Kayser plus Bakhtin

Books: The Grotesque of Kayser, Bakhtin, and Relatives



GROTESQUES. Pictures wherein (as please the Painter) all kinds of odde things are represented whithout anie peculiar sense, or meaning, but only to feed the eye (R. Corgrave, A Dictionnairie of the French and English Tongues, 1611).



Factor de desorientación. El terror nos asalta con rigor precisamente porque se trata de nuestro propio mundo, de manera que la confianza que depositábamos en él [el mundo] no resulta ser más que una apariencia. Simultáneamente tenemos la sensación de que no podríamos vivir en ese mundo de repente transformado. No se corresponde con lo grotesco el miedo a la muerte, sino el pánico ante la vida. Y a la estructura de lo grotesco pertenece la abolición de todas las categorías en que fundamos nuestra orientación en el mundo. Desde la ornamentación renacentista hemos asistido a la plasmación de procesos perdurables de disolución: la mezcla de ámbitos y reinos bien distinguidos por nuestra percepción, la supresión de lo estático, la pérdida de identidad, la distorsión de las proporciones «naturales», etc. Y en la actualidad se han sumado a aquellas otros procesos más de disolución: la anulación de la categoría de cosa, la destrucción del concepto de personalidad, el derribo de nuestro concepto de tiempo histórico (Kayser: Lo grotesco en literatura y pintura).



KAYSER, Wolfgang Johannes. The Grotesque in Art and Literature (1957), McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1966. The art of our own day shows a greater affinity to the grotesque than that of any other epoch. Modern novels, modern paintings and sculpture are replete with grotesque features. In this modern classic of criticism, Wolfgang Kayser traces the historical development of the grotesque from the Italian Reanissance (which originated the word "grottesco") through the "chimeric" world of the commedia dell'arte, Sturm und Drang, the age of Romanticism and nineteenth century "realism," to its modern forms in poetry, dream narration and surrealist painting (A).



Kayser's book on the grotesque touches its history, etymology and traditions. If you don't specialize in art or literature, his examples are sometimes hard to follow. There are parts of this book that are brilliantly illuminating, but other parts are like trudging through ankle deep mud. It's not that the book is inconsistent, it's that the examples Kayser chooses are so obscure that he has to explicate them and his summaries are hazy. Sometimes I couldn't even tell why he chose the examples that he chose. But when he's talking theory or history, he can be very inspiring. I found lots of quotable passages in the introduction and conclusion. Kayser suggests that the grotesque is grotesque only in as much as it is new and unknown, but as soon as one gets used to it, its grotesqueness tends to fade. Unfortunately Kayser's examples and descriptions lack the comic side of the grotesque almost completely (1+2).



BAKHTIN, Mikhail Mikhaĭlovich. Rabelais and His World, Indiana University Press, 1984. This classic work by the Russian philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) examines popular humor and folk culture in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. One of the essential texts of a theorist who is rapidly becoming a major reference in contemporary thought, Rabelais and His World is essential reading for anyone interested in problems of language and text and in cultural interpretation (B).



Bakhtin richly documents the range and scope of the popular-festive culture that is the hero of his book, its ancient roots, the vigorous life it enjoyed in the Middle Ages, its entry into important literature in the Renaissance, even the considerable traces of it that still survive after centuries of repression (Modern Language Quarterly).
The author rediscovers the spirit of the medieval carnival, a tradition that stemmed from ancient Greek and Rome: its function was to give a vent to people's death fear and anger over social injustice. "Everything was allowed" and for a short period of time the social taboos were erased. Fools and prostitutes were "crowned" to embody Kings, Queens, Pope, saints, monks and nuns. And the chosen ones were mocked, ridiculed, assailed, beaten, stoned, "dethrowned" and "impeached" (T. Elmanovich).
Bakhtin analyses the "Carnivalesque" and explores the sources of medieval popular culture that served Rabelais' language and purposes.
As for the significance of the individual in the Carnivalesque, Michael Lyons holds that one has only to look to the Fool. Bakhtin considered his first reading of Friedrich Nietzsche an epiphany and that German philosopher remained one of Bakhtin's most important influences throughout his writing career. The Fool, as an extension of the carnival, is the ultimate Nietzschean character. Able to move between worlds, he demonstrates the power of the individual to transcend societal norms. As Bakhtin explains, "the images of folk culture are absolutely fearless and communicate this fearlessness to all."



THOMSON, Philip John. The Grotesque, Routledge, 1972. Volume 24 of The Critical Idiom. A most clear exposition of the topic.



HARPHAM, Geoffrey. On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature (1982), The Davies Group, 2006. The concept of the grotesque appeared in the Renaissance when the word grottesche was first used as a name for a new, or a newly discovered, type of decorative art that incorporated human, floral, and animal elements, compromising a common-sensical distinction between the figural art of the center and the ornamental art of the margin. The richest undertanding of the grotesque, Harpham argues, derives from precisely such a confusion between margin and center, or between art that represents the world as conventionally perceived and the world as imagined in dreams, fantasies, or myths. Through discussions of pictorial art from the Paleolithic art of the cave, or "grotto" to more recent times, and of narratives of Bronte, Poe, Mann, and Conrad, Harpham argues that the grotesque should be seen as not as an artistic anomaly or aberration but as a "species of confusion" that structures the concept of art itself. A final chapter on the aesthetic theories of Kant, Hegel, Ruskin, and others tracks the ways in which the grotesque has haunted the thinking of the leading theorists of the Western tradition. Thus, accordig to Harpham, we should view the grotesque not as a marginal or aberrant form, but rather as a key to the Western artistic tradition which expands and enriches our understanding of art itself. Excerpt



KRISTEVA, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, Columbia University Press, 1982. Uncanny. A hallucinatory journey to the limits of symbolization. The act of reading this book can be an excersize in facing or coping with abjection. Includes interesting and accessible literary analyses.



KURYLUK, Ewa. Salome and Judas in the Cave of Sex. The Grotesque: Origins, Iconography, Techniques, Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1987. The author explores the concept of the Grotesque and studies the literary and graphic work of Beardsley. Review by Stanley Weintraub: "Although Ewa Kuryluk has used, largely, Aubrey Beardsley's work--in words an in images--to represent a stage in the artistic use of the grotesque in Western culture, her real subject proves to be the mythmaking mind of Beardsley himself. [...] A log introduction on the origins of the grotesque as an outlet for antisocial impulses, and how the grotesque has manifested itself since the first cave drawings, is followed not by examining its use among fin-de-siecle writers and artists in general, but almost wholly as Beardsley employed it. [...] There is no question but that the grotesque dominates Aubrey Beardsley's art. The moving force of the grotesque world, Ewa Kuryluk tells us, was Eros. It was injected into landscape and architecture, and allegorized in different ways; it appeared as a winged boy or a horned satyr, a chevalier or a beast, a dwarf and an embryo who explored the female garden, isand or planet of love, a subterranean paradise. Further, she concludes, the artists of the grotesque, preoccupied as they were with death as well as with love, oscillated between sadism and masochism but had a stronger inclination for the second ("The Lens of the Grotesque," English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920, Vol. 31, No. 2, April 1988, p. 191-95).



