985: 149-178.
Schulz, Jurgen. "Pinturicchio and the Revival of the Antiquity," Journal of the Courtauld and Warburg Institute, 25, 1962, 35-55.

For educational use only.

Grotteschi (Grotesques, digital montage of images) by Mariano Akerman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at 3.bp.blogspot.com

Grotteschi

2011-03-17T21:35:00.000-07:00

Disegni che oggi chiamano grottesche • Designs that today we call grotesques: motifs pertaining to an Italian Renaissance a style of decoration in which human and animal figures are fantastically interwoven with foliage and flowers (a reference for mural paintings found in grottoes, artificial caves and excavated chambers of ancient houses) • Dessins que nous appellons aujourd'hui des grotesques • Diseños que hoy llamamos grotescos • 1502

Grottesca: s. f. ‘decorazione fantastica con mascheroni, meduse, foglie, armi e sim.’ (1502, contratto per la pittura da parte di Bernardino di Betto (il Pinturicchio) della Libreria Piccolomini nel Duomo di Siena, nel quale erano previsti dei “disegni che oggi chiamano grottesche”). Dalle grotte romane (così si chiamavano gli anfratti delle dimore patrizie di epoca imperiale (Domus Aurea), scavati inizialmente sotto la direzione di Raffaello nei primo decennio del Cinquecento), dove si trovavano resti di pitture, alle quali si ispirarono diversi artisti del Rinascimento (“ridotte dalle mani di Gio. da Udine... a tanta bellezza”: 1550, G. Vasari, che nella vita del pittore friulano narra della loro scoperta, annotando: “grottesche furono dette dall'essere state entro alle grotte ritrovate”). “Queste grottesche hanno acquistato questo nome dai moderni per essersi trovate in certe caverne della terra in Roma dagli studiosi” (av. 1571, B. Cellini), “una spezie di pittura licenziosa e ridicola molto, fatte dagli antichi per ornamenti di vani” (1550, G. Vasari; Geometrie fluide).

Marco da Faenza, Decorazione grottesca, fresco detail, 16th century. Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (Ugo Muccini and Alessandro Cecchi, Le Stanze del Principe in Palazzo Vecchio, via florenceart).

Grottesca. Sorta di pittura a capriccio, per ornamento, o riempimento di luoghi dove non convenga pittura più nobile, e regolata (Vocabolario degli accademici della Crusca, 4° edizione, 1729-38, vol. 2, pp. 680-81; Lessicografia. Also Benedetto Varchi, Lezioni lette nell'Accademia Fiorentina, 216: "Delle pitture non è rimasa in piè nessuna, se non se alcune nelle grotte di Roma, che hanno dato il nome a quelle, che oggi si chiamano grottesche.")

Marco Dente (after Raphael), Grotesque, engraving, early 16th century

Source of inspiration. Roman wall painting. Fabullus, Decorations in fantasy style, 1st century CE. Fresco detail. Domus Aurea, Rome

Il nome “grottesca”, come spiega Benvenuto Cellini nella sua autobiografia, deriva dalle “grotte” del colle Esquilino a Roma, che altro non erano che i resti sotterranei della Domus aurea di Nerone, scoperti nel 1480 e divenuti immediatamente popolari tra i pittori dell’epoca che spesso vi si fecero calare per studiare le fantasiose pitture rinvenute. Durante il Cinquecento, l’utilizzo di questo tipo di decorazione fu motivo di irritazione e disprezzo per molti teorici dell’arte, tra i quali il Vasari, che le definì “pitture licenziose e ridicole molto”. Difatti non è difficile credere come le grottesche, caratterizzate dalla totale negazione dello spazio, dalla presenza di esseri ibridi e mostruosi e senza alcun riferimento intellettuale, siano state considerate opere di puro libertinaggio. Sono figurine esili ed estrose, che si fondono in decorazioni geometriche e naturalistiche, su uno sfondo in genere bianco o comunque monocromo. La parola grottesco è passata poi a significare in italiano qualcosa di bizzarro e inconsueto, poi ha assunto una connotazione di “ridicolo”, ironizzante e caricaturale (Wiki).

Domus Aurea motifs

A typical motif from the 'grotta' involves hybridity and considerable capriciousness.

Grotteschi in traditional candelabrum arrangement. Italian mural painting, fresco

Luca Signorelli, Dante Alighieri surrounded by Grotesques, fresco, 1499-1502. San Brizio Chapel, Duomo, Orvieto. Borrowing a decoration programme that had already been used in 1494 by Pinturicchio in the Borgia Apartment in Rome, Signorelli painted frescoes with grotesque ornamental motifs, busts of philosophers and poets, as well as monochromes illustrating their work. The philosophers and poets are probably symbols of reason and moral values, the only instruments that man can use to keep in check the powerful animal instincts of his nature so to attain the higher spheres of the spirit. This apparently minor section contains fascinating inventions and reaches extraordinary heights of expression,as the artist gives free rein to his imagination.

Pinturicchio, Pendentive with Grotesque Designs, painted vault, c. 1502. Piccolomini Library, Siena (Sacred Destinations, 2008).

Pinturicchio, Pendentive with Grotteschi, painted vault, c. 1502. Piccolomini Library, Siena (Sacred Destinations, 2008).

Pinturicchio, Grotesques on the ceiling of the Piccolomini Library, Siena, painted vault, c. 1502 (Adrian Fletcher).

Raphael Sanzio and Giovanni da Udine, Grotteschi (Grotesques, candelabrum arrangement), fresco, 1515. Pilaster detail. Papal Loggias, Vatican (Scala NY). Grotesque (Ital. grotteschi). In architecture and decorative art, mural or sculptural decoration, the fanciful style involving mixed animal, human, and plant forms.

Giovanni da Udine, Grotesques, 1516-17. Fresco detail. Loggeta of Cardinal Bibbiena, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican

Majolica dish with grotteschi in Raphael's manner (Piatto a Raffaellesche 17872), Faenza, 16th century. Museo internazionale delle ceramiche, Faenza. Decoration of this sort, known as grotteschi, became fashionable in Renaissance Italy following the discovery in Rome, in about 1480, of the so-called Golden Palace of the Emperor Nero. The excavated chambers contained perfectly preserved wall and ceiling paintings, comprising fantastical creatures, ribbons and festoons. These ornaments provided artists of all kinds with a rich source of inspiration. The almost infinite possibilities of design gave them the means to fulfil the desires of the Renaissance market for beauty, abundance, caprice and wit.

Relief with Grotteschi, Chiesa Madre di Erice, Sicilia (geo8_ipernity).

Italian Renaissance Dish with Candelabrum and Grotesques (Piatto con candelabre e grottesche). Ceramic. Museo Estense, Modena

Giorgio Andreoli, Dish with Grotesques (Piatto a Grottesche), majolica, Gubbio, c. 1525. Museo internazionale delle ceramiche, Faenza

Enea Vico, Design for an Amphora, engraving, 1543

Foliated Griffin, engraved motif, Renaissance metalwork, 16th century

Grotteschi, fresco, late-16th century. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Grotteschi. Assorted Italian grotesques: grottesca. Research online via Google and Digital Montage of Images by Mariano Akerman, 21.3.2011. The symmetry of the candelabrum arrangements introduces hybrid ornaments as an extraordinary sort of ordered chaos.

Santos Maschen, Dragon, filete porteño, 2005 (Bien complejo y bien criollo)

Elvio Gervasi, Fileteado porteño: pajarito en flor, Abasto de Buenos Aires (Porteño filetear)

Sergio Menasché, Filetes porteños, 2010 (Fileteando el asunto)

Raffaele Palma, Alfabeti: mascheroni grotteschi, Torino, 2007

Suggested readings

Acidini, Luchinat Cristina. Grottesche: le volte dipinte nella galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze musei, Giunti, 1999

Chastel, André. La grottesca (La grottesque, 2008), tr. Lega, Abscondita, 2010. Che ne è stato di quella specie di euforia davanti all'ornato, del piacere di accogliere le bizzarrie e l'assurdo, del divertimento e della canzonatura mescolati alla decorazione che abbiamo creduto di intravedere come una componente della cultura e dell'allestimento delle dimore nel corso dell'età detta classica? Una volta svilita e banalizzata la decorazione degli interni, la fantasia evapora per far posto, in tutto l'Ottocento, alla pedanteria. Se però ammettiamo che le "follie" della grottesca fanno parte di una tentazione permanente che rimbalza, di epoca in epoca, ci si deve chiedere che cosa sia diventata nell'arte questa propensione al comico. [...] L'arte detta moderna potrebbe essere interrogata a tal proposito nelle sue fondamenta e nel suo "subcosciente": Aubrey Beardsley, Schnitzler, i disegnatori della Secessione, esponenti dell'arte grafica in Gran Bretagna e in Germania, meritano di essere interpellati. E perché non andare oltre? Nelle forme in sospensione, in lievitazione, in corso di metamorfosi di Paul Klee, nei giochi caricaturali pieni di ghirigori e di meandri dovuti alla penna di Steinberg, e addirittura nei mobiles di Calder, che disegna con l'aiuto di falsi rami metallici sinuosità aeree affascinanti e impreviste..., si possono palesare legami familiari, reminiscenze, un bisogno di esilarante leggerezza, tutti impulsi e virtù che nulla perdono se collegati nella prospettiva storica della grottesca.

