Crossword clues for grotesque
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Grotesque \Gro*tesque\, n.
A whimsical figure, or scene, such as is found in old crypts and grottoes.
--Dryden.Artificial grotto-work.
Grotesque \Gro*tesque"\ (gr[-o]*t[e^]sk"), a. [F., fr. It. grottesco, fr. grotta grotto. See Grotto.]
Like the figures found in ancient grottoes; grottolike.
Hence: Wildly or strangely formed; whimsical; extravagant; of irregular forms and proportions; fantastic; ludicrous; antic. ``Grotesque design.''
--Dryden. ``Grotesque incidents.''
--Macaulay.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
c.1600s, originally a noun (1560s), from Middle French crotesque (16c., Modern French grotesque), from Italian grottesco, literally "of a cave," from grotta (see grotto). The usual explanation is that the word first was used of paintings found on the walls of basements of Roman ruins (Italian pittura grottesca), which OED finds "intrinsically plausible." Originally "fanciful, fantastic," sense became pejorative after mid-18c. Related: Grotesquely; grotesqueness.
Wiktionary
a. 1 distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous 2 disgusting or otherwise viscerally reviling. 3 (context typography English) sans serif. n. 1 A style of ornamentation characterized by fanciful combinations of intertwined forms. 2 Anything grotesque. 3 (context typography English) A sans serif typeface.
WordNet
adj. distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous; "tales of grotesque serpents eight fathoms long that churned the seas"; "twisted into monstrous shapes" [syn: monstrous, unnatural]
ludicrously odd; "Hamlet's assumed antic disposition"; "fantastic Halloween costumes"; "a grotesque reflection in the mirror" [syn: antic, fantastic, fantastical]
n. art characterized by an incongruous mixture of parts of humans and animals interwoven with plants
Wikipedia
"Grotesque", originally a noun (1560s), from Italian grottesco (through Middle French), literally "of a cave", from Italian grotta (see grotto), is a word which originally referred to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century. The word first was used of paintings found on the walls of basements of Roman ruins that were called at that time Le Grotte (The Grottoes) due to their appearance. These "caves" were in fact rooms and corridors of the Domus Aurea, the unfinished palace complex started by Nero after the Great Fire of Rome in CE 64, which had become overgrown and buried, until they were broken into again, mostly from above. Spreading from Italian to the other European languages, the term was long used largely interchangeably with arabesque and moresque for types of decorative patterns using curving foliage elements.
Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, fantastic, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus is often used to describe weird shapes and distorted forms such as Halloween masks. In art, performance, and literature, however, grotesque may also refer to something that simultaneously invokes in an audience a feeling of uncomfortable bizarreness as well as sympathetic pity. More specifically, the grotesque forms on Gothic buildings, when not used as drain-spouts, should not be called gargoyles, but rather referred to simply as grotesques, or chimeras.
Rémi Astruc has argued that although there is an immense variety of motifs and figures, the three main tropes of the grotesque are doubleness, hybridity and metamorphosis. Beyond the current understanding of the grotesque as an aesthetic category, he demonstrated how the grotesque functions as a fundamental existential experience. Moreover, Astruc identifies the grotesque as a crucial, and potentially universal, anthropological device that societies have used to conceptualize alterity and change.
Grotesque (After the Gramme) is the third studio album by English band The Fall. It was released on 17 November 1980, and is their first release on the record label Rough Trade.
In chess, a grotesque is a problem or endgame study which features a particularly unlikely initial position, especially one in which White fights with a very small force against a much larger black army. Grotesques are generally intended to be humorous.
Grotesque was a Swedish death metal/ black metal band formed in Gothenburg, Sweden in September 1988 from the remains of Conquest by Wåhlin (Necrolord) and Nordgren (Virgintaker) with the addition of Lindberg (Goatspell). The band was, however, short-lived and recorded a few demos and an EP. The band's original drummer Shamaatae formed the black metal band Arckanum in 1993. After the demise of Grotesque Lindberg and Svensson started At the Gates, while Necrolord created his own band Liers in Wait and focused more on creating artwork for several bands including Dissection and Emperor. In 1996, three members, Goatspell, Necrolord, and Offensor got back together and recorded two songs for the release of a compilation album, which was later re-released as a split album with At the Gates EP Gardens of Grief.
Grotesque briefly reformed in 2007 for a single invite-only concert on January 26 in Stockholm, to celebrate the publication of Daniel Ekeroth's book Swedish Death Metal. Nirvana 2002 and Interment also reunited for the concert.
"Grotesque" is the fourteenth episode of the third season of the science fiction television series The X-Files and the show's 63rd episode overall. It premiered on the Fox network in the United States on February 2, 1996. It was written by Howard Gordon and directed by Kim Manners. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Grotesque" earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.6, being watched by 18.32 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mostly positive reviews from television critics.
