While recently swooning in Florence I couldn’t keep my eyes from the ceilings. In the Pallazo Vecchio the entrance court is covered in the most heavenly and hellish grotesques. Fancifal imaginings, deformations and emotive extrapolations of nightmares and dreams. I like the description in this online source, though the word also derives from a use of the word Grotto;
Grotesque: a character or location that is irregular, extravagant or fantastic in form. When used as a device, the purpose is often in the style of expressionism, making the grotesque a parody of human qualities or a distorted reflection of a familiar place… In literature, when grotesque characters can sometimes become more worthy than conventional ones, the intention is usually to point out that we judge by appearances, instead of looking for the personality beneath. This is a common device of fairytales, as in ‘Beauty and the Beast’
To divert from ceilings for a moment, few modern expressions have captured this as poetically on film as the 1946 classic La belle et la bête, directed by Jean Cocteau with a beastly Jean Marais and lovely Josette Day as Belle.
Humerous or horrifying, the idea of the human form distorted in myriad fantastical ways and shocking exaggerations is an early idea in art and literature. In the decorative arts the Romans, and specifically during the times of the debauched Emperor Nero, employed the idea. The grottos were discovered in his Golden House [Domus Aurea] in the 16th Century, leading to the revival-de-force of the grotesque style during the Renaissance.
It seems to me another iteration of the dialogue growing in Florence at the time of the battle between physical, external beauty and the intangible beauty of the soul within. Which remains a profound paradigm for humanity.
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[...] each other reached into my mind; something I have been pondering in some depth since my trip to Florence; the world of emotion/fancy versus the world of logic/reason. To a degree this sonnet of John [...]