Hor son spelonche ruinate grotte / Di stucco di rilievo altri in colore, è la scoperta casuale delle sale sotterranee della Domus Aurea di Nerone tra gli anni 1480 e 1490 a suscitare la mania delle “grottesche”, scrive il Bramante. Curiosi, appassionati, artisti si calavano nelle grotte dell’Esquilino per ammirare quelle “stravaganti pitture”, che nessuno aveva mai osato immaginare e lasciavano sui muri firme, graffiti, da maleducati come si fa oggi, ma alcuni, come Perin del Vaga, Filippino Lippi, Luca Signorelli, Raffaello, ricopiavano sui loro quaderni quelle immagini stravaganti e demoniache e ne riprendevano i motivi sulle cornici, sugli zoccoli e nelle volte dei loro affreschi. La moda dilaga con la loro diffusione attraverso la stampa e contagia tutto e tutti: libri, arazzi, sculture, Benvenuto Cellini le metteva dappertutto. Dopo una fase di intossicazione e di effervescenza che invade quasi tutto l’occidente la “grottesca” diventa un fenomeno familiare, un “dejà vu” talmente assimilato da non suscitare più alcun interrogativo sul proprio soggetto. André Chastel pensa che indagare questo fenomeno fornisca una chiave per capire le modalità, le costanti e le incostanze della nostra cultura, anche se si tratta di una “categoria” ambivalente, difficile da definire come genere, che oscilla tra il compiacimento decorativo, la rappresentazione di un mondo “irreale” e il puro divertimento. Il caso sorprendente è che la diffusione della grottesca nasce spontaneamente, come una corrente irresistibile, suscitando l’imbarazzo della critica che la condanna come fenomeno “licenzioso, ridicolo, insopportabile”. Gli artisti si giustificavano con il prestigio di recuperare un tipo di ornato all’“antica”, vale a dire moderno, un ossimoro che potrebbe essere un marchio pubblicitario. Secondo Chastel, dietro il pretesto dell’antichità si manifesta un principio stilistico opposto a quello dell’ordine classico. Già Vitruvio, l’ingegnere dell’età augustea, aveva condannato le grottesche come ornamenti assurdi e sconclusionati. Il loro fascino irresistibile si basa proprio sulla negazione dello spazio, dell’ordine e la fusione delle specie: ibridi insolenti fluttuano in campi senza gravità. Non esiste né prospettiva, né proporzione, né verosimiglianza. In un vuoto lineare meravigliosamente articolato forme semivegetali, semianimali sorgono e svaniscono secondo il movimento elegante e tortuoso dell’ornato. Puro prodotto dell’immaginazione, antitesi della visione prospettica rinascimentale, con cui peraltro convivono. Anche Michelangelo, il genio meno ragionevole e più famoso del Rinascimento, interviene a favore dell’“ornamento senza nome”. Seguendo la massima di Orazio, a pittori e poeti si accorda ‘quidlibet audendi potestas’, il potere di inventare con audacia. “Ancor meglio riesce la decorazione, quando si mette nella pittura qualche essere chimerico, per la varietà e il riposo dei sensi, e il piacere degli occhi mortali, che spesso desiderano vedere quello che non videro mai e che par loro che non esista”. Forse dietro questi ibridi si nasconde un sapere iniziatico quello cui fa riferimento Ovidio nelle “Metamorfosi”, di una mitica unione tra dei, uomini, animali e piante. Grottesco significa anche esagerato, ridicolo e il Cinquecento è tutto un proliferare di poemi burleschi, “Pantagruel” di Rabelais che viene pubblicato con una serie di illustrazioni ispirate a Bosch e a Bruegel. Materiale sospetto, bugiardo, diabolico per la Controriforma che lo bandisce. Ma come uno spiritello dispettoso, il fenomeno ricompare in nicchie nascoste, per riesplodere nel Liberty, nel Simbolismo, nelle forme in levitazione, in corso di metamorfosi di Paul Klee, nei “mobiles” di Calder, sospesi in forme sinuose e imprevedibili (Il Folio).

Vezzosi, Patrizia. Dalle grottesche al fantasy: le grottesche nel Corridoio di Levante degli Uffizi, con CD ROM, Fondazione Conservatorio SS. Annunziata di Empoli: Alinea, 2011. Gli Uffizi, un monumento all’arte capace di attirare incessanti schiere di visitatori adulti e raffinati. Ma come può una cultura “codificata” riuscire ad accendere la giovane sensibilità in formazione dei ragazzi? Anche un luogo sacro come gli Uffizi sembra sfuggire alla loro attenzione, oggi assai più facilmente ingaggiata da sollecitazioni multimediali di altra natura. Ma esiste un luogo, in questo tempio dell'arte "ufficiale", che si ribella alle sue norme, alle sue categorie, ai suoi canoni, e strizza l'occhio all'irriverenza verso tutto ciò che è serioso e scontato, un luogo della fantasia, che sembra fatto apposta per nutrire la luce nativa degli occhi dei ragazzi, un vero film fantasy. Nel primo corridoio degli Uffizi l'universo ludico-bizzarro delle grottesche immerge lo spettatore nell'incanto di una narrazione continua, una "storia infinita" dove il mondo animale e vegetale si fondono in una miriade di esseri inediti e improbabili. Una danza fatata, che invita chi "sa" vedere ad entrare nella rete sottile dell'immaginario e, quasi fosse un videogame, proseguire il racconto addentrandosi in persona nel fecondo universo della pura creatività. Questo volume presenta il Corridoio di Levante attraverso una ricca documentazione fotografica, e si propone al giovane lettore come invito al museo e, al contempo, come incoraggiamento all'arte, per aprirsi ad un dialogo attraverso il tempo, sul filo della sfida creativa.

Zamperini, Alessandra. Le grottesche: il sogno della pittura nella decorazione parietale, Arsenale, 2007; eng. ed. Ornament and the Grotesque: Fantastical Decoration from Antiquity to Art Nouveau, 2008. La più celebre delle forme capricciose della cultura occidentale è quella che prende il nome di grottesca. Si tratta di un genere che nasce nell’arte romana, i cui temi principali sono tralci vegetali, candelabri, figure umane, fantastiche e mostruose, tutti impaginati senza un’apparente logica narrativa e spaziale. Se nel Medioevo, furono ibridi mostruosi e drôleries a mantenere un ruolo di rilievo, la riscoperta della cultura antica nel XV secolo portò a un recupero sempre più deciso delle forme ornamentali classiche. Una spinta fondamentale venne dalla scoperta della Domus Aurea, attorno agli anni Ottanta del Quattrocento. Il sontuoso palazzo neroniano giaceva sepolto da secoli e i primi esploratori che si calarono al suo interno ne ricevettero l’impressione di trovarsi in una serie di grotte. È questo il motivo per cui – come raccontava Benvenuto Cellini – le particolari decorazioni che vi si trovavano vennero chiamate “grottesche”. Le grottesche incontrarono uno straordinario successo, accentuato dal loro impiego nelle Logge Vaticane, realizzate verso il 1518 da Raffaello. Da questo momento, la grottesca divenne una componente ineludibile delle decorazioni di edifici religiosi e profani, comparendo inoltre su ceramiche, vesti, arazzi e giungendo a costituire un campo di specializzazione per molti pittori (Arsenale).

A lavish survey of the grotesque style in European painting and decoration, from Roman times to the late nineteenth century.
In the fifteenth century, the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea were discovered in Rome. The first explorers to enter the interior of this spectacular palace complex had the sensation of finding themselves in a series of grottoes, and this is why the fanciful frescoes and floor mosaics discovered there were called "grotesques."
A fashionable form of ornamentation in ancient Rome, grotesques consist of loosely connected motifs, often incorporating human figures, birds, animals, and monsters, and arranged around medallions filled with painted scenes. Fifteenth-century artists such as Perugino, Signorelli, Filippino Lippi, and Mantegna copied the ancient Roman examples; the most famous use of the style was Raphael's Loggie in the Vatican Palace, which became immensely famous and influential all over Europe.
This magnificently illustrated book covers the entire history of the grotesque in European art, from its Roman origins through the Renaissance to the late nineteenth century. It illuminates how grotesque decoration was transformed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries into arabesque, chinoiserie, and singeries, and how it continued in the nineteenth century, leading eventually to Art Nouveau.

Online resources
Grottesca
Quimeras y grotescos medievales
Wikicommons
Grotta fantastica
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence
Grotesque Obssession
Bloc-notes: Grotesques
Ayuntamiento de Sevilla
Villa della Regina, Piemonte
Neoclacisismo
Kayser

For educational use only.

Art as Intention in Context

2011-03-12T00:27:00.001-08:00

Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516), Portrait of a Turkish Artist or The Young Turkish Scribe. Watercolor. Isabella Gardner Museum, Boston

Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, 1944. Oil on board, each panel 95 x 73.5 cm, Tate Gallery, London

Bacon, Chimpanzee, 1955. Oil on canvas, 152.5 x 117 cm, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart

Bacon, Head I, 1947-48. Oil and tempera on board, 100.3 x 74.9 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Popular Science: Grotescology

2011-03-09T05:35:00.000-08:00

"Grotesque Figures Carved on Modern Skyscrapers," Popular Science Monthly, October 1933, pp. 20-21 (Modernmechanix).

Framed text. A BOY with a bean shooter, a lone fisherman, rats climbing up hawsers are among the strange objects that be found upon modern skyscrapers or apartment houses. Thousands of people have passed through the buildings thus adorned without ever having seen these figures, or if seen there was no recognition of their purpose. Sometimes the architect has played a joke upon the unsuspecting owner, installing a queer figure in so inaccessible a place that only a person with a telescope could examine it. In other cases, the figures have a real, if unconventional, symbolism and are, in a way, the modern equivalents of the gargoyles and statues of medieval architecture.
A whimsical architect is said to be responsible for a group of figures in the ceiling of the main entrance to a fashionable church in Fifth Avenue, New York. These are placed high enough to be all but invisible. They are believed to depict the types of people that the architect expected to attend the church; among those represented are the comic-paper symbols for the banker, the merchant, the professional man, the idle millionaire, and even the waster with his monocle! One expensive apartment house, with an ultra-modern scheme of decoration, presents a series of panels carved to satirize the landlord, the automobile mechanic, the stenographer, and the modern girl, the iceman, and the comedy figure of a janitor.
Photographs on these pages show what unusual sculpture our cameraman found on a tour of New York City’s newest and most famous buildings.

Captions p. 20. This iceman, right, holding a stingy piece in his tongs may be seen over the entrance of an exclusive Park Avenue apartment building. To make the meaning clearer, the figure is pointing to the ice and around his lips is a smile suggestive of many things.
On one of New York City's most modern skyscreapers, appears the carved figure of this lone fisherman. No one seems to know the meaning of it nor why it is there.
The supports of the extension canopy of an office building suggested ship's hawsers to the sculptor so he added climbing rats and shields to keep them from boarding the "ship".
What purpose does this singing girl, with her doll, serve, perched high up in a New York skyscreaper?
Under the main entrance to a fashionable Fifht Avenue church have been carved tiny heads, supposed to represent the types to be found in the congregation. Some are believed to be good-natured caricatures of prominient members of the church.
The modern girl, right, with a cigarette and a cane, is found perched on the fourth floor of a New York building in a niche where no one was told to place her.