ADAMS, James Luther, ed. The Grotesque in Art and Literature: Theological Reflections, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997. While there has been a growing interest in the use of grotesque imagery in art and literature, very little attention has been given to the religious and theological significance of such imagery. This fascinating book redresses that neglect by exploring the religious meaning of the grotesque and its importance as a subject for theological inquiry.



Review by Justin Torres: The Grotesque's Religious Implications (Washington, D.C., 1998). Standing always at the edge of society's consciousness is a group of artistic works that repel as they fascinate: the grotesque. Dismissed by the "respectable," and often condemned for their absurdity, incongruity, and perceived immorality, they nonetheless hold powerful sway in the popular imagination. Sordid pagan tales of incest and bloodletting, the medieval carnival, commedia dell'arte--these popular uprisings of the grotesque imagination reveal, through their marginalized position in the cultural scene, deep seated impulses that polite society has suppressed.
Yates surveys four major theoretical approaches to the grotesque-Wolfgang Kayser's grotesque as demonic "other," Mikhail Bahktin's edenic carnival, Geoffrey Harpham's notion of the grotesque as the process of becoming, and Ewa Kuryluk's feminist interpretation of the grotesque as an expression of subdued or oppressed "anti-worlds." Yates uses these theorists to identify major themes in grotesque art that speak to religious impulses: bafflement over the meaning of human existence; the dread of non-existence; man's ability to create; and our perception of the world as fallen.
Roger Hazelton's "The Grotesque, Theologically Considered" seems to express the central insight of this book: that the grotesque, like theology, forces us to reflect on mystery properly conceived. As Hazelton says:
"Mystery is not a synonym for residual ignorance which will be dispelled when the sciences get around to it. Neither can it simply be equated with the unknown or unknowable.... Theology and grotesque art ... find a certain affinity in a common persuasion that mystery remains a real and radical feature of our existing in the world-something not reducible to the aims and methods of technical expertise ... thus compelling other kinds of human response and acknowledgment."
For Hazelton, the grotesque, in expressing the mystery of Being recalls to us theology's enunciation of "that abiding, confiding trust and loyalty called faith." Also notable in this collection is Wolfgang Stechow's consideration of Hieronymus Bosch, whose Garden of Earthly Delights was placed by Spain's King Philip II at the altar of the Escorial. Bosch has long been a puzzle to art critics and the faithful alike. Praised by a Spanish monk at the time of its completion as a bold representation of man "as he is on the inside," the painting, with Dante's Inferno, ranks among the best commentaries of the grotesque nature of sin. The book also boasts an excellent examination of the gravedigger's scene from Hamlet and a previously unpublished play by Robert Penn Warren, Ballad of a Sweet Dream of Peace: A Charade for Easter.
The only disappointment in the collection is the essay that James Luther Adams wrote in the '70s before abandoning the project for a quarter century. "The Grotesque and Our Future" studiously avoids discussion of the deeper insights about man and religion the grotesque affords, instead confining himself to banal policy pronouncements. He quotes approvingly the call for a "revitalized United Nations" as the antidote to 20th century violence, a suggestion that gains a grotesque irony in the post-Sarajevo era. Surveying the cultural scene, he finds nothing more "typically and pathetically grotesque" than the spectacle of "the president's daughter tutoring two inner-city children at the White House." (One feels Dr. Adams has not looked hard enough.) Given the fact that we seem to be experiencing a uprising of the grotesque in popular music and movies--notice for example, Quentin Tarantino--this essay is a missed opportunity to discuss what the grotesque may say about our culture's future.
Still, in all, The Grotesque in Art and Literature is fascinating reading: well written, insightful, synthesizing various disciplinary approaches in an attempt to gain a view of the whole subject. Moreover, the subject of the grotesque may well become one of great interest to believers in the postmodern era. As American culture itself becomes more and more grotesque, there may be much insight to gain from art and literature that stands on the cultural edge and gazes back to the center.



CONNELLY, Frances S., ed. Modern Art and the Grotesque, Cambridge University Press, 2009. This volume examines how the grotesque has shaped the history, practice, and theory of art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The grotesque has been adopted by a succession of artists as a way to push beyond established boundaries, to explore alternate modes of experience and expression, and to challenge the status quo. Examining specific images by a range of artists, such as Ingres, Gauguin, Höch, de Kooning, Polke, and Mona Hatoum, these essays encompass a variety of media, including medical illustration, paintings, prints, photography, multimedia installations, and film. This study brings into focus a range of subjects, styles, and theoretical viewpoints that have traditionally been marginalized in the standard narratives on modernism. It demonstrates how the grotesque in modern art directly ties into debates regarding the representation of race and gender, abjection and the Other, globalization, and appropriation. Excerpt



CONNELLY, Frances S. The Grotesque in Western Art and Culture: The Image at Play, Cambridge University Press, 2012. This book establishes a fresh and expansive view of the grotesque in Western art and culture, from 1500 to the present day. Following the non-linear evolution of the grotesque, Frances S. Connelly analyzes key works, situating them within their immediate social and cultural contexts, as well as their place in the historical tradition. By taking a long historical view, the book reveals the grotesque to be a complex and continuous tradition comprised of several distinct strands: the ornamental, the carnivalesque and caricatural, the traumatic, and the profound. The book articulates a model for understanding the grotesque as a rupture of cultural boundaries that compromises and contradicts accepted realities. Connelly demonstrates that the grotesque is more than a style, genre, or subject; it is a cultural phenomenon engaging the central concerns of the humanistic debate today. Hybrid, ambivalent, and changeful, the grotesque is a shaping force in the modern era.



Related terminology: absurd, alienation, ambiguity, ambivalence, bestiary, bizarre, contradiction, creatures, curious, decoration, deformation, dissonance, distortion, dream, drollery, exaggeration, freaks, grotesqueries, grottesche, horror, human oddities, humor, hybridity, imaginary, imagination, language, marginalia, materia confusa, monsters, nightmare, ominous, ornamental, paradox, ridiculous, strange, teratology, uncanny.

