The correct definition of grotesque. Grotesque: examples from Russian and foreign literature

GROTESQUE

- (from Italian grottesco - bizarre) - a type of comic: an image of people, objects or phenomena in a fantastically exaggerated, ugly-comic form that violates the boundaries of plausibility. G. is based on the combination of the real and the unreal, the terrible and the funny, the tragic and the comic, the ugly and the beautiful. G. is close to farce. It differs from other types of comic (humor, irony, satire, etc. (see irony, satire)) in that the funny in it is not separated from the terrible, which allows the author in a specific picture to show the contradictions of life and create a sharply satirical image. Examples of works in which G. is widely used to create a satirical image are “The Nose” by N.V. Gogol, “The History of a City”, “How One Man Fed Two Generals” by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, “The Satisfied”, “Bathhouse”, “Bedbug” by V. Mayakovsky.

Dictionary of literary terms. 2012

Examples of the grotesque in literature

Images that appear before the conscious mind in a hypertrophied form are most often designed to influence the subconscious, thus revealing secret thoughts and secret thoughts. Typical examples that allow us to understand what the grotesque is in literature can be considered:

The interweaving of dreams and reality, and the dream is necessarily filled with terrible details, dangerous and huge images, such as Tatyana’s dream in which her beloved becomes a bear surrounded by monsters or Raskolnikov’s dream, in which the great Evil appears in the form of an old woman.
The transformation of a part into a whole, as for example in the story “The Nose” by Gogol, the official’s nose leaves and becomes an independent citizen.
A complete change in personality, as in Kafka's story "The Metamorphosis", in which the hero becomes a disgusting insect and dies.
The revival of the dead and his active and often destructive actions, an example of Hoffmann's Sandman.
Intensifying a comic or tragicomic effect, the scene in which the hero stabs himself with a cucumber in “The History of a City” by Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Sometimes entire novels are a unique combination of grotesque images:

“The Master and Margarita” by M. Bulgakov (Bezdomny’s pursuit of Woland and his retinue, the meeting of the Master and Margarita, description of Woland’s ball),
« Dead Souls» N Gogol (images of heroes with whom Chichikov meets),
Kafka's "Castle"
Mayakovsky's poetry (the physicality of the earth, working halves of people, weapons coming to life).

Those who are interested in art will be very interested to learn about such a genre as “grotesque”. This style is quite widespread in architecture, literature, and even music. Let's take a closer look at what the grotesque is.

Grotesque concept

The term "grotesque" is taken from painting. This was the name of the wall paintings found in the “grottoes” - the basements of Titus, during archaeological excavations. These excavations were carried out in Rome (XV-XVI centuries) on the site where the baths of Emperor Titus once were. In rooms covered with earth, known Italian artist Raphael and his students found unusual painting, which was later called “grotesque” (from the Italian word grotta - “grotto”, “dungeon”). Subsequently, the term “grotesque” was extended to other types of art - music, literature. The very definition of “grotesque” sounds like a type of imagery that is based on a bizarre, contrasting combination of fantasy and reality, comic and tragic, beautiful and ugly. In art, the sphere of the grotesque includes multi-valued images that are created by the artist’s imagination; in them, life receives a rather contradictory refraction. Grotesque images do not allow their literal interpretation, retaining the features of mystery. There are other meanings of the term “grotesque”:

Grotesque is a sight artistic imagery; an ornament where figurative and decorative motifs (animals, plants, human forms, masks) are intricately combined.
Serif font (grotesque, sans serif, gothic type) is a sans-serif font.

Let's get back to history. Thus, Raphael used the “grotesque” style as a model for decorating Vatican lodges, and his students used it to paint ceilings and walls of palaces. The famous Italian Renaissance master, Benvenuto Cellini, engraved grotesques on sword blades.

Grotesque in the mythology of the primitive and ancient world quite difficult to understand. If we speak from the point of view of modern aesthetics, then numerous grotesque elements are obvious here. For example, works - an Egyptian fairy tale about a doomed prince, ancient motifs of harpies, sirens. But we can also say with confidence that the impression of the grotesque was not only not the task of the author of such works, but also their grotesqueness was perceived to a lesser extent by the listener.

