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 ...
Read More
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. 250 color illustrations.
Read Less
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
New in New jacket. Book. Folio-over 12"-15" tall. Large format hardcover in publisher's beige pictorial dust-jacket. 308 pages. Illustrated with 246 images, 242 in color. Contents include: Roman Origins; 'Fantastic' in the Middle Ages; Discovery of the Domus Aurea; Raphael and the Golden Age; Return to Classicism; Rococo: Arabesques, Singeries and Chinoiseries; Neoclassicism: Ancient Forms and New Thoughts 19th-Century Revival. A large, heavy book, First American edition. A clean, unmarked copy. Near fine in a near fine dust-jacket. Priority and International orders will require additional postage, calculated as close to actual cost as possible.