Grotto-litera-turistika

GROTESQUES. Nom donné aux décors insolites qui recouvraient les murs et les voutes des chambres de la Maison de Néron devenue grotte après les dévastations. Les grotesques sont un genre de peinture ou de sculpture décorative, qui consiste en une combinaison étrange de feuillages, de fleurs, de fruits et d'autres éléments extraits du répertoire végétal, accompagnés d'animaux fantastiques ainsi que de figures humaines tressées ensemble de manière capricieuse qui n'a rien à voir avec la nature.

Alessandra Zamperini, Le grotesques, Citadelles & Mazenod, 2007. Parcours de ce genre pictural, de l'Antiquité romaine au XIXe siècle. Vasari définit les grotesques comme un genre de peintures libres et cocasses, inventé dans l'Antiquité pour orner des surfaces murales. Il a pour principaux motifs des rinceaux végétaux, des candélabres, des figures humaines, mythologiques, animales ou hybrides - insolites ou fantastiques - disposés sans aucune logique apparente, narrative ou spatiale. Le Moyen Âge a privilégié les hybrides monstrueux et les drôleries alors que le Quattrocento a cherché à se réapproprier les formes ornementales de l'Antiquité, notamment celles mis au jour par la découverte de la villa de Néron, la Domus Aurea, en 1480. Les grotesques connurent alors un extraordinaire succès, consacré par leur emploi dans les Loges du Vatican, décorées vers 1518 par Raphaël et son atelier. Ils devinrent une composante essentielle de la décoration des monuments profanes et religieux, envahissant même la céramique, la tapisserie et le mobilier, et de nombreux peintres se spécialisèrent dans ce genre. On peut parler de XVIe siècle triomphant. Au début du XVIIIe siècle, la découverte d'Herculanum et de Pompéi allait lui donner une nouvelle jeunesse, s'étendant aux décors d'intérieur, à l'habillement... Et, au XIXe siècle, alors même que néoclassicisme épurait le style, les grotesques continuèrent d'apparaître dans les arts appliqués, marqueterie, céramique, tissus et mobilier.

Berne, Fondation Abegg, Grotesken-Grotesques : Un style ornemental dans les arts textiles du XVIe-XIXe siècle, mai-octobre 1985. Texte par Alain Gruber.

Philippe Morel, Les grotesques : les figures de l'imaginaire dans la peinture italienne de la fin de la Renaissance, Flammarion, 2001. Le mot grotesque devient au XVIIIe siècle un qualificatif essentiellement négatif, synonyme de bizarre, de ridicule ou d'extravagant. Mais il fut d'abord employé dès le début du siècle précédent pour désigner des peintures murales largement inspirées des fresques et des reliefs antiques, auxquels s'ajoutaient parfois des réminiscences des marginalia gothiques. Ce genre décoratif connut un immense succès tout au long du XVIe siècle, d'abord en Italie, puis un peu partout en Europe, en s'étendant à la sculpture, à la gravure et à bien d'autres techniques. Partant de motifs et de schémas essentiellement antiquisants, le langage des grotesques s'est progressivement détaché de cette référence figurative en s'inspirant de diverses matrices culturelles contemporaines. C'est donc l'analyse de ces voisinages déterminants et de ces relations constitutives qui permet de rendre compte du fonctionnement multiple de ce langage apparemment incohérent, et d'en dégager la spécificité historique et la densité culturelle : le rapport à la tradition hiéroglyphique, au collectionnisme éclectique et à l'esthétique de l'abondance, la littérature burlesque, la logique épistémique des hybrides ou la construction rhétorique et paradoxale des compositions apportent autant d'éclairages décisifs sur les nombreux décors pris en considération. Les grotesques apparaissent de la sorte comme une expression tout à fait emblématique de la culture maniériste et c'est à ce titre qu'elles sont devenues la cible privilégiée des critiques post-tridentines.

Edgar Allan Poe
Histoires grotesques et sérieuses
Flammario​n

Grottesche | Grotesken | Grotesques | Grotescos | Grutescos

Configuraciones grutescas

Originalmente titulada Grotesques, la presente nota proviene del Dictionnaire de la Peinture Larousse; ha sido traducida, adaptada a la lengua castellana e ilustrada por Mariano Akerman.

Motivos grutescos

Hacia fines del siglo XV los italianos descubren en Roma una serie de ruinas subterráneas, a las que toman por grutas, y debido a ello denominan "grutescos" a los motivos pictóricos hibridos que abundan en sus muros parietales y bóvedas. Tales motivos grutescos se encuentran antetodo en la Domus Aurea, dorado palacio del emperador Nerón. Allí, pinturas al fresco que exhiben configuraciones grotescas son alternadas con ligeros relieves en yeso respondiendo a lo que se suele denominar "cuarto estilo pompeyano" de decoración. Dicho estilo se caracteriza por sus arquitecturas fileteadas y filiformes así como por un vocabulario ornamental compuesto de plantas y animales, pro también de monstruos tales como grifos, esfinges y centauros.

Entusiasmados ante tal antigua imaginería a todo color y fascinados en particular con la expresión de fantasía que ella les revela, los artistas del Renacimiento no tardan en imitarlas y designan grotescos a los esquemas decorativos que subsecuentemente crean bajo su irresistible influencia.

Configuraciones grotescas al fresco
Grotteschi del Palazzo Vecchio en Florencia, siglo XVI

Hasta fin del siglo XVI, dada su naturaleza insólita y extravagante, los grotescos son considerados como la más característica expresión del capricho manierista. Los motivos grotescos cuentan con adherentes apasionados que defienden la libertad del artista y el carácter lúdico de las decoraciones a la grotesca (Serlio, Francisco de Holanda, Vasari, Cellini), pero también con adversarios encarnizados entre los clasicistas que siguen al pie de la letra los textos de Vitruvio, quien ya en tiempos de Augusto, y en defensa del naturalismo y la verosimilitud, criticaba los grotescos despiadadamente: "tales cosas no son, ni fueron ni serán jamás" (De Archittetura).

Configuración grotesca en candelabro del Cryptoporticus.
Antiguo fresco romano. Domus Aurea de Nerón, Roma

En el siglo XVII, cuando la Contrareforma, los grotescos son tolerados en tanto y en cuanto se los emplea con moderación (Gilio, Armenini), pero hay quienes se oponen a su componente quiméricoy erróneamente los consideran "jeroglíficos," parte de un lenguaje críptico, accesible sólo a una élite (Ligorio, Lomazzo). Tildando su contenido de "diabólico," Paleotti llega a proscribirlos de los lugares dedicados al culto.