What is grotesque in literature

In literature, the grotesque is a comic device that combines the terrible and the funny, the sublime and the ugly, that is, it combines the incongruous. The comic grotesque differs from irony and humor in that in it the amusing and funny are inseparable from the sinister and terrible, hyperbole and illogic. What is a hyperbole? Grotesque, as mentioned above, is an exaggerated, contrasting combination of reality and fantasy, and hyperbole is stylistic figure deliberate exaggeration (for example, “I told you this a million times” or “we have enough food for a year”). Usually, images of the grotesque carry a tragic meaning. In the grotesque, behind the expressed external improbability and fantasticality, there is hidden a deep artistic generalization of the most important phenomena of life. Examples literary grotesque can be called: N.V. Gogol’s story “The Nose”, “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober” by E.T.A. Hoffmann.

Grotesque in music

Now, a little about music: meter and rhythm. In the grotesque they must be present and felt, otherwise nothing will work. Here are some examples musical groups performing songs in this direction:

Fifth studio album The Golden Age of Grotesque famous singer Marilyn Manson. In his work, the grotesque occupies an important place.
Band Comatose Vigil (song - Suicide Grotesque).
Fictional death metal band Detroit Metal City (song Grotesque).

What is grotesque: architecture

Often, grotesques are confused with gargoyles, but stone carvings in the grotesque style were not intended to drain water. This type of sculpture is also called a chimera. The term “gargoyle” referred to creepy carved figures that were specially created to drain rainwater from the walls of a building.

To summarize, I note that as an art direction, the grotesque is necessary. The grotesque fights everyday life and prohibitions. He makes ours inner world much richer and opens up new possibilities for creativity.

, Lucian, F. Rabelais, L. Stern, E. T. A. Hoffman, N. V. Gogol, M. Twain, F. Kafka, M. A. Bulgakov, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin).

"Mother Nature" surrounded grotesques on a fresco in Villa d'Este.

Using the word in conversation grotesque usually means strange, fantastic, eccentric or ugly, and thus is often used to describe strange or distorted forms, such as masks at Halloween or gargoyles at cathedrals. By the way, regarding visible grotesque forms in Gothic buildings, when not used as drainpipes, they should be called grotesques or chimeras, not gargoyles.

Etymology

Word grotesque came into Russian from French. Primary meaning of French grotesque- literally grotto, pertaining to the grotto or grottoed, from grott - grotto(i.e. small cave or depression), goes back to Latin crypto - hidden, underground, dungeon. The expression originated with the discovery of ancient Roman decorations in caves and burial plots in the 15th century. These "caves" were actually the rooms and corridors of Nero's Golden House, an unfinished palace complex founded by Nero after a great fire in 64 AD. e.

In architecture

Notes

Music

Grotesque is one of the songs by the fictional death metal band Detroit Metal City.

Literature

Sheinberg Esti Irony, satire, parody and the grotesque in Shostakovich's music the music of Shostakovich (in English)).. - UK: Ashgate. - P. 378. - ISBN ISBN 0-7546-0226-5
Kayser, Wolfgang (1957) The grotesque in Art and Literature, New York, Columbia University Press
Lee Byron Jennings (1963) The ludicrous demon: aspects of the grotesque in German post-Romantic prose, Berkeley, University of California Press
Bakhtin Mikhail Rabelais and his world. - Bloomington

The image is found in the songs of the group Klimbatika: Indiana University Press, 1941.

Selected bibliography by Philip Thomson, The Grotesque, Methuen Critical Idiom Series, 1972.
Dacos, N. La découverte de la Domus Aurea et la formation des grotesques à la Renaissance(London) 1969.

Cort Pamela Comic Grotesque: Wit And Mockery In German Art, 1870-1940. - PRESTEL. - P. 208. - ISBN ISBN 9783791331959
FS Connelly "Modern art and the grotesque" 2003 assets.cambridge.org
Video tour of the most vivid examples of medieval Parisian stone carving - the grotesques of Notre Dame

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Synonyms:

See what “Grotesque” is in other dictionaries:

ORIGIN OF THE TERM. The term G. is borrowed from painting. This was the name of an ancient wall painting that was found in the “grotto” cellars of Titus. Raphael used it as a model for decorating Vatican boxes, and his students for painting... ... Literary encyclopedia

grotesque- a, m. grotesque, German. Grotesk etc. grotesca. 1. claim An image characterized by a bizarre, fantastic combination of motifs and details. Sl. 18. A painting, a picturesque thing made of many colors and thin figures. LV 1 2 63. The decoration of the rooms is... ... Historical Dictionary Gallicisms of the Russian language