Captions p. 21. Here is the janitor, left, who matches the iceman on facing page. The artist shows him in his natural state, sound asleep. In spite of this symbolic warning, the apartment hous is constantly rented and there is no complaint about the heating facilities.
As a companion piece on the opposite page, this stenographer, is found adorning the same ultra-modern building.
Directly opposite the figure of this boy with a bean shooter is a grouchy old man. Is it an accident that the boy is aming at the man? What purpose either figure serve in the building where only the observant will see them?
The great Einstein sits next to an angelover the main entrance of John D. Rockefeller's Riverside Church. You will find him second from right in the center row.
Is the figure, above, found in a New York structure, suggestive of the artist's experience with an indifferent auto mechanic? Note the flask on his hip and the air of indolence. At left, the man may be the grasping landlord for he has a big bag of money which he is puting away in his safe.

Basil Wolverton

2011-03-08T09:34:00.000-08:00

New York, Gladstone Gallery, Basil Wolverton, June-August 2009

"The only fascinating landscape on this earth is the human face." —Klaus Kinski

Basil Wolverton, "Beautiful Girl of the Month," MAD, # 11. 1954. Collage and ink on paper, 72.4 x 58.4 cm. Glenn Bray Archive-Collection

Gladstone Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition by American graphic artist and cartoonist Basil Wolverton curated by Cameron Jamie. Basil Wolverton submitted his first cartoon for publication in 1925 when he was only sixteen and remained an active cartoonist from the 1940s through to the 1970s. His unique and humorously grotesque drawings reveal both his fantastic wit and inventive technique, once famously described in LIFE Magazine as the "spaghetti and meatball school of design."

Wolverton had no formal training as an artist, creating his own style that distinguished him from the other cartoonists of his generation. As he said, "I know I draw things that look like all kinds of organs and glands, it is like the monkey which, if he pounded away for a million years, might accidentally type out the 'Star Spangled Banner' lyrics." Generations of artists including Peter Saul, Ed Ruscha, Robert Williams, Jim Shaw, Mike Kelley, and Cameron Jamie have been influenced by his meticulous technique and pictorial freedom, in addition to its undeniable impact on numerous cartoonists from R. Crumb to Drew Friedman.

This exhibition includes a wide spectrum of Wolverton's work from his earliest drawings published in numerous comic books, including "Spacehawk" and "Powerhouse Pepper," to his very detailed caricatures, with sculpted and exaggerated features. Perhaps the most famous body of work in the exhibition are his drawings for Harvey Kurtzman's comic-book version of MAD Magazine from the 1950s. Also included are portraits made for Topps Chewing Gum in the 1960s, which appeared on bubble gum posters and stickers. [...]

Born in 1909 in Central Point, Oregon, Basil Wolverton resided for most of his life in the Pacific Northwest until his death in 1978. His work has been published in a variety of magazines and comic books, from MAD Magazine, America’s Humor Magazine, The Portland News, Plop! and Hollywood Today. His work has been featured in Timely Comics, Circus Comics and Target Comics. He also contributed to the Li'l Abner Comic Strip and LIFE Magazine. In 2006, his work was exhibited at The Portland Art Center in Oregon and in 2007 the CSUF Grand Art Center in Santa Ana, California presented a solo exhibition of Wolverton’s oeuvre from the collection of Glenn Bray. The works selected and presented in this exhibition are also from Bray's private archive/collection.

George, 1955. Ink on paper, 29.2 x 36.8 cm. Glenn Bray Archive-Collection

Linus Sinus, 1971. Ink on paper, 36.8 x 29.2 cm. Glenn Bray Archive-Collection

Nell No-Smell, 1972. Ink on paper, 43.2 x 50.8 cm. Glenn Bray Archive-Collection

Joel Holehead, 1972. Ink on paper, 43.2 x 50.8 cm. Glenn Bray Archive-Collection

Eyeball Doctor, 1956. Ink on paper, 35.6 x 30.5 cm. Glenn Bray Archive-Collection

Cameron Jamie. Eyeballs pulled and ripped out of their sockets, rotten zigzagged buck teeth pointed in every crooked direction, wild scraggly yarn hair, faces and bodies pulled inside and out twisted into abstract knots distorted beyond recognition: Basil Wolverton is my Picasso. I discovered Wolverton's "spaghetti and meatballs" style of humorously grotesque art for the first time when I was a kid in the 1970s. His bubblegum cards and comic books became staples of my visual diet, and it has never quite been the same again. I found my first serious interest in fine art through digesting Basil Wolverton’s visual entree. Countless other artists and freaks around the country entered Wolverton’s revolving door and were likewise liberated by his grotesque style, which I believe became meaningful and inspirational as an existential canon for artistic creation. In other words, Basil Wolverton’s art inspired and equaled freedom of artistic expression. Who had ever heard of ugly pride?
Basil Wolverton created some of the most humorous and horrifically uncanny depictions of humans (if you could call them that) ever drawn on paper. He takes our basic facial ornaments—the eyes, ears, nose, head, hair—and literally destroys them if only to rebuild the face way passed the point of no return and into his own uniquely distorted configurations. Wolverton's horrific and mind-bending portraits are closer to the vision of a mannerist sculptor who slaps, knocks, punches, bends, and kicks masterfully odd shapes out of the human face and body to create another type of humanoid. Considering that Basil Wolverton’s art has influenced generations of artists in virtually all graphic and visual fields during the last gasp of the 20th century, his absence from LA MoCA's 2005 "Masters of American Comics" exhibition was a shocking omission. Repairing this blindspot is another of many reasons that I have wanted to curate an exhibition entirely devoted to Basil Wolverton’s work.
[...] I consider these drawings to be some of Wolverton's masterpieces where his monstrous style matched the fantastic nature of the subject matter. [...]
So please pull out your eyeballs and knock your brains out of your skull to the art of Basil Wolverton. He's one of the good guys.

Gladstone Gallery, New York

Jacques Callot

2011-03-03T01:33:00.000-08:00

French artist Callot (1592-1635) had a genius for caricature and the grotesque. His series of plates of single or dual figures—for example, the Balli di Sfessania (Dance of Sfessania), the Caprices of Various Figures, and the Hunchbacks—are witty and picturesque, showing a rare eye for factual detail (Encyclopædia Britannica).

Two Dancing Pantalone, from Capricci, etching, 1616

After Jacques Callot, Two Pantaloons, etching. British Museum, London

Callot achieved a great success in engraving public events. He found a brilliant idiom for rendering the bizarre movements of Commedia dell'arte with vividness. His figures' dynamic poses are affected yet based on close, witty observation. Curiously, artificiality and naturalism remain always fused in Callot's etchings.

Balli di Sfessania, 24 etchings (each about 7.3 x 9.2 cm), 1621-22. Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

Esgangarato & Cocodrillo

Pasquariello Truonno & Meo Squaquara

Cucorongna & Pernovalla

Mala Gamba & Bellavita

Gian Fritello & Ciurlo

Cardoni & Maramao

Bello Sguardo & Coviello

This etching series shows Napolitan actors who relate to the Commedia dell'arte. The prints are Callot's most exuberant and delightful. They depict dances known in Neapolitan dialect as the sfessania. Such dances, as Callot's etchings demonstrate in salacious detail, are characterized by violent and sometimes obscene physical contortions and gesticulations. Each plate features a pair of figures pulled from the repertoire of popular entertainers, with their balletic interactions running a comic gamut from mock grace to blatant crudity. Lively little scenes fill out the backgrounds of some of the dances, offering engaging glimpses of fairground activity in Callot's time (Cybermuse).

Followers. The influence of Callot can be felt in a number of prints by his followers. Such works present certain similarities with Callot's oeuvre, but their quality is different.

Fritellino, etching. Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Two Pantaloons, etching. British Museum, London

References Online. Wikifrench
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/246787/grotesque
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/5760/Grotesque-detail-of-a-fresco-by-Giovanni-da-Udine-in
http://milich.multiply.com/photos/photo/12/1

The Grotesque

2011-02-27T05:54:00.000-08:00

When commonly used in conversation, grotesque means strange, fantastic, ugly or bizarre, and thus is often used to describe weird shapes and distorted forms such as gargoyles on churches or Halloween masks.[1] The term originated in the visual realm as a style of ornamentation characterized by fanciful combinations of intertwined forms. The first to use it in a literary context was Walter Scott in his extended analysis of the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann: On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition (1827).

Polysemy. Because of its inherent characteristics, grotesque may refer to 1. ornamentation, 2. appearance, attitude or behavior, 3. aesthetics.
1. Ornamentation (grottesche). In architecture and decorative art, the grotesque is an ornamental style of painting or sculpture involving mixed animal, human, and plant forms.
2. Look or behavior. Something or somebody whose appearance or movements are unexpected, extraordinary, ridiculous, bizarre, exaggerated, uncanny. Grotesque appearance can involve hybridity, deformation, or both. Grotesque behavior may have to do with excess or affectation.
3. Aesthetics. Like te the sublime and the picturesque, also the Grotesque pertains to the domain of aesthetics.

Etymology. The word "grotesque" comes from the Latin grotto, meaning a cave, either natural or artificial. The expression comes from the unearthing and rediscovery of ancient Roman decorations in caves and other buried sites in the 15th century. Such "caves" were in fact the rooms and corridors of the Domus Aurea, an unfinished palace complex started by Nero after the great fire from 64 AD.

History of Art. In art, the grotesque is a type of decoration characterized by its heterogeneity and strageness. Grotesques were fashionable in ancient Rome and were used chiefly in frescoed wall and ceiling decoration. They were described by Vitruvius (around 30 BCE), who in dismissing them as meaningless and illogical, offered quite a good description of them: "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."

A fashionable form of ornamentation in ancient Rome, grotesques consisted of loosely connected motifs, often incorporating human figures, birds, animals, and monsters, and arranged around medallions filled with painted scenes. As Nero's Domus Aurea was inadvertently rediscovered in c. 1480 (buried in fifteen hundred years of fill, so that the rooms had the aspect of underground grottoes), the ancient decorations in fresco and stucco were had the effect of a revelation.[2] Fifteenth-century artists such as Perugino, Signorelli, Filippino Lippi, and Mantegna copied the ancient Roman examples. They were also studied by artists such as Pinturicchio, Domenico del Ghirlandaio and Raphael Sanzio. Together with his assistant, Giovanni da Udine, Raphael developed the grottesche into a complete system of ornament (Loggias in the Vatican Palace, Rome), which became immensely famous and influential all over Europe.[3]

"Les grotesques sont une catégorie de peinture libre et cocasse inventée dans l'Antiquité pour orner des surfaces murales où seules des formes en suspension dans l'air pouvaient trouver place. Les artistes y représentaient des difformités monstrueuses créées du caprice de la nature ou de la fantaisie extravagante d'artiste : ils inventaient ces formes en dehors de toute règle, suspendaient à un fil très fin un poids qu'il ne pouvait supporter, transformaient les pattes d'un cheval en feuillage, les jambes d'un homme en pattes de grue et peignaient ainsi une foule d'espiègleries et d'extravagances. Celui qui avait l'imagination la plus folle passait pour le plus doué."[4]

Typography. Grotesque (generally with an upper-case G) is the style of the sans serif types of the 19th century. Capital-only faces of this style were available from 1816. The name "Grotesque" was coined by William Thorowgood, who was the first to produce a sans-serif type with lower case in 1832.