Andrea Mantegna, Autorretrato grotesco, 1469
Óleo sobre yeso
Camera degli Sposi, Palazzo Ducale, Mantua

Prolongando el estilo de candelabros animados que fuera desarrollado en Florencia e incluso aún más en Venecia durante la segunda mitad del siglo XV, los artistas organizan los motivos grotescos sobre los frisos y pilastras de sus composiciones ejecutadas al fresco. Ghirlandaio los estiliza en el Nacimiento de la Virgen (Coro de S.M. Novella, Florencia, 1488). Pinturicchio los traduce en escala monocroma y logra sugerir pilastras esculpidas (Capilla Bufalini, Iglesia de Aracoeli, Roma, 1483-85), luego los engalana gracias a una policromía audaz (Capilla de S. Jerónimo, S. Maria del Popolo, Roma, c. 1488), intentando revivir las rápidas pinceladas de los artistas neronianos. Aplica también Pinturicchio motivos grotescos en la decoración de bóvedas. Desarrollando un estilo aún más plástico, Filippino Lippi pone en evidencia las deformaciones de sus monstruos para entonces volverlos deliberadamente fantásticos (Capilla Carafa, S. Maria sopra Miverva, Roma, 1488-93). Ostentando no poca erudición arqueológica, seguidamente integra Lippi los motivos grutescos en un complejo sistema ilusionista (Capilla Strozzi, S. Maria Novella, Florencia, 1487-1502). En la bóveda del Cambio (Perugia, 1499-1500), Pietro Perugino rodea una serie de medallones con verdaderas constelaciones de motivos grotescos un tanto tradicionales y que recuerdan aquellos ejecutados por Pinturicchio. Pero es Signorelli quien llega a crear su versión más demoníaca al liberar las formas híbridas de los principios compositivos que regían a los monstruos clásicos y las anima con una vitalidad desbordante (Capilla S. Brice, Catedral de Orvieto, 1501-4).

Pinturicch​io, Bóveda con motivos grotescos​, 1502
Biblioteca Piccolomin​i, Siena

A principios del siglo XVI surge una nueva generación de decoradores y ésta incluye verdaderos especialistas en materia de grotescos. Asistente de Pinturicchio, Amico Aspertini es el primero en integrar las arquitecturas fantasistas provenientes de los modelos antiguos. Mas la liberación completa de tales arquetipos se da especialmente con Giovanni da Udine, quien trabajando en el seno del taller de Rafael, revive con maestría los grotescos neronianos. En la Stufetta del cardenal Bibbiena (Vaticano, completada en 1516), en la Logetta (Vaticano, c. 1519) y en el Palazzo Baldassini (Roma), tiende Giovanni a cubrir superficies enteras con un original e importante repertorio de motivos grotescos al tiempo que además adopta la técnica "compendiaria" (es decir, compiladora) de los antiguos (para la cual estría él bien dotado desde el vamos en virtud de su origen septentrional).

Rafael Sanzio y Giovanni da Udine, Decoraciones grotescas, 1516
Logetta del cardenal Bibbiena, Vaticano

Luego de estas experiencias, Giovanni elabora en las Logias Vaticanas (Logias de Rafael, acabadas en 1519) un sistema decorativo cuya fama será de cardinal importancia para la época manierista: sus policromas configuraciones grotescas son contrastadas en alternancia con otras que son blancas y realizadas en yeso, y es allí donde el artista recurre a la fórmula de los antiguos romanos (aparentemente estudiada en los pasajes del Coliseo) y ejecuta un estilo naturalista de corte robusto. Idéntico sistema aplica en la Villa Madama (Roma, interrumpido en 1525).

Da Udine, Decoración con grotescos, 1515
Fresco
Logias de Rafael, Vaticano

Tras el saqueo de Roma, Giulio Romano importa los grotescos a Mantua (Palazzo del Té, 1527-29 y 1530-35), volviéndo su caraácter masivo y arqueológico. Pierino del Vaga los introduce en el Palazzo Doria (a partir de 1528) refinándolos hacia el miniaturismo. Los grotescos se expanden por toda Italia y, durante la segunda mitad del siglo XVI, florecen en la decoración, particularmente en el Lacio (círculo de los Zuccari y luego Pomarancio) y en Toscana y Emilia (Cesare Baglione). Ya desde principios del siglo XVI los grotescos conquistan todas las artes menores. Ejectutados en piedra invaden la arquitectura (Tumba de Julio II, esculpida por Miguel Ángel; taller de Sansovino; multiplicación sobre las tumbas por Simone Mosca). Tratados como si fuesen graffiti, los grotescos llegan a cubrir las fachadas de los palacios (Andrea de Cosimo Feltrini en Florencia y Polidoro da Caravaggio en Roma). Nicoletto da Modena, Agostino Veneziano y Enea Vico hacen posible la difusión de los grotescos a través de sus grabados y estampas. Gracias a Amico Aspertini y Giovanni da Udine los grotescos se convierten en uno de los temas predilectos en las tapicerías florentinas de Bacchiacca (c. 1550). En el siglo XVII los artistas logran difundir las configuraciones grotescas hacia el norte y éstas se propagan más allá de los Alpes, aunque con un paulatino abandono de los modelos antiguos.

O Grotesco

Ornamento grotesco

Artes Visuais: Grotesco. O termo, derivado do italiano grottesco (de grotta, "gruta" ou "cova"), surge na história da arte aplicado a um estilo ornamental inspirado em decorações murais da Roma antiga, descobertas em ruínas escavadas no Renascimento. Tais monumentos soterrados, conhecidos como grottes (por exemplo, a Domus Aurea de Nero, descoberta em torno de 1500), fornecem sugestões para ornamentos - pintados, desenhados ou esculpidos - baseados em combinações de linhas entrelaçadas com flores, frutos e outras formas, como figuras extravagantes, máscaras e animais fora do comum. O ornamento grotesco, de modo geral, se caracteriza pela criação de universos fantásticos - repletos de seres humanos e não-humanos, fundidos e deformados -, pelo apelo à fantasia e ao mundo dos sonhos e pela fabricação de outras formas de realidade.

Um dos primeiros exemplos do ornamento grotesco é o friso da Anunciação, 1486, de Carlo Crivelli (ca. 1430 - ca.1495), que se destaca pela deformação de elementos naturais e pela combinação original de volumes e cores. Nos grotescos de Luca Signorelli (ca.1450 - 1523) para a Catedral de Orvieto, pintados entre 1499 e 1504, emaranhados de objetos e criaturas estranhas constituem o fundo no qual se destacam cinco medalhões representando cenas da Divina Comédia, de Dante Allighieri (1265 - 1321).