- (French grotesque, from Italian grotta cave). 1) originally meant the wall paintings of the Romans, which consisted of a fantastic combination of people, animals, plants, buildings, etc.; Similar paintings were found in buried buildings of antiquity, under arches... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Grotesque- GROTESQUE (Italian grottesca) in its basic sense means arabesques like those that were found in ancient buried structures. Usually this word is used to denote a funny, strange or exceptional phenomenon... Dictionary literary terms

- (French grotesque, Italian grottesco fancy, from grotta grotto), 1) a type of ornament that includes figurative and decorative motifs in bizarre, fantastic combinations (plant and animal forms, human figures, masks, ... ... Art encyclopedia

Cartoon, caricature, parody Dictionary of Russian synonyms. grotesque see caricature Dictionary of synonyms of the Russian language. Practical guide. M.: Russian language. Z. E. Alexandrova. 2011… Synonym dictionary

- (French grotesque lit. whimsical; comical), 1) an ornament in which decorative and pictorial motifs (plants, animals, human forms, masks) are bizarrely, fantastically combined. 2) A type of artistic imagery that generalizes and ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

GROTESK, grotesque, husband. (Italian: grottesco). 1. A work of art executed in a bizarrely fantastic, ugly comic style (original; original name for wall paintings in Roman grottoes). 2. in meaning unism. adj. Same as grotesque... ... Dictionary Ushakova

- (French grotesque, literally whimsical; comical), 1) an ornament in which decorative and figurative motifs (plants, animals, human forms, masks) are whimsically, fantastically combined. 2) Type of artistic imagery,... ... Modern encyclopedia

GROTESK - (from fr.- whimsical, intricate; funny, comic, from Italian. - grotto) - an image of people, objects, details in fine arts, theater and literature in a fantastically exaggerated, ugly-comic form; a unique style in art and literature, which emphasizes the distortion of generally accepted norms and at the same time the compatibility of the real and the fantastic, the tragic and the comic, sarcasm and harmless gentle humor. The grotesque necessarily violates the boundaries of plausibility, gives the image a certain conventionality and takes the artistic image beyond the limits of the probable, deliberately deforming it. The grotesque style received its name in connection with the ornaments discovered at the end of the 15th century by Raphael and his students during excavations of ancient underground buildings and grottoes in Rome.

These images, strange in their bizarre unnaturalness, freely combined various pictorial elements: human forms turned into animals and plants, human figures grew from flower cups, plant shoots intertwined with unusual structures. Therefore, at first they began to call distorted images the ugliness of which was explained by the cramped area itself, which did not allow making a correct drawing. Subsequently, the grotesque style was based on complex composition unexpected contrasts and inconsistencies. The transfer of the term to the field of literature and the true flowering of this type of imagery occurs in the era of romanticism, although the appeal to the techniques of satirical grotesque occurs in Western literature much earlier. Eloquent examples of this are the books of F. Rabelais “Gargantua and Pantagruel” and J. Swift “Gulliver’s Travels”. In Russian literature, the grotesque was widely used to create bright and unusual artistic images N.V. Gogol (“The Nose”, “Notes of a Madman”), M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin ("The History of a City", " Wild landowner" and other fairy tales), F. M. Dostoevsky ("The Double. The Adventures of Mr. Golyadkin"), F. Sologub ("The Little Demon"), M.A. Bulgakov (" Fatal eggs", "dog's heart"), A. Bely ("Petersburg", "Masks"), V.V. Mayakovsky ("Mystery-bouffe", "Bedbug", "Bathhouse", "Sessed"), A.T. Tvardovsky ("Terkin on the next world"), A.A. Voznesensky ("Oza"), E.L. Schwartz ("Dragon", "The Naked King").

Along with the satirical, the grotesque can be humorous, when, with the help of a fantastic beginning and in fantastic forms of appearance and behavior of characters, qualities are embodied that evoke an ironic attitude from the reader, and also tragic (in works of tragic content, telling about the attempts and fate of spiritual definition personality.