Grotesque sensibility in Literature. In fiction, a character is usually considered a grotesque if he induces both empathy and disgust.[5] Obvious examples would include the physically deformed and the mentally deficient, but people with cringe-worthy social traits may also be included. Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of the most celebrated grotesques in literature.

Dr. Frankenstein's monster and the Phantom of the Opera can be considered grotesques. Other instances of the romantic grotesque are also to be found in E.A. Poe, Hoffmann, and the Sturm and Drang movement. Significantly, romantic grotesque is usually far more terrible and somber than medieval grotesque, which used to relate to laughter and fertility. In Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll managed to make the grotesque characters not too frightful and suited them for children's literature, although they remain still utterly strange al along the story.

Southern Gothic is the genre most frequently identified with grotesques and William Faulkner is often cited as the ringmaster. Flannery O'Connor wrote, "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."[6]

By connotation: aberrant - abnormal - absurd - ambivalence - amusement - bizarre - black comedy - burlesque - carnivalesque - demon - deviant - disgust - eccentricity - exaggeration - excess - extraordinary - extravagance - fantastic - fantastique - fear - freaks - gargoyle - horror - humor - incongruous - laughter - ludicrous - macabre - monstrous - outlandish - ridicule - strange - supernatural - surreal - terror - travesty - uncanny - unconventional - unusual - weird.

Practitioners. Francis Bacon, Carlos Nine, Julia DeVille, Sergio Menasché, Heinrich Hoffmann, Cachi Verona, Marko Maetam, Quino, Javier Inga, Yuka Yamaguchi, Alfredo Genovese, Till Nowak, Elvio Gervasi.

Connoisseurs. François Rabelais, John Ruskin, Wolfgang Kayser, Mikhail Bakhtin, Philip Thomson, Joyce Carol Oates, David Lavery, Ian McCormick, Robert Storr, Pamela Kort.

Paul Rumsey (b. 1956) is a British graphic artist who works in the tradition of the Imaginary. Most of his work is made in charcoal. His imagery is powerful, sinister and acid, ambiguous and disturbing. Many of his ideas come from the History of Art, but also from dreams and nightmares. His influences are summed up in his autobiography: "The tradition of the grotesque is particularly alive in prints. The fantastic is especially suited to the graphic medium, and it is possible to track almost its entire history in etchings, engravings and woodcuts. A fine book The Waking Dream: Fantasy and the Surreal in graphic Art 1450-1900 charts this progress through Holbein’s Dance of Death, the macabre prints of Urs Graf, the engravings of Callot, seventeenth-century alchemical prints, scientific, medical and anatomical illustration (I adapted the embryonic development diagrams of Ernst Haeckel for my drawing Species/Gender), emblems, the topsy-turvy world popular prints, Piranesi’s Prisons (which influence my architectural fantasies), Rowlandson, Gillray (whom I studied for guidance on how to draw caricature for drawings like my Seven Sins) , Goya, Fuseli and Blake, and into the nineteenth century with Grandville, Daumier, Meryon, Dore, Victor Hugo’s drawings and Redon. The tradition continues with the Symbolists and Richard Dadd, Ensor and Kubin, through to Surrealism, which recognised many of the artists of the grotesque and fantastic tradition as precursors. It is via Surrealism that much of this work has come to be appreciated. In the twentieth century this type of imagery has permeated culture, and is found everywhere, in diverse art forms including: the satiric installations of Keinholz, the drawings of A. Paul Weber, the cartoons of Robert Crumb, the animated films of Jan Svankmajer, photographs by Witkin, plays by Beckett, science fiction by Ballard, fantastic literature like Meyrink’s The Golem, Jean Ray’s Malpertuis, the art and writings of Bruno Schulz and Leonora Carrington, films by Lynch, Cronenberg and Gilliam; all are part of a spreading network of connections, the branching tentacles of the grotesque. This is the tradition to which my work belongs."[7]
Rumsey's imagery is filled with incredible landscape-characters and all sorts of bizarre creatures. His monochrome technique is remarkable. Some of the blurred out, smeared faces he depicts certainly add to the suggestive quality of his art.[8]

Notes
1. However, when not used as drainspouts, the grotesque forms on Gothic buildings should not be called gargoyles, but rather referred to simply as grotesques, or chimeras.
2. "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" (Peter Ward-Jackson, "The Grotesque" in "Some Main Streams and Tributaries in European Ornament from 1500 to 1750," The Victoria and Albert Museum Bulletin, June 1967, pp. 58-70, p. 75; Esti Sheinberg, Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich: A Theory of Musical Incongruities [1998], Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000, p. 378).
3. "First revived in the Renaissance by the school of Raphael in Rome, the grotesque quickly came into fashion in 16th-century Italy and became popular throughout Europe. It remained so until the 19th century, being used most frequently in fresco decoration. Although the animal heads and other motifs sometimes have heraldic or symbolic significance, grotesque ornaments were, in general, purely decorative" (Grotesque, Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2011).
4. Giorgio Vasari, On Painting (c. 1550), Technical Introduction, chapter XIV.
5. A character who inspires disgust alone is simply a villain or a monster.
6. "Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction," 1960. In her short story "A 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.
7. Paul Rumsey, Introduction to Essex, Chappel Galleries, Drawings from the Imagination, October-November 2005
8. Cf. Aeron Alfrey, Paul Rumsey, Monster Brains, 12.3.06

Online Resources
Auguste, Catherine. Des grottesques aux grotesques, Meuble peint, France (11.1.2011).
Beautiful Grotesque; Facebook
Jahsonic 2006-9
Coulthart, John. Feuilleton
Fenris, Franz. Grotesques, Meuble peint (11.1.2011).
Geerinck, Jan. Fantastic and Grotesque, Jahsonic, 1996-2006; Grotesque, Art and Popular Culture, 22.2.2011
McCormick, Ian. Encyclopedia of the Marvelous, the Monstrous, and the Grotesque, 7.10.2000
Rumsey, Paul. Gallery at Angelfire, 1988-2005. And his charcoals and etchings exhibited at Galerie Béatrice Soulié and the Chappel Galleries in 2005. See also Morbid Anatomy
Wikipedia; Wikimedia Commons
Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Collections: Grotesques

TO INCORPORATE

links

2011-02-24T23:30:00.000-08:00

Grotesques V&A

Esaias van Hulsen
V&A Ornament

Le Pautre
Oeuvres d'Architecture
BibliOdyssey

Goya
Biblioteca Nacional de España
Museo del Prado

Owen Jones 1856
The Grammar of Ornament
Original drawing
V&A

Auguste Racinet
Polychromatic Ornament 1869-88

Heinrich Dolmetsch
Der Ornamentenschatz, Suttgart: Julius Hoffman , 1887.
The Treasury of Ornament 1
The Treasury of Ornament 2

Jahsonic's Microblog

Fileteando el Asunto

2011-02-22T05:33:00.000-08:00

Sergio Menasché conoce el arte del fileteado como la palma de su mano e indudablemente es un talentoso trabajor en su oficio. Desarrolla sorprendentes imágenes en las que el realismo mimético coexiste con el ingenio de la fantasía. Y es precisamente en su mundo fileteado donde el acanto espiralado soporta sin problemas al carro que el lechero bonaerense dejó solo para llevar a cabo su reparto.

De su tarea nos informa el texto en esgróstica que acompaña tanto al carro como al filete: "Con el candil apagado no hay negra que sea fea." Pero, ¿a quién pertenece tamaña sabiduría sino al mismísimo lechero? Porque sabido es que en el filete porteño por regla general es el dueño del vehículo quien le proporciona el lema al artista. Curiosamente, en la sugestiva obra de Menasché reina la claridad. Con el candil seguramente ya apagado en 2007 (que es cuando se pintó este trabajo) y hoy a plena luz matinal, uno no puede dejar de preguntarse: ¿qué pinta tendría ahora la negra en cuestión?

Mientras que la pinta de la negra no puede ser sino asunto de especulación (y acaso acalorado debate), muy distinto es el caso de don Timoteo Gordillo, a quien en 2010 retrató Menasché en apaisada pintura mural y con todas las de la ley. Se trata de una composición simétrica, presidida por un retrato oval flanqueado por paisajes rurales y custodiado por heráldicos seres fantásticos. El retratado nos observa y nosotros observamos a sus custodios, cuyos orígenes se remontan al Estilo Fantasía de la Antigüedad. Fue entonces que críticos de la talla de un Horacio o de un Vitruvio criticaron a los plásticos de su época por abandonar las imágenes que reflejaban el mundo real para dedicarse con esmero a pintar seres fabricados por los caprichos de su propia imaginación. Según Horacio imprudente era el cruzar serpientes con aves (Ars Poetica). Según Vitruvio, los bicharracos en cuestión simplemente no eran, no serían ni jamás habrían sido (De Architectura). Pero, por supuesto, los pintores no se inhibieron por tales comentarios e hicieron lo que que se les dió la reverendísima gana. Empezando por Fabullus que fileteó sin asco la Domus Aurea de Nerón, llenándola de insuperables caprichos y hasta Menasché que le sigue dando duro al filete hasta el día de hoy, ahora sí, ya bien entrados nos en el XXI. Y, reconózcanselos, pues son los suyos extraordinarios bicharracos.

Porque, a decir verdad, los guardianes del retrato de Gordillo podrían bien descender de la Quimera de Arezzo,[1] ese fabuloso híbrido animal en el que se combinan partes de león, cabra y serpiente. Claro que Menasché parece haberles impuesto un aggiornamento un tanto drástico, posiblemente para adaptarlos a una Argentina hoy ya rumbo al Tricentenario. Así, el león quedó león pero con melena de acanto, la cabra se volvió caballito criollo, y la serpiente pasó a ser una rara mezcla de delfín trucho y distinguida mojarra riachuelense. No obstante, y pese a todo el suflé, reina la simetría, siendo también ella quien reaparece en Tangozando.