The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder ( David Duchovny) and Dana Scully ( Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. Mulder is a believer in the paranormal, while the skeptical Scully has been assigned to debunk his work. In this episode, Mulder and Scully investigate a serial killer who claims a gargoyle spirit committed the crimes. When Mulder joins the case, his obsession with solving it causes Scully to question his sanity.
Gordon was inspired to write the episode after walking down the streets of New York and seeing several stone gargoyles on the corner, staring at him. Gordon developed the concept with series creator Chris Carter, who suggested the addition of more psychological aspects to the episode. Originally, the teaser was planned to be filmed at a Catholic hospital, but the shot was relocated to the site of a historic post office after concerns were raised about attaching a fake gargoyle to the building.
Grotesque is ostensibly a crime novel by Japanese writer Natsuo Kirino, most famous for her novel Out. It was published in English in 2007, translated by Rebecca Copeland. Publisher Knopf censored the American translation, removing a section involving underage male prostitution, as it was considered too taboo for U. S. audiences.
Grotesque was originally a style of ornament in art, and today also means strange, fantastic, ugly, or bizarre.
Grotesque may also refer to:
In architecture, a chimera or grotesque is a fantastic or mythical figure used for decorative purposes. Chimerae are often described as gargoyles, although the term gargoyle technically refers to figures carved specifically as terminations to spouts which convey water away from the sides of buildings. In the Middle Ages, the term babewyn was used to refer to both gargoyles and chimerae. This word is derived from the Italian word babuino, which means " baboon."
Bridaham, in his book Gargoyles, Chimeres, and the Grotesque in French Gothic Sculpture points out that the sculptors of the Gothic cathedrals in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was tasked by the Pope to be “a preacher in stone” to the illiterates who populated Europe at the time. It fell to them to not only present the stories of the Bible but also portray the animals and beings who populated the folk lore of the times. Many of these showed up as grotesques and chimeres, carved on the buildings.
is a 2009 Japanese splatter horror and exploitation film written and directed by Kōji Shiraishi.
Grotesque is a 1988 horror film that was directed by Joe Tornatore. Linda Blair, who previously starred in The Exorcist, starred in the film and was the associate producer. It was filmed at Big Bear Lake.
Usage examples of "grotesque".
March blushed for the grotesque splendor of the spectacle, and was confounded to find some Englishmen admiring it, till he remembered that aesthetics were not the strong point of our race.
Governor, has fallen into the company of one Algol, a Freethinker, a grotesque, a perennial problem on the street.
In a sudden wave they burst upon the awestricken men, a grotesque spume of emerald and crimson-veined shadows.
The slug slammed a third of the top of her skull away, snapped her neck, catapulted her back into the dressing table, smashing the mirror, soiling the wall, leaving her in a limp, grotesque, motionless backbend across the dressing table bench.
For my own part, I had followed step by step the methods by which he had traced the various windings of this complex case, and, though I could not yet perceive the goal which we would reach, I understood clearly that Holmes expected this grotesque criminal to make an attempt upon the two remaining busts, one of which, I remembered, was at Chiswick.
Puritanism because, so far as I know, the inquiry has not been attempted before, and because a somewhat detailed acquaintance with the forces behind so grotesque a manifestation as comstockery, the particular business of the present essay, is necessary to an understanding of its workings, and of its prosperity, and of its influence upon the arts.
Miss Primrose was sitting bolt upright in a straight backed old fashioned chair, against a background of fine old tapestries, faded to the softest loveliest pastel tints -- as incongruous with her grotesque ugliness as had been the fresh prettiness of the Crabapple Blossoms.
There is one end of the room where it is almost intact, and there, when the crosslights fade and the low sun shines directly upon it, I can almost fancy radiation after all,--the interminable grotesques seem to form around a common centre and rush off in headlong plunges of equal distraction.
A pot, also from Deruta, with a tawny-gold and blue-crested grotesque merman, or human-headed dragon, bearded and breathing a comma-shaped cloud of russet fire.
He opened his grotesque, downcurved muzzle and gave a roar so terrible that Farkas covered his ears and shrieked in agony.
He felt that his archetypal Entity could at will send him bodily to any of these phases of bygone and distant life by changing his consciousness-plane and despite the marvels he had undergone he burned for the further marvel of walking in the flesh through those grotesque and incredible scenes which visions of the night had fragmentarily brought him.
Obeah to that region, I might have guessed at the very moment of my arrival at Bayou-all, when I first heard the grotesque name that had been foisted on the Gooch daughter.
The lessons were given in a grotesque hodgepodge of English, West Greenlandic, and Danish.
Thrown back as he was, she could see clearly the object that hung from his belt: black and wizened, headlike in shape with a dark mane of straw hanging from it, it had one side molded into the grotesque likeness of a face.
The picturesque costume of the old Rat Killer tickles the sense of humor, and conveys somehow a delightful suggestion of his humbuggery which offsets the touching squalor of the grotesque little apprentice.