Signorelli, Dante e grotescos, 1499-1504

Entre os mais célebres e influentes ornamentos grotescos encontram-se aqueles realizados por Rafael (1483 - 1520) para o forro e pilares das loggie papais, compostos de arabescos e linhas onduladas verticais, com animais e espécies vegetais entrelaçados (ca.1515).

Grotescos por Rafael e Giovanni da Udine

Iniciado em solo italiano no século XVI, o grotesco se difunde por toda a Europa, a partir de então. O trajeto da noção de grotesco no tempo retira dela o sentido técnico específico de um tipo de decoração romana tardia (e de um estilo renascentista nela inspirado), transformando-a freqüentemente em adjetivo, para designar o que é bizarro, fantástico, extravagante e caprichoso. Dessa maneira o Dicionário da Academia Francesa (1694) normatiza o vocábulo, que passa à linguagem crítica em acepção ampliada, muitas vezes associado também ao ridículo, ao absurdo e ao antinatural. Os motivos dos grotteschi são retomadas por Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 - 1778) e Robert Adam (1728 - 1792) no bojo do neoclassicismo e passam a constituir traços eventuais das artes decorativas em geral, embora despidos das fantasiosas combinações dos grotescos da Renascença. O movimento neoclássico, ao rejeitar a linha curva e retorcida dos estilos anteriores (barroco e rococó), descarta de modo geral o grotesco, considerado excessivo e despropositado. Valorizado pelos românticos (para os quais a arte deve representar tanto o belo como o feio e o deformado), o grotesco se transforma, posteriormente, em categoria estética e literária para fazer referência a um tipo de descrição ou de tratamento deformador da realidade, que pode ter como finalidade provocar o riso e/ou obter uma intencionalidade satírica de caráter moral ou político.

Acompanhar o itinerário dessa noção no tempo e no espaço obriga a consideração de diferentes artistas, escolas e movimentos. Entre os flamengos, Pieter Brueghel, o Velho (ca.1525 - 1569), lança mão do recurso do grotesco em obras ilustrativas de provérbios (Parábola dos Cegos, 1568). Elementos grotescos também povoam as "paisagens infernais", de Pieter Brueghel, o Moço (1564 - 1638), por exemplo, Inferno com Virgílio e Dante, 1594. Mas entre eles é Hieronymus Bosch (ca.1450 - 1516) que se destaca pela composição de obras não convencionais, em que se mesclam elementos fantasiosos, criaturas meio-humanas e meio-animais, demônios e seres deformados, imersos em ambientes paisagísticos e arquitetônicos fantásticos (O Jardim das Delícias e A Tentação de Sto. Antão, ambas sem datação precisa). Dos alemães, podem ser citadas obras de Matthias Grünewald (ca.1480 - 1528), em especial a Crucificação do altar da Abadia Antonita em Isenheim, Alsácia, finalizado em 1515, que dá destaque ao corpo deformado e marcado de Cristo, e as de Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528), por exemplo, a série de gravuras que compõem o Apocalipse, 1498.

Na Inglaterra, as expressões do neogótico, com suas inclinações para os efeitos insólitos e surpreendentes, assim como a produção de Heinrich Füssli (1747 - 1825), cuja obra aspira a um sublime que tende ao fantástico e ao horrendo (O Pesadelo, 1781), podem ser mencionadas como possibilidades de uso do grotesco. Em solo espanhol, Francisco de Goya (1746 - 1828) é responsável por ampla produção em que os elementos grotescos se sucedem, seja em telas como Visão Fantástica, 1820/1821, seja nas séries de gravuras Caprichos, 1799, e Desastres de Guerra, 1810/1814. O universo monstruoso do belga James Ensor (1860 - 1949), com suas máscaras, esqueletos e anjos decaídos - aproxima-se dos de Bosch e Brueghel pelo recurso ao grotesco.

Os espaços tenebrosos, a temática da morte e as construções macabras ligam o nome do austríaco Alfred Kubin (1877 - 1959) à tradição do grotesco. Da mesma forma, a pintura de Edvard Munch (1863 - 1944) e o expressionismo de Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880 - 1938) aparecem como atualizações do grotesco, em obras que reeditam, e radicalizam, os ensinamentos românticos, por meio da deformação das figuras e imagens (O Grito, 1893, de Munch, e Marcella, 1910, de Kirchner). As vanguardas das primeiras décadas do século XX - sobretudo o surrealismo e o dadaísmo - se valem do grotesco em suas representações do fantástico, da dor e da loucura, bem como no tratamento dado ao sexo, ao erotismo e ao corpo.

Tomando o grotesco em sua acepção mais ampla, é possível pensar que o recurso à deformação de figuras humanas, com sentido dramático, pode ser encontrado na arte brasileira desde as obras do Aleijadinho (1730 - 1814). A produção de Alvim Correa (1876 - 1910) deve ser mencionada no que diz respeito à composição de ambiências grotescas; sua série A Guerra dos Mundos, 1903, com paisagens devastadas, seres estranhos - meio máquinas, meio animais - e formas humanas enlaçadas por animais, é exemplar do ponto de vista da criação de paisagens insólitas e fantásticas, com tom tragicômico.

Alvim Correa, Sem Título, s.d.
Bico de pena e aguada sobre o papel, 29 x 20,5 cm.
Coleção Particular

Fonte. Grotesco: Definição, Enciclopédia Itaú Cultural - Artes Visuais, São Paulo, Brazil, 12.12.2006