Sorprendente danza es la desplegada entre firuletes, cintas y pajaritos. Argentinísimo el asunto del tango. Y además como Dios manda: a calzón quitado. A calzón, a sombrero no. La cosa está fuerte. Bien empulpadita ella y él sabe como agarrala. Es Tangozando. Claro que también goza quien percibe el suculento bifacho central y la ensalada completa que los circunda. Una vez más la realidad viene acompañada de un marco de prestigiosa fantasía. En este sentido, Menasché descolla. No trata lo familiar vuelto inquietante sino que a lo inquietante lo torna él familiar. Tal idea se da particularmente en su serie de trabajos en pequeño formato de 2010: en ellos el pintor representa formas caprichosas y antinaturales en términos tradicionales.

Ornamentales y aludiendo a seres vivos de naturaleza extraordinaria, los firuletes de Menasché son articulados como interesantes juegos de curvas y contracurvas. Y una forma espiralada suele encontrar su complemento en otra, que es contra-espiralada. La imaginería del fileteador es en este caso orgánica y sugiere plantas y animales. Tal como sucede con las flores y los pajaritos, los cielos pintados por Menasché son de corte realista, indudablemente distinto del Estilo Fantasía que caracteriza a los sofisticados protagonistas de estas pequeñas obras. Se trata de figuras artificiales. Estilizadas, las figuras son desde el punto de vista de lo imaginario deliciosas fabricaciones artísticas. Pero, de ser consideradas como reales, se volverían inquietantes aberraciones genéticas.

Algunas de ellas son híbridas y sugieren de la cruza de reinos que en la Naturaleza permancen siempre estrictamente separados. Ello ocurre cuando, por ejemplo, una enrulada configuración vegetal adquiere por culminación el aspecto de un equino (Nos. 3, 7-8). Sogni dei pintori era la expresión empleada durante el Renacimiento italiano para referirse a los motivos híbridos que eran un poco juguetones y otro tanto desaforados. Por supuesto, es en este sentido en particular que el arte de Menasché recuerda al desarrollado por Rafael de Urbino y Giovanni da Udine en la Logias vaticanas. Memorables ambos, tanto por su originalidad como por su doble-filo. Hablamos entonces de un fascinate asunto grutesco,[2] asunto que entra dentro de los alcances de lo grotesco (entendido ahora como categoría estética).[3]

"Sacudile tu firulete" exige una imponente milonga ya desde 1958.[4] Con sus trabajos en pequeño formato, Menasché cumple este requisito al pie de la letra y en su quehacer, además, se destaca.

¿Quién fue el raro bicho que te ha dicho, che pebete, que pasó el tiempo del firulete? Con Menasché, el tiempo del firulete evidentemente es el de hoy y, de ser necesario dejar que el corazón hiciera lo suyo,[5] aclaremos entonces que, querendones, los criollitos arabescos de Menasché pertenecen a aquellos que suelen quedar bordados en el alma.[6]

Mariano Akerman

Notas
1. Ugo Bardi, The Chimaera of Arezzo (1997), revised 2002. Acerca de la sugestividad de esta "obra abierta, que sugiere una presencia exterior sin mostrarla de hecho," véase Raúl Gómez Rioja, Quimera de Arezzo, Arte-Historia (24.2.2011)
2. Se llama grutesco (del italiano grotta, gruta) al adorno caprichoso de bichos, sabandijas, quimeras y follajes, llamado así por imitar a aquellos que se encontraron en las grutas artificiales o ruinas de palacios de la antigua Roma. Los grutescos empleados desde el Renacimiento se hallan inspirados por los motivos de las pinturas descubiertas en grutas subterráneas de la Antigüedad, principalmente en la Domus Aurea de Nerón en Roma. El hallazgo de ese edificio con salas abovedadas (que habían permanecido sepultadas unos diez siglos) reveló complejos motivos murales que interesaron a pintores tales como Ghirlandaio y Rafael. El grutesco es un motivo decorativo a base de seres fantásticos, vegetales y animales, complejamente enlazados y combinados formando un todo. Giorgio Vasari explica en el siglo XVI que "los grutescos son una clase de pintura libre y divertida inventada en la Antigüedad para decorar los muros donde únicamente se podían situar formas suspendidas en el aire. En ellas, los artistas representaban deformidades monstruosas, hijas del capricho de la naturaleza o de la extravagante fantasía de los pintores: inventaban esas formas fuera de toda regla, colgaban de un hilo muy delgado un peso que jamás podría ser soportado, transformaban en hojas las patas de un caballo y las piernas de un hombre en patas de grulla, pintaban también gran cantidad de diabluras y extravagancias. El que tenía la imaginación más desbordante parecía ser el más capacitado. Después se introdujeron las reglas y se limitó la maravilla a los frisos y a los compartimentos a decorar" (Introducción técnica, capítulo 14; Diccionario Enciclopédico Hispano-Americano, 1892).
3. Mariano Akerman, De la gruta a lo grotesco, Knol, 10.5.2009.
4. El firulete, letra original de Rodolfo Taboada y música de Mariano Mores. El tango ha sido interpretado por importantes cantores, pero la versión más famosa es la del uruguayo Julio Sosa, quien lo convirtió en un clásico. La letra de Taboada alude al lugar del tango frente a otras tendencias novedosas de la época, tales como el twist, que amenaza entonces con desplazar al tango de su lugar de hegemonía en la cultura rioplatense. Es por eso que en lo que a tango se refiere, El firulete es en esencia una milonga reivindicativa (Planet Tango, 2006; Zorzal Criollo, 2008).
5. Al preguntársele a Menasché cuál es su mensaje, el pintor responde: "Deja al corazón hacer su trabajo" (entrevista).
6. Tal como sucede con el trabajo de Elvio Gervasi, colega suyo que también desarrolla interesantísimas figuras mixtas.

Ilustraciones, por orden de aparición
1. Sergio Menasché, Con el candil apagado no hay negra que sea fea, filete porteño, 2006-7. Esmalte y acrílico sobre hardboard, 60 x 40 cm. Colección Alberto Malovrh
2. Menasché, Timoteo Gordillo, retrato con fileteado porteño, 2010. Mural, óleo y esmalte sintético sobre metal, 122 x 244 cm. Foro de la Memoria, Mataderos, Buenos Aires
3. Escultura etrusca, Quimera de Arezzo, bronce, 380-360 BCE. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Florencia
4. Menasché, Tangozando, filete porteño, 2005. Óleo y esmalte sintético sobre hardboard, 30 x 40 cm. Colección privada, Chile
5. Menasché, Filetes porteños, 2010. Serie en pequeño formato. Acrílico y óleo sobre hardboard, cada unidad 13 x 9 cm. Colección privada, Buenos Aires
6. Ídem., lámina analítica por Mariano Akerman
7. Ídem.

Trabajos reproducidos en el Imaginarium con el consentimiento del pintor © Sergio Menasché, con galería en Artelista.

Viva la Mezcla

2011-02-21T05:25:00.000-08:00

Roman mosaic from Carthage, Tunisia. Bardo Museum, Tunis

Ibid., detail (David Simmer)

Gothic manuscript illumination. Zebo da Firenze: Grotesque Flutist. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 144, France, 1408, fol. 28v

Giovannino de Grassi, Gothic letters after a model book c. 1390, oil painting. Biblioteca Civica, Bergamo

Woodcut Initial "L" from Les Contenances de la table: petit traité des manières de table à l'usage des enfants, Lyon, c. 1490-1500, f. 2. Ref. booklet with instructions on table manners for children.

Majolica Dish with Grotesques in Raphael's manner (Piatto a raffaellesche), Faenza, 16th century. Museo internazionale delle ceramiche, Faenza

Italian Renaissance pilaster with grotteschi, candelabrum arrangement. Chiesa Madre di Erice, Sicilia (geo8_ipernity)

Giorgio Andreoli, Dish with Grotesques (Piatto a grottesche), maiolica, Gubbio, c. 1525. Museo internazionale delle ceramiche, Faenza

Enea Vico, Design for an Amphora, engraving, 1543

Italian Renaissance Dish with Candelabrum and Grotesques (Piatto con candelabre e grottesche). Ceramic. Museo Estense, Modena

Daniel Hopfer, Ornamental fillet with grotesques, engraving, c. 1530

Claude Paradin, "In Utrumque Paratus," emblem from Devises héroïques (1551), Lyon, 1557. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library. One hand holds a sword, the other a trowel; the motto, In Utrumque Paratus, means "Ready for both." In emulation of the Kings of Israel in the Bible, modern Kings must be both warriors destroying enemies of their nation, as well as builders who regenerate and embellish their realm (Warriors and Builders: The Valois Kings as Patrons).

Joos van Craesbeeck, The Temptation of St. Anthony, 1650 (Uncultural).

Jean Le Pautre, Ornamental Hybrids, 17th century. Oeuvres d'Architecture de Jean Le Pautre, Architecte, Dessinateur & Graveur du Roi, Paris: Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1751, vol. 1 (Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg)

Foliate grotesque. Green Man, architectural detail, c. 19th century. British Columbia, Canada (Amie Roman).

Grotesque. Biltmore House, Asheville, NC., 19th century

Marre Moerel, Transfigurations, porcelain, 2008. From left to right and top to bottom: Bitch in Heat, Geb the Great Cackler, Son of Sphinx, Sexy Beast, El niño elefante (The Elephant Child), and Chicken Boy Grew an Arm (Delicate Monstrosities).

Dan Hillier, Lovers, Mother, Weird Uncle Peter, Child, and Father, etching collage, 2006-10 (Boingboing, Null, Precursor, Randomindex, Zoodisk)

Ibid., Icarus, remixed woodcut, 2010 (Boingboing)

Alfred Kubin, Every Night We are Haunted by a Dream (Jede Nacht besucht uns ein Traum), ink and wash, c. 1901-3 (New York Times; see also Mapping the Shadowy Corners of the Subconscious).

Tree-Man, digital image, 2008 (HD India)

"Multiplica las Sonrisas"

2011-02-19T23:47:00.001-08:00

—Estudio semántico de un figurón inolvidable

Pocas imágenes han tenido en mí un efecto tan significativo, duradero y entrañable como el de la cabeza de Geniol que presenta toda una collección de elementos punzantes clavados en la piel y en absoluto contraste con su muy sonriente expresión.

Se trata de la publicidad de un conocido analgésico, cuyo anuncio original fue creado por Lucien-Achille Mauzan en 1927.

El aviso en cuestion abarcó literalmente todas las dimensiones. Fue impreso como afiche e incluso realizado como relieve y escultura.

Fabián Lebenglik explica que el abecé del afiche implica que éste debe ser comprendido en pocos instantes, de modo que la estructuración de los elementos que lo componen tienen que ser descifrados por quien lo mira en un golpe de vista, ya que el destino del afiche es ser visto al paso, sobre la marcha. Los carteles publicitarios, prosigue Lebenglik, forman parte y marcan etapas de la dinámica urbana. Los afiches dan cuenta de una época, no sólo por las cuestiones que anuncian, denuncian, advierten, sugieren, prometen o recomiendan, sino también por las herramientas gráficas y visuales que utilizan. La intención y el efecto del afiche son cruciales, ya que entre publicidad y propaganda suelen jugarse duelos sutiles. El afichista francés Achille Mauzan –que vivió en la Argentina y fue autor de la célebre cabeza de Geniol– definió el sentido y la función del afiche en pocas palabras: "Los afiches deben ser simples y visibles de lejos. Son el bombo en la orquesta de la propaganda. Son gritos pegados en los muros. En el afiche, la idea [lo] es todo" (En este preciso momento y lugar, Página 12, Buenos Aires, 5.6.2004)

Emblemático de una sociedad tan llena contradicciones como lo es la argentina, el protagonista de Geniol sonríe a pesar de todo lo que lleva clavado en su testa. Pero, como reza el lema de 1929, "Geniol corta el dolor."

En efecto, Geniol no le quita a uno ni los clavos ni los tornillos que lleva insertos en la cabeza, sino que suspende el dolor que ellos producen. En la imagen numerosos objetos punzantes coexisten clavados en un personaje que, de modo simultáneo, sonríe.

La imagen de Mauzán es una rara especie de grotesco. Dado que la imagen grotesca es antetodo y por sobre todo una paradoja visual insoluble. Es decir, lo grotesco mezcla nociones incompatibles y es siempre problemático (ya por definición no puede dejar de serlo; caso contrario, no sería un grotesco). Por otra parte, lo grotesco sugiere lo monstruoso. Tales características aparentemente se dan en la cabeza de Geniol y por ello es posible considerarla como grotesca.

Mas a diferencia de los grotescos propiamente dichos, la imagen de Mauzán es un grotesco solo en apariencia, dado que brinda estabilidad al cliente y lo reconforta, asegurándole que incluso si los clavos y tornillos que lleva en su cabeza no van a desaparecer, Geniol le acabará con el dolor de cabeza que ellos le producen.

En el contexto argentino, nadie piensa al observar la publicidad de Mauzán que su autor intentaba comunicar la monstruosa idea de que existiesen personas que literalmente llevaban cosas clavadas en la testa y se encontraban sonriendo en simultáneo. No, el sentido figurado de la imagen ha sido siempre convencionalmente aceptado y por analogía: los objetos punzantes en la testa hacen referencia al dolor de cabeza, mientras que la sonrisa es el resultado de haber consumido el producto en cuestión que, como es sabido, "corta el dolor."

Así, entendida en su apropiado contexto, la cabeza de Geniol constituye una imagen ocurrente y funciona como una interesante metáfora que actúa desde el plano de la suposición. De no poseer la imagen de Mauzán una clara razón de ser o de no hallarse ligada al analgésico que de hecho promueve, el motivo en cuestión constituiría exclusivamente una figura grotesca, marcada por la autocontradicción.

Pero dado que tal image realmente sí posee una clara y justificada razón de ser y sí se halla en perfecta consonancia con el analgésico que promueve, ella se constituye como una obra maestra del arte publicitario. Apela a lo Grotesco para expresar una idea, idea que no es para nada. Formalmente, la imagen emplea clavos y tornillos perforando la cabeza conjuntamente con una gran sonrisa, pero su mensaje deja claro que, solo porque Geniol corta el dolor, uno sonríe a pesar de que clavos y tornillos sigan estando aún ahí: uno ya no los siente.

Mientras que ante la presencia de lo grotesco uno se siente desorientado o percibe incluso que la tierra se le desmorona bajo los pies, la imagen de Geniol ejemplifica y reasegura.

Ante la cabeza de Geniol, lo que uno percibe es precisamente el efecto que a uno le produce el analgésico en cuestión. La imagen parte de lo Grotesco como recurso visual pero dado que, a diferencia de un grotesco, la cabeza de Geniol sí posee un sentido claro y preciso, ella trasciende tal condición. (Sopapa de la inseguridad, lo Grotesco celebra la tensión, lo familiar vuelto extraño, la eterna ambigüedad, sugiriendo lo monstruoso y lo perverso. Ejemplo).

En la cabeza de Geniol, el motivo grotesco es empleado como un vehículo apto para captar nuestra atención. La imagen elegida es cómica y al mismo tiempo poderosa, encontrándose provista de un componente aterrador. En este sentido, ella puede ser considerada grotesca e impregnada de cierto humor negro. Mas el humor negro se emplea aquí solo en un sentido figurado, mientras que la forma elegida es además original e insólita. Sin embargo, decididamente claro es el efecto del analgésico que, al cortar el dolor, da lugar a que el protagonista del anuncio sonría aliviado para, por otra parte, desplazar a la imagen en cuestión hacia el marco de lo habitual y cotidiano.

Se trata entonces de un supuesto. Suponga usted que siente que tiene un tremendo dolor de cabeza, pero ya se ha tomado un Geniol... pronto sentirá entonces algo parecido a lo que le sucede al protagonista del anuncio: aunque clavos y tornillos permanezcan bien clavados en su cráneo, sentirá usted un enorme alivio y, a pesar de ellos, sonreirá.

Es por ello que la cabeza de Geniol es una verdadera obra de arte: una donde aquello que permanece siempre grotesco es solo el dolor de cabeza. Precisamente en este sentido Geniol, en efecto y consonancia con uno de sus mejores lemas, "multiplica las sonrisas."

La multiplicación de las sonrisas

"Los problemas de hoy no son los de antes, pero el dolor de cabeza es siempre el mismo. Volvé a usar la cabeza. Tomáte un Geniol." Eduardo Capilla, Los problemas de hoy, Grey Argentina & Películas Cortitas, 2007.

¿El Ícono Fundamental de la Nuestra Condición Post-Virreynal?
Giordano Bruno diría que la imagen ficticia encapsula una verdad que le es propia.

Mariano Akerman

Alexander Ovchinnikov

2011-02-19T00:17:00.000-08:00

Siluetas e ilustraciones, Rusia, 2008-10

La curiosidad, el riesgo y la incertidumbre se combinan en el Libro para Infantes de 2010.

Realizados en 2009, los Cuentos del Teatro de Sombras mezclan la fantasía con lo siniestro.

Los seres híbridos de este (irresistible y peligroso) encuentro le deben bastante a los de Odilon Redon.

Redon, La araña llorando, 1881

Estos personajes se hallan emparentados con las decimonónicas caricaturas de Grandville, quien también prestó oportunamente atención a los peligros que acechan a los peces voladores.

Grandville, Cabinet d'Histoire Naturelle (Gabinete de Ciencias Naturales), litografía, 1833

Grandville, Fables de Florian (Fábulas de Florián), París: Garnier Frères, 1870

Los combatientes montados pueden ser asociados a otros alguna vez delineados por Christoph Jamnitzer en su Neuw Grotteßken Buch (Nuevo Libro de Grotescos, Nüremberg, 1610).

Grabado de Jamnitzer proveniente del Nuevo Libro de Grotescos de 1610

Destino inexorable: la grotto-tragedia monta su espectáculo.

Una sorpresa tomada del Album Negro: el colorido y ambiguo asunto de la mariposa.

Recursos visuales online: Grandville y Redon

Asunto de 6.000.000

2011-02-12T20:32:00.000-08:00

Por el corresponsal acreditado de la BKN News en materia de arte

Nueva York, 13 feb 2011 (BKN).—Un agente invirtió ayer la suma de 6.000.000 de dólares en obras que fueron adquiridas para un importante coleccionista anónimo.

La transacción se llevó a cabo en privado en pleno centro financiero de Nueva York. El agente eligió y adquirió seis artículos entre los doce que le fueron ofrecidos, pagando no menos que un millón de dólares por cada uno de ellos.

Los ítems ofrecidos fueron los siguientes:

1. La llegada de la tormenta (L'approche de l'orage), por Hyppolyte Boulanger (1871). Lit. Robert Hoozee (Paris-Bruxelles, Bruxelles-Paris, 1997).

2. Polyhymnia, por Hans Hofmann (1963). Lit. Dennis Earl Fehr & Giselle Borzob

3. Donald Judd, Stark, 1965. Lit. Minimalism vs. Academic Art

4. Los amordazamientos de 1972-74, por Alberto Heredia. Lit. Iconoteca, Alberto Giudici & Natalia March

5. Iglesia de San Moisés (Chiesa di San Moisè), Venecia, 1668

6. Residencia minimalista con vista al Mediterráneo.

7. Cabeza de yeso con la Máscara del difunto William Blake, 1827

8. La prehistórica Venus of Willendorf (22.000 BCE). Lit. Christopher Witcombe & Stephen R. Berlant (The Journal of Prehistoric Religion, 1999).

9. Una Enana de Jardín, procedente del Parque Mirabell, Salzburgo, 1716. Lit. The Lost Dwarfs

10. Jarrón estilo Jugendstil, por Max Läuger (1898). Victoria & Albert Museum, Londres. Lit. V&A

11. Afiche para Job, cigarrillos franceses, por Alphons Mucha (1896). Lit. Artchive & Artcyclopedia

12. La Hagadá de los Pajaritos, mamusrito hebreo iluminado, Alemania, siglo XIII. Museo de Israel, Jerusalén. Lit. IMJ, Yale & Jeremy Norman

Transacción. Según le fue requerido, el agente antetodo percibió cuidadosamente una proyección de doce diapositivas con los items arriba enumerados, mientras tomaba notas para seguidamente indicar los seis ítems por él seleccionados y pagar un total de 6.000.000 de dólares en efectivo. Una vez que la operación estuvo realizada el agente se mostró muy satisfecho.