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Da Antiguidade até hoje, o grotesco sempre esteve presente na cultura, mas mantido numa espécie de subclasse da arte por estar em desarmonia com a chamada “metafísica do belo”, construída até a Idade média e difundida como estética artística a partir do Renascimento. O “belo artístico” ficou associado a proporção, harmonia, simetria, forma, perfeição, ao bem e ao verdadeiro. Por outro lado, o grotesco, como estilo artístico, só foi descoberto no final do século 15, a partir de escavações em porões e grutas romanas (grotta, em italiano), nas quais foram encontradas pinturas que misturavam formas humanas às vegetais e animais. Ele combinava elementos heterogêneos e se desviava da “norma” artística predominante à época, o que estabeleceu, desde então, a marginalidade do estilo em relação ao clássico. Essa descoberta surpreendeu os contemporâneos pelo jogo insólito, fantástico e livre das formas vegetais, animais e humanas que se confundiam e transformavam entre si. O quanto este tipo de imagem distancia-se dos padrões clássicos pode ser avaliado pelas palavras iniciais da Arte Poética, de Horácio, um dos teóricos mais influentes da poética clássica: "Suponhamos que um pintor entendesse de ligar a uma cabeça humana um pescoço de cavalo, ajuntar membros de toda procedência e cobri-los de penas variegadas, de sorte que a figura, de mulher formosa em cima, acabasse num hediondo peixe preto; entrados para ver o quadro, meus amigos, vocês conteriam o riso?"
O vocábulo "grotesco" teve origem na língua italiana – la grottesca e grottesco, derivados de grotta (gruta). O termo foi utilizado para denominar objetos ornamentais e pinturas encontrados em escavações feitas em Roma no final do século 15. Suas formas eram inacabadas, abertas e fantásticas, metamorfoses de figuras humanas com animais, fugindo da representação real. O grotesco é o belo de cabeça para baixo é uma espécie de catástrofe do gosto clássico.
Com o tempo, o sentido de grotesco alarga-se, passando a referir-se não somente àquele tipo de pintura, mas a um estilo de representação que se caracteriza pelo exagero, o hiperbolismo, a profusão, o excesso. Como resultado do procedimento grotesco de mostrar a mistura de corpos, encontramos também, em geral com fins satíricos, a fusão do corpo humano com o corpo animal, como nas pinturas de Bosch e no conjunto de desenhos intitulado "Caprichos", de Goya. No século 18, o classicismo rejeita o grotesco por considerá-lo algo imaginado, sonhado, fantasioso, irreal, sem significado, de mau gosto, distante da inteligência e da verdade. Outra característica do grotesco é a ênfase, pela hipérbole, naquilo que Mikhail Bakhtin denomina de baixo corporal: orifícios, protuberâncias, ramificações e excrescências, tais como a boca aberta, os órgãos genitais, seios, falo, barriga e nariz.
Existem algumas correntes discursivas que caracterizam o grotesco. Uma delas é a teoria da carnavalização, tendo como principal porta-voz Bakhtin. Essa corrente é utilizada para conceitualizar formações e conflitos sociais, ou políticos. Assim, o corpo grotesco é identificado como estrato inferior, degradado, a morte, o nascimento, o imundo, um corpo mutável, aberto, irregular. Diferente do corpo clássico, que é fechado, acabado, contido, simétrico, se identifica com a cultura superior e tem inspirações burguesas. Outra corrente debatida é o grotesco como estranho. Wolfgang Kayser defende o grotesco estranho, um mundo que se tornou estranho.
O grotesco, enquanto manifestação de formas aberrantes e escatológicas, é um fenômeno que se alastra pela vida contemporânea, com reverberações fortes nas artes em geral. A contrafação dos cânones esteticamente corretos seduz amplas faixas de audiência, predispostas a rir diante das situações chocantes que desfilam em telas e imagens. Com a sua propensão ao bizarro e ao vulgar, o grotesco é capaz de subverter o sentido estabelecido das coisas.

O jogo de contrastes entre rebaixamento e elevação remete ao conceito bakhtiniano de carnaval. Segundo Bakhtin, uma das características dos festejos carnavalescos na Idade Média e no Renascimento é a inversão da hierarquia vigente: personalidades elevadas como o rei ganham sua versão rebaixada, normalmente representada de maneira grotesca, como o Rei Momo; por outro lado, o povo se permite imitar trajes e maneiras fidalgas. Portanto, o carnaval transmite uma impressão de mundo às avessas. Além disto, o carnaval provoca os exageros relacionados com o baixo corporal, a profusão de cores e detalhes e uma multidão compacta que sugere a mistura de corpos, características do grotesco. No carnaval, como na obra de Rabelais, o grotesco, associado ao riso alegre, adquire um sentido positivo.

Moda grotesca: Callot, Balli di Sfessania, 1621-22

Auricular Style

German Knorpelwerk or Ohrmuschelstil, Dutch kwabornament. A 17th-century ornamental style based on the human ear and other gristly parts.

Kwabornament
Mosyn of Amsterdam, Designs in Auricular Style, 1620

The auricular style was invented in the early 17th century by Dutch silversmiths and brothers Paulus and Adam van Vianen. Paulus was inspired by anatomy lectures he attended in Prague, and both he and Adam became known for the style, which was made popular by Johannes Lutma.

Christiaen van Vianen, Silver Dish in Auricular Style, 1635
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Auricular ornament refers to a lobe-like decoration, like a thick dripping substance apparently resembling organic shapes. The word auricular refers to the ear, in particular to the earlobes. In the 17th century auricular ornamentation was known as "fratsen en snaeckerijen" (whimsy and drollery). Auricular ornament originated in the late-16th century as a two-dimensional form in ornamental prints. During the following century it was employed as a three-dimensional decorative element in window frames and picture frames. The silversmith Paulus van Vianen (1570-1613) used it so frequently that it became his trademark. When Paulus died, his brother Adam was commissioned to make a commemorative piece. He made a ewer as one continuous auricular design, thereby raising auricular ornament to a form in its own right (Shafe).

Adam van Vianen, Jar in auricular style, 1614
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Auricular describes a type of ornament popular in the 17th century, characterized by smooth, curved and rippling forms resembling the human ear. This highly plastic style evolved during the first two decades of the 17th century in Utrecht, and in its fully developed form is found only in metalwork. The style in this medium is characterized by the use of amorphous, lobate scrolls and embossed, relief ornament that emphasize the malleable nature of the metal. At its most extreme, it exaggerates this quality by suggesting that objects were modelled in a semi-molten state. The goldsmiths Adam van Vianen and Paulus van Vianen of Utrecht are often credited with the invention of the style, although its origins seem to lie in the graphic designs of such 16th-century Italian Mannerist artists as Giulio Romano (e.g. drawing for a fish-shaped ewer; Oxford, Christ Church) and Enea Vico. The latter's designs for plate were published in the mid-16th century and may have been known in Utrecht (Oxford Grove Art).

Johannes Lutma
Cartouche auriculaire, Amsterdam, 1633-54
BnF Paris

The auricular style was adopted by cabinetmakers and carvers in both the Low Countries and Germany. In the Netherlands it was cultivated by Michel Mosyn of Amsterdam and Johannes Lutma; subsequently was developed in Germany by Friedrich Unteutsch and Johann Heinrich Keller.

Unteutsch, Knorpelwerk, 1650

Applied to chair backs, frames, cupboards, and other surfaces, the gruesome, curving motifs consisting of bones, membranes, and cartilage were arranged in baroque arabesques, suggesting the ear-like lobular qualities after which the style is named.