Resultas. Un problema se presentó cuando un colega le hizo al agente algunas preguntas una vez que la transacción hubo sido efectuada. Es entonces que el colega pudo constatar que el agente no había considerado el tipo de colección específica que el misterioso cliente anónimo intentaría luego formar. Según las palabras pronunciadas por el agente pocas horas antes de partir de Nueva York, el criterio que él aplicó al decidir qué items adquirir dependió fundamentalmente del valor que ellos podrían algún día llegar a alcanzar en el mercado, sus características formales y/o simbólicas, y el gusto personal del agente, combinado con asociaciones, preferencias y prejuicios que le son propios. Un aspecto digno de ser destacado es que cuando adquiría los ítems en cuestión, el agente no tuvo presente que no estaba comprando obras de arte sino diapositivas educativas. Con todo, el agente hoy comprende que ha pasado por "algo-algo".

Ref. Precio e imagen, preferencia y preconcepto, experiencia personal

Arte de ligeras desproporciones

2011-02-10T06:23:00.001-08:00

Ilustraciones de Gustave Doré (1832-1883) para Gargantúa y Pantagruel (1532-53, por François Rabelais; publicado como Œuvres de Rabelais, París: Garnier Frères, 1873).

Gargantúa (Œuvres, I, 1, 38).

Prólogo para la edición inglesa de 1894, conocida como The Works of Rabelais.

Works, 1, 1, 43.

Gargantúa en Œuvres, I, 22.

Pantagruel en Œuvres, 2, 4, 35.

Recursos digitales
Obras de Gustave Doré
Rabelais
Gargantúa y Pantagruel
Le Gargantua (Renaissance-France)
Mercure-Gargantua
Christine Escarmant, De la dignité des braguettes : Rabelais pornographe, Marincazaou - Le Jardin Marin (10.2.2011).

Alfredo Genovese y su Porteño Filetear

2011-02-03T22:57:00.000-08:00

Respetable es la contribución de Alfredo Genovese en el campo del fileteado porteño.

Estudió en la Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes y con el maestro León Untroib, para luego dejar, por mérito propio, su indeleble impronta en la cultura argentina.

"Los mejores fileteadores," observa, "tienen un estilo personal, en sus obras se puede apreciar la complejidad de la composición."[1]

Lejos de ser ningún asunto del pasado, el filete respira de nuevo y se vuelve en las manos de Genovese algo tan nuestro como el café con leche con tres mediaslunas. Mas no ha Genovese revivido al filete sólo como ornato elegante, sino también como uno que contribuye a dar relieve a la identidad de todos los argentinos (se encuentren éstos en el territorio nacional o bien en ultramar).

Es así que Genovese produce no floripondios ñaupéscos, sino originales distintivos provistos de identidad (cosa de la que él es artífice consciente).

Se escribe que al viajar por el mundo, Genovese absorbe los ornamentos exóticos "como esponja."[2] Tal vez. Pero lo que sí cuenta es que ha estudiado los ornatos propios del Río de la Plata como ninguno.

Más allá de la apariencia de rockero que Genovese pueda o no tener,[3] lo cierto es que su arte emana del conocimiento de la historia del arte y de otros tantos serios estudios iconográficos,[4] que, en su caso, constituyen la base para una obra sumamente expresiva, técnicamente impecable y culturalmente importante.

Motivos ornamentales parisinos documentados por el fileteador.[4]

Dados sus humildes orígenes y que el filete porteño era cultivado inicialmente por inmigrates fue otrora considerado una expresión de poca monta e incluso un asunto ordinario y marginal.[5] Es con originalidad y talento que Genovese puso al filete bien en el centro e hizo del mismo un ornamento con distinción.

No titubeó Genovese en recurrir al fileteado para expresarse acerca de la Argentina del Bicentenario: a dos híbridos filetes encadenó la testa de un carnero de dientes afilados para exhibir una pudorosa y titubeante Patria presentada en un paisaje carente de sol y con veinte doradas flechas clavadas en su espalda.[6]

En este sentido, Genovese le otorga al filete un nuevo rol expresivo, uno acaso desconocido para sus antepasados. Sacude el firulete, dejando de lado a Horacio y su Arte poética para unir entonces lo manso con lo salvaje. Su Tratado de fileteado porteño es por otra parte una de las contribuciones más valiosas, sutiles y bien documentadas de estos últimos tiempos. —Mariano Akerman

Referencias - Alfredo Genovese y su Taller de Fileteado
1. Esteban Rey, El gran fileteador, Cielos Argentinos (Revista de Aerolíneas Argentinas), mayo de 2010, p. 33
2. Ibid. Por más que Rey se engolosine enumerando destinos tales como China, África, Nepal, Medio Oriente y Tíbet, no cabe duda que Genovese conoce la Gramática del ornamento europeo como la palma de su mano. Destaquemos además que la mencionada grámatica incluye los motivos provenientes de la gruta y su paulatina evolución a lo largo de no menos de cuatro siglos.
3. Véase ibid.
4. Ver, por ejemplo, Genovese, Motivos en París, 2009. Las composiciones simétricas con motivos heráldicos ejecutadas por Genovese tienen sus antecedentes en las artes decorativas decimonónicas provenientes de Europa y su ulterior desarrollo en el fileteado porteño de las primeras décadas del siglo XX.

5. En Bellas Artes hubo quien se burlaba de Genovese y su interés por el filete porteño, que era tildado aún a mediados de los años '80 de ser cosa "vulgar" (Rey, p.33).
6. Considerando la estructura general de la obra, con su figura principal que parece haber emergido de las aguas, el cuadro de Genovese parece ser una ácida reflexión acerca del Nacimiento de Venus (Botticelli, 1484), pero adaptado a la bicentenaria realidad argentina, donde la Patria no juega el papel de ninguna diosa, sino el de una verdadera mártir.

En este contexto, su ornato criollamente alado expresa cierto optimismo.

_
Otros Recursos Disponibles Online
• Festejos en Ultramar: Arte y Español
• Cultural Argentina 200
• Celebrando el Bicentenario de Argentina

Mariano Akerman, creador del programa educativo Shape and Meaning

All Together Now

2011-02-03T06:38:00.000-08:00

Timothy Jacob Fuller. Character animator artist from Los Angeles, USA. Three works, circa 2008

The Yellow Bull is a picture dedicated to Franz Marc, distinguished member of The Blue Rider avant-garde group and author of the much celebrated Yellow Cow. The interest in the figure, its muscularity and dynamism, together with the arena-like compositional setting of Fuller's picture are also reminiscent of the imagery developed by Francis Bacon from the 1960s onwards.

Interesting distortions characterize this dynamic group of animals entitled Horse Crash.

Given the Fuller's use of distortion combined with disproportion, it is almost impossible differentiate man from horse[s?] in this statuette. And this difficulty is even reinforced by the fact that the artist has used the very same flesh-like color to paint both man and horse[s?].

Viewed from another angle, this fascinating image is even more paradoxical. A remarkable and most ambiguous structure celebrating some sort of all-togetherness-now.

Pío: una nueva vuelta de tuerca a la tradición

2011-01-30T00:45:00.000-08:00

.Javier Inga, alias Pío. Diseñador gráfico, animador e ilustrador peruano residente en Argentina.

Ecología (Ecology), 2008
Ilustración en tinta, color digital con wacom - photoshop, 16 x 10 cm.
Ref. Paradoja visual - Visual paradox

This is Love (Esto es amor), 2008
Dibujo y color digital con wacom - photoshop, 19 x 16 cm
Ref. Sirena; origen y precio del amor; desmesura; lo grotesco - Siren; origin and price of love; exaggeration; grotesqueness

Envidia (Envy), 2008
Ilustración en tinta, color digital con wacom - photoshop, 10 x 18 cm
Ref. Insectos; mariposa; lepidóptero; orugas; larvas; singularidad; peculiaridad; evolución; metamorfosis; diferencia; chivo expiatorio; venganza; ajuste de cuentas; violencia - Insects; butterfly; larvae; caterpillars; singularity; peculiarity; evolution; metamorphosis; scapegoat; revenge; violence

Mentira blanca (The Lie Covered), 2008
Ilustración en tinta, color digital con wacom - photoshop, 11 x 10 cm
Ref. Mentira; disimulo; encubrimiento; el fin justifica los medios; negacionismo - Lie; the end justifies the means; negationism

Prejuicio (Prejudice), 2009
Ilustración vectorizada (Illustrator), color digital photoshop, 15 x 20 cm
The Queen: "It's nothing personal darling, we just believe your boyfriend does not fit our stylelife."
Ref. Matrimonio mixto; segregación; rechazo - Mixed marriage; segregation; rejection

Naturaleza (Nature), 2008
Dibujo y color digital con wacom - photoshop, 12 x 12 cm
Flower: "What? You take the best of mine... and leave me?"
Ref. Abandono, desilusión - Abandon, disappointment

Como animador, Pío ha aportado lo suyo en un corto que reconsidera el origen de Pegaso.

Mitología (Mythology), Buenos Aires: Rafita Films, 2009

Animadores: Pío, Daniel Jervis y Ricardo Jurado; detalles adicionales.

El corto propone un origen alternativo para el fabuloso caballo alado de la Grecia pagana, asociándolo a otros tantos híbridos mitológicos, mas en él idiosincráticamente reconfigurados. Tradicionalmente, Pegaso se halla ligado a la fierísima gorgóna Medusa y su peculiar rostro, que dejaba petrificado a quien lo contemplase. Acerca de ella y sus parientes, ver mi Best regards to Medusa?

La creatividad al poder o los nuevos monstruos en figuras negras engrequecidas. Pegaso con alitas diminutas, Sirena es entendida como una joven semi-devorada por un ser acuático semejante a un pez, Minotauro lleva puesta las calzas y el calzado atribuibles a un torero, la Hidra de Lerna presenta cinco cabezas en lugar de siete, el majestuoso Grifo piensa en un gusanito, de lo que se deduce que su cabeza no es la de un águila sino la de un gallináceo, Cerbero posee tres cabezas caninas mas éstas son de diferentes razas (bulldog, galgo y chihuaha) y puede atrapar el disco que presumiblemente le acaba de lanzar el Discóbolos de Mirón, tal vez retratado en el disco de su pertenencia, mas indudablemente... ¡cerámico! —Mariano Akerman en el Teclado

The Uncanny

2010-12-28T00:14:00.000-08:00

Carlos Nine, Colored Relief #2, c. 2009

The uncanny is the weird, the strange, the mysterious, a mingling of the familiar and the unfamiliar. Even Freud, patron of the uncanny, had trouble defining it. Yet the uncanny is everywhere in contemporary culture.

Louise Bourgeois, Janus fleuri, 1968. Bronze and golden patina, h: 25.7 x w: 31.8 x d: 21.3 cm. Collection of the artist

The Uncanny (German, das Unheimliche—literally, "un-home-ly", but ideomatically, "scary", "creepy") is a Freudian concept of an instance where something can be familiar, yet foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange. Because the uncanny is familiar, yet strange, it often creates cognitive dissonance within the experiencing subject due to the paradoxical nature of being attracted to, yet repulsed by an object at the same time.

Hartmann Schedel, The Monstrous Races: "Blemmyae," from Liber chronicarum (Die Schedelsche Weltchronik, Das Buch der Croniken und Geschichten von Hartmann Schedel), woodcut, 1493

Canny comes from the Anglo-Saxon root ken, "knowledge, understanding, or cognizance." Thus the uncanny is something outside one's familiar knowledge or perceptions.

Robert Gober, Untitled (Leg), 1982-92. Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

Our present day understanding of this notion has been largely shaped by the psychoanalytic viewpoint of Sigmund Freud’s 1919 essay "The Uncanny." There, Freud defines the uncanny experience as "that class of the frightening which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar." To experience something as "foreign, and yet familiar" may result in feelings of discomfort and alienation. Freud situated "the uncanny" in the realm of the repressed: "[The uncanny] is in reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old – established in the mind and become alienated from it only through the process of repression." According to the Freudian psychoanalytic model, the process of repression involves the rejection and subsequent suppression of troubling impulses and desires. In his 1919 essay, Freud analyzes the etymology of unheimlich (the German word for "uncanny") and proposes a strong linkage of "the uncanny" to the domestic setting of the home. The German term das Heimlich signifies cosy, that which feels homely, comfortable and familiar. The inversion of this term, das Unheimlich, negates this feeling of comfort and suggests an estrangement or feeling "not at home," literally "unhomely."

Jennifer Linton, "P" from My Alphabet Book of Anxieties & Desires, 2008

Uncanny - Etymology: 1596, "mischievous" (Online Etymology Dictionary)

Uncanny mischievous

Uncanny - Definition: Peculiarly unsettling; eerie; weird; unearthly (American Heritage Dictionary). A literary genre that was coined by Freud when he wrote on Das Unheimliche, which translates literally as the unhomely. The French call it le fantastique. "The canny and the uncanny" are related to one of Freud's psychological theories.

Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (right-hand panel, close-up), 1944. Tate Gallery, London

Uncanny as Fantastic

Penrose triangle

"The uncanny" is also a mode of fantastic fiction and is defined in Tzvetan Todorov's Introduction à la littérature fantastique (1970). This author defines the Fantastic, the fantastic uncanny, and the fantastic marvelous. According to him, the fantastic involves any event that happens in our world that seems to be supernatural. Upon the occurrence of the event, one must decide if the event was an illusion or whether it was real and has actually taken place. Todorov uses Alvaro from Cazotte's Le Diable Amoureux as an example of a fantastic event. Alvaro must decide whether the woman he is in love with is truly a woman or if she is the devil. Upon choosing whether the event was real or imaginary, Todorov says that we enter into the genres of uncanny and marvelous. In the fantastic uncanny, the event that occurs is actually an illusion of some sort: the "laws of reality" remain intact and also provide a rational explanation for the fantastic event. Todorov gives examples of dreams, drugs, illusions of the senses, madness, etc. as things that could explain the fantastically uncanny event. In the fantastic marvelous, the supernatural event that occurs has actually taken place and therefore the "laws of reality" must be changed to explain the event. Only when the reader cannot opt for one or the other possibility, the text is purely fantastic (fantastique).

Fantastic uncanny. André Kertész, Distortion, photograph, Paris, 1933

Fantastic marvelous. John Tenniel, illustration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, engraving, 1869

Purely fantastic. Hand, c. 2007. Todorov's fantastique is no doubt compatible with the notion of the grotesque understood as "the unresolved clash of incompatibles in work and response" and/or "the ambivalently abnormal" (Thomson, 1972).[1]

Yuka Yamaguchi, A New Seedling, color pencil and ballpoint pen, 2008 (The Cute and the Creepy).

Uncanny Grotesqueness

Hans Bellmer, Doll, 1936 (cast in 1965). Painted aluminum on bronze base, 66 x 25.4 x 27.9 cm. Zwirner & Wirth, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Mike Kelley on the Uncanny. Everyone knows how the human body is organized; this is a given and is never thought about. To become aware of these particulars, one must imagine oneself unwhole, cut into parts, deformed or dead. [...] In recent art, the modernist notion of the fragment as a microcosm has given way to a willingness to let fragments be fragments, to allow partiality to exist [as such]. [...] The Surrealist artist, Hans Bellmer, constructed a life-size figure of a young girl in the early 1930s. This figure was fully jointed and came apart in pieces in such a way that it could be put back together in innumerable ways. He also made extra pieces that could be added so that the figure could have, if desired, multiples of some parts. The 'doll' is a perfect illustration of Bellmer's notion of the body as anagram: the body as a kind of sentence that can be scrambled again and again to produce new meanings every time.
...
The uncanny is apprehended as a physical sensation, like the one I have always associated with an "art" experience – especially when we interact with an object or a film. This sensation is tied to the act of remembering. I can still recall, as everyone can, certain strong, uncanny, aesthetic experiences I had as a child.
Such past feelings (which recur even now in my recollection of them) seem to have been provoked by disturbing, unrecallable memories. They were provoked by a confrontation between "me" and an "it" that was highly charged, so much so that "me" and "it" become confused.
The uncanny is a somewhat muted sense of horror: horror tinged with confusion. It produces ‘goose bumps’ and is ‘spine tingling’. It also seems related to déjà vu, the feeling of having experienced something before, the particulars of that previous experience being unrecallable, except as an atmosphere that was ‘creepy’ or ‘weird’. But if it was such a loaded situation, so important, why can the experience not be remembered? These feelings seem related to so-called out-of-body experiences, where you become so bodily aware that you have the sense of watching yourself from outside yourself. All of these feelings are provoked by an object, a dead object that has a life of its own, a life that is somehow dependent on you, and is intimately connected in some secret manner to your life.
In his essay The Uncanny (1919), Freud writes about how the uncanny is associated with the bringing to light of what was hidden and secret, distinguishing the uncanny from the simply fearful by defining it as "that class of the terrifying which leads us back to something long known to us, once very familiar." In the same essay, Freud cites Ernst Jentsch, who located the uncanny in "doubts" about "whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might not in fact be animate."[2]

Robert Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois, silver gelatin print, 1982. The latex and plaster sculpture the artist holds under her arm as if it were as a loaf of French bread is known as "Fillette."

Bizarre and Grotesque. The difference between the bizarre and the grotesque is mainly one of degree. The grotesque is more radical and usually more aggressive. Kayser expresses the difference by calling the grotesque more dangerous: the bizarre, he points out, can be used synonymously with 'very strange', 'outlandish'—it lacks the disturbing quality of the grotesque. Here one again of course runs into the problem of subjectivity: what is grotesque to one person may be only bizarre to another. [...] Of course, the dividing line may in any case be very difficult to draw, and one can point to a number of works where the bizarre turns into the grotesque for a brief moment. We can describe this process in technical terms in the following way: something which is very strange, and perhaps ludicrous as well, is made so exceedingly abnormal that our laughter at the ludicrous and eccentric is intruded on by feelings of horror or disgust; or, a scene or character which is laughably eccentric suddenly becomes problematic, and our reaction to it mixed, through the appearance of something quite at odds with the comic (Thomson).[3]

Patricia Piccinini, The Young Family, sculpture, 2002

Double-edged 1. Having two edges that can be used; having two cutting edges. 2 Having a dual purpose; having two meanings; effective or capable of being interpreted in two ways. Double-edged sword - literally, a sword which cuts on either side; metaphorically, an argument which makes both for and against the person employing it, or which has a double meaning.

Mariano Akerman, De doble filo (Doube-edged), April 2008. As Ruskin aptly observes in The Stones of Venice (1853), the Grotesque involves two components. One of them is amusing; the other frightening. Them both coexist in a single whole, which by definition is paradoxical one.

Francis Bacon, Figure with Meat (Head surrounded by Sides of Beef), 1954, oil on canvas, 129.9 cm × 121.9 cm. Art Institute of Chicago

Both Freud's Unheimliche and Todorov's fantastique have a lot to do with Thomson's conceptualization of the Grotesque. Landmark of the Uncanny, Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung, 1915) in turn fits Freud's Unheimliche, Todorov's fantastique, and Thomson's definitions of the Grotesque.

Roberto Aizenberg, Painting, 1985. Oil on canvas, 86 x 57 cm. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires

"When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect," writes Kafka. But all along the story, Kafka's most peculiar insect also expresses human feelings and thoughts. Uncannily, the protagonist's look is that of an insect, but one which has simultaneously retained the very worries, logic, needs, nostalgy, preoccupations, hopes and sentiments of Gregor Samsa himself.

Thus, Kafka's protagonist is a double-edged entity that simultaneously fits different concepts pertaining to different domains: psychoanalysis (das Unheimliche), literature (le fantastique), and fine arts (The Grotesque). Besides, it also fits Schelling's initial idea of the familiar turned into unsettling.[4]

Bacon, Man in Blue VI, oil on canvas (detail), 1954

Notes and references
1. Philip Thomson, The Grotesque, London: Methuen, 1972, 3 Towards a Definition. Thanks to the generosity of its author and David Lavery, this invaluable book can be consulted online. Thomson's discussion and clarifications have paved the way to my own definition of the Grotesque. Thomson approaches the Grotesque from literature and only eventually deals with the visual arts. But his conclusions are perfectly valid to both literature and the visual arts. Targeting the visual arts, my definition is based partly on Thomson's ideas: the Grotesque is a tense and disturbing whole, combining conflicting elements in a visual paradox, which suggests the monstrous (The Grotesque in Francis Bacon's Paintings, 1999; Grotesqueness in the Triptych and Lo Grotesco en las pinturas de Bacon, 2008; see also Ser y No Ser, 2008).
2. Mike Kelley, The Uncanny, Tate Liverpool, 2004
3. Thomson, 4 The Grotesque and Related Terms and Modes
4. Mariano Akerman, Lo familiar vuelto inquietante, Firmamentum, 13.3.2009

Educational aims exclusively. Research and design: Mariano Akerman

Utterly uncanny? — Mariano Akerman: The Grotesque Bacon's Paintings