Keller, Knorpelgrotesk, 1680

The flabby, fleshy forms were sometimes contorted into masks, as shown in the Neues Zieratenbuch (New Ornamentation Book) of the designer Friedrich Unteutsch of Frankfurt am Main.

Knorpelwerk
Decorative frame in cartilaginous style
Germany, 17th century

Extravagant Monstrosities
Gold- and Silversmith Designs in the Auricular Style
by Femke Speelberg

One of the most curious styles to become fashionable in early seventeenth-century gold- and silversmith work is the so-called Auricular Style. The name derives from the style's characteristic idiom of organic fluid lines, shapes, and smooth surfaces, often reminiscent of cartilage and, in particular, the curvature of the ear. At first glance, the basic structure of artworks executed in the Auricular Style gives the impression of an object that has come out of its mold unsuccessfully. When studied more closely, however, the various forms and creatures that emerge from the solidified, organic mass—masks, (parts of) human figures and animals, including ray fish, slugs, and dragons—form convincing evidence of exactly the opposite. In fact, in most cases, the objects were not made by casting at all. They were fashioned, instead, from a smooth (silver) plate that was meticulously worked into intricate compositions using a hammer and chisels.

Many of the sometimes eerie qualities of the Auricular Style had already emerged in the arts of the previous century. References to the monstrous world of invertebrates and reptiles were a recurrent phenomenon in the ceramic creations of the workshop of Bernard Palissy (1510–1590); the Flemish grotesque designs of Cornelis Floris II (before 1514–1575) and Cornelis Bos (ca. 1510?–before 1566); and the artificial grottoes that adorned the gardens and houses of rich Italian families. The flowing, organic base structure of the designs is reflected in vessels made from natural stones (17.190.536) and other luxury objects fashioned from exotic objects such as shells and pearls.

The Auricular Style that emerged in the early seventeenth century went through its own distinct development, however, and—although used for various types of objects, including picture frames and gilt leather wallpaper—was connected in particular to the Dutch silver- and goldsmith trade. The great popularity of the style is usually explained by the Renaissance curiosity for the natural world, and the emergence of scientific research. The organic shapes, in particular, suggest that anatomical study and dissection played a significant part in the development of the characteristic idiom of the Auricular Style. Similar to anatomical abnormalities and exotic animals and objects, the appeal of these pieces therefore also lay in their role as objects of wonder, made for the elite to marvel at like many other treasures found in a so-called Kunst- und Wunderkammer.

Artists. Paulus Willemsz van Vianen (c. 1570–c. 1613/14), Adam van Vianen (c. 1568/69–1627), Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1621–1674), and Johannes Lutma the Elder (1584–1669).

Blossoming in Print. Although a relatively large number of silver objects in the Auricular Style survive, a great many more designs are known because they were spread through prints, initially produced by descendants of the great masters. One of the earliest print series with Dutch Auricular designs was published by Christiaen van Vianen (c. 1598–1671). Under the alluring title Artful Models of Various Silver Vases and Other Capricious Works, he presented the ingenuity and breadth of his father's designs to the world. Jacob Lutma (c. 1624–1654), son of Johannes Lutma the Elder, soon followed suit with a series celebrating the works of his father. The great appeal of these works inspired print publishers to compile other series of Auricular designs. Cornelis Danckertsz I (c. 1603–1656), for example, combined designs by all the great protagonists of the style in one series entitled Various Artful Inventions to be Applied in Gold, Silver, Wood, and Stone. Although the print run for most of these series seems to have been limited, the multilingual title pages suggest that they were meant to be distributed throughout the European continent. Christiaen van Vianen chose to print his titles in Italian, French, and Dutch, all of which he economically placed on the same page. In contrast, the Amsterdam publisher Clement de Jonghe decided it was worth his while to produce three individual title pages for the series of Auricular cartouches by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout. Most other existing copies of the series suggest that only one of the title pages, in Dutch, French, or Latin, would be chosen to accompany the designs, depending on the intended customer(s).

The publication of Auricular designs did not occur when the style first emerged in the early seventeenth century, but rather in the late 1640s and 1650s, toward, or in some cases even well after, the end of the artists' careers. This is generally thought to have something to do with the protection of artistic and intellectual property. At the same time, however, it also proved very beneficial to the descendants and followers of Paulus and Adam van Vianen and Johannes Lutma the Elder, as the publication of the designs in prints spurred a renewed interest and demand for designs in this style which they gladly provided (MET-NY).


Resources
• Akerman, Luis Mariano. Francis Bacon y lo Grotesco, lecture, Buenos Aires, Universidad de Belgrano, August 2009
• Auricular Ornament, Rijksmuseum, Holland, accessed 25.9.2012
• Auricular Style, Encyclopaedia Britannica, United Kingdom, accessed 20.12.2010
Auricular Style, Oxford Grove Art, United Kigdom, accessed 25.9.2012
• Grotesques, Dictionnaire de la peinture Larousse, France, accessed 3.11.2010
• Guilmard, Désiré. Les maîtres ornemanistes, Paris, 1880-1
• Shafe, Laurence. Early Stuart: Tapestry and Goldsmith Work, History of Art, 2006
• Singleton, Esther. The Dutch and Flemish Furniture, The McClure Company, 1907, The Duch Home, Part 9 
• Speelberg, Femke. Extravagant Monstrosities: Gold- and Silversmith Designs in the Auricular Style, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–14
• Wikimedia Commons

Mariano Akerman, Sheba, sanguine, 1995

Additional Material
• Auricular Style
• Rijksstudio Akermariano
• Kwabornament, V&A, Rijksmuseum, Museumnetwork, Old Book Illustrations, BibliOdyssey, Framing Charles II, Victorian jug, DeVille.
• The Auricular Style: Frames Conference, Wallace Collection, 5-6 October 2016
• The Grotesque Times

Villa Palagonia

by Jahsonic

The Villa Palagonia is a patrician villa in Bagheria, 15 km from Palermo, in Sicily, southern Italy. The villa itself, built from 1715 by the architect Tommaso Napoli with the help of Agatino Daidone, is one of the earliest examples of Sicilian Baroque. However, its popularity comes mainly from the statues of monsters with human faces that decorate its garden and its wall, and earned it the nickname of "The Villa of Monsters" (Villa dei Mostri). This series of grotesques, created from 1749 by Francesco Ferdinando II Gravina, Prince of Palagonia, aroused the curiosity of the travellers of the Grand Tour during the 18th and 19th centuries, for instance Henry Swinburne, Patrick Brydone, John Soane, Goethe, the Count de Borde, the artist Jean-Pierre Houël or Alexandre Dumas, prior to fascinate surrealists like André Breton or contemporary authors such as Giovanni Macchia and Dominique Fernandez, or the painter Renato Guttuso.

Francesco Ferdinando II Gravina, Grotteschi (Grotesques), Villa Palagonia, 1749
Bagheria, Sicily

Whenever I like something which is considered to be in poor taste, I review it by digging up some negative review by a detractor. Today’s object of my affection is the Villa Palagonia in Sicily.

But the Villa Palagonia once surpassed in absurdity anything ever conceived by mortal brains. It was the mad fancy of a Prince of this name who lived in the last century to people his house and grounds with monsters more outrageous and ridiculous than the creations of Circe, Armida, or the enchanters of romance. Of all that immense group there is not one made to represent any object in nature, nor is the absurdity of the wretched imagination that created them less astonishing than its wonderful fertility. It would take a volume to describe the whole, and a sad volume indeed it would make. He has put the heads of men to the bodies of every sort of animal, and the heads of every other animal to the bodies of men. Sometimes he makes a compound of 5 or 6 animals that have no sort of resemblance in nature. He puts the head of a lion to the neck of a goose, the body of a lizard, the legs of a goat, the tail of a fox. On the back of this monster he puts another, if possible still more hideous, with 5 or 6 heads and a bush of horns that beats the beast in the Revelations [Book of Revelations or John's Apocalypse] all to nothing. There is no kind of horn in the world that he has not collected, and his pleasure is to see them all flourishing upon the same head. —Patrick Brydone.

The interior of the palace was as fantastical as the outside, and its manifold extravagances were multiplied a thousand times by mirrors placed at different angles. Most of these absurdities have been removed, but a few still remain in the garden to attest the extravagant folly of the old prince; while at one entrance to the palace statues of his ancestors stand like lacqueys in suits of many-coloured marbles, and round the bell-room busts of the same stand out from the walls in bodily relief, dressed to the life in marble. —A handbook for travellers in Sicily: including Palermo, Messina (1864), George Dennis, John Murray

The previous text cites Patrick Brydone on the villa Palagonia. Two other texts deserve to be mentioned here. The first Les monstres de Bomarzo (1957) by French writer André Pieyre de Mandiargues connects Villa Palagonia with that other icon (and much better-known) of the grotesque:

Une autre histoire que l’on raconte à Bomarzo est celle d’une jeune et noble dame, belle en outre, à laquelle un mari … la même exactement que l’on raconte à la villa Palagonia et dans tous les lieux ornés de monstres de pierre.

The second text to connect Boomarzo to Palagonia was Bellezza e bizzarria (1960) by Mario Praz:

Ma di vere e proprie bizzarrie nell’aria aperta dei giardini l’Italia può vantarne solo due, ma supreme: i mostri di Bomarzo ei grotteschi di Villa Palagonia vicino a Palermo. In Inghilterra le bizzarrie, senza essere cosi monumentali.

Yves Tanguy

Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy was born on January 5, 1900, in Paris. While attending lycée during the 1910s, he met Pierre Matisse, his future dealer and lifelong friend. In 1918 he joined the Merchant Marine and traveled to Africa, South America, and England. During military service at Lunéville in 1920, Tanguy became a friend of the poet Jacques Prévert. He returned to Paris in 1922 after volunteer service in Tunis and began sketching café scenes that were praised by Maurice de Vlaminck. After Tanguy saw Giorgio de Chirico’s work in 1923, he decided to become a painter. In 1924, he, Prévert, and Marcel Duhamel moved into a house that was to become a gathering place for the Surrealists. Tanguy became interested in Surrealism in 1924, when he saw the periodical La Révolution surréaliste. André Breton welcomed him into the Surrealist group the following year.
Despite his lack of formal training, Tanguy’s art developed quickly and his mature style emerged by 1927. His first solo show was held in 1927 at the Galerie Surréaliste in Paris. In 1928 he participated with Jean Arp, Max Ernst, André Masson, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, and others in the Surrealist exhibition at the Galerie au Sacre du Printemps, Paris. Tanguy incorporated into his work the images of geological formations he had observed during a trip to Africa in 1930. He exhibited extensively during the 1930s in solo and Surrealist group shows in New York, Brussels, Paris, and London.
In 1939 Tanguy met the painter Kay Sage in Paris and later that year traveled with her to the American Southwest. They married in 1940 and settled in Woodbury, Connecticut. In 1942 Tanguy participated in the Artists in Exile show at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, where he exhibited frequently until 1950. In 1947 his work was included in the exhibition Le Surréalisme en 1947, organized by Breton and Marcel Duchamp at the Galerie Maeght in Paris. He became a United States citizen in 1948. In 1953 he visited Rome, Milan, and Paris on the occasion of his solo shows in those cities. The following year he shared an exhibition with Kay Sage at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and appeared in Hans Richter’s film 8 x 8. A retrospective of Tanguy’s work was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York eight months after his death on January 15, 1955, in Woodbury.

Tanguy, Le soleil dans son écrin (The Sun in Its Jewel Case), 1937
Oil on canvas, 115.4 x 88.1 cm
The Guggenheim Collection, Venice

Tanguy arrived at his lunar or submarine morphology in about 1927, and spent the rest of his artistic career exploring and elaborating it without changing its essential character. His compositions, arrived at in an unpremeditated manner directly on the canvas, recall the landscape of Locronan, in the French province of Brittany, where he spent childhood summers at a house owned by his parents. The repertory of memory was augmented by his experience of Africa during a trip of the early 1930s. After this the light in his paintings became clear and strong and the color schemes more complex. Vegetal forms were replaced by mineral formations. Dolmens and menhirs, stone remnants of prehistoric ages, and fossilized bones were smoothed and tinted in the dream spaces of his canvases. The assertive shadows cast in these landscapes recall those of Giorgio de Chirico, whose example had inspired Tanguy to take up painting in 1923.
The spatial paradox of The Sun in Its Jewel Case depends on the merging of sky and earth, achieved through the continuous gradation of color over the surface—there is no horizon line—and the device of a diagonal line of forms shown receding in perspective from lower right to upper left. Acute angles are suggested throughout, by the placement of objects, by the relationship of shadows to objects, or by the things themselves. Geometric precision and a minutely detailed academic technique, in which careful modeling lends plastic solidity to form, heighten the poetic strangeness of Tanguy’s world.

Lucy Flint
Guggenheim Collection Online