Grotesque as Outgrowth of a Form - Essay Example

Grotesque as Outgrowth of a Form The following reflections center around artists and individual pieces who have helped shape the realization of a consciousness towards and have expanded my awareness for a certain strain of the notion of growth and the grotesque. Philip Thomson gives the definition of grotesque as “the unresolved clash of incompatibles in work and response” (27). While this is a very specific definition, the grotesque is a specific concept that embodies a large and diverse spectrum of visual art but is limited in its exact definition of what constitutes its existence. There are many ways in which an object may be grotesque; however, all of these ways stem from the fact that the very thing that makes an object grotesque is the fact that there is something about the object that clashes with our perceived ideas of normality: “While consistency of grotesque forms is clearly not to be had, certain elements seem to appear more frequently than others” (462). Inherent in this is the idea that the grotesque’s existence is dependent upon the existence of so-called “normality.” In other words, the grotesque cannot exist without normalcy. In this way the grotesque can be viewed as an outgrowth or extension of that which is considered to be normal. All of the ensuing works present aspects that illustrate an augmentation of a pure form; that is, they contain subject matter that is anomalous to what is considered a normal state of existence of the given subject. All of the images initially appear as out of the ordinary, possibly even freakish in that they obviously lie outside any perceptions of normal aspects of their existence, yet upon a more scrutinized look, remain in a standard setting which would be part of our standard association with typical and conventional forms of our understanding of reality and the everyday. This feature catches us off guard and disturbs us in the same way any alteration of ones usual expectations does. An unexpected downpour of rain, the unpredictability of the stock market, even such a mundane situation as a friend showing up at your door unexpectedly, all cause us fear and anxiety in that they twist our usual expectations of the established convention of the flow of life. Equally important are the intricate details of what embodies such unassumed forms, bastard forms on a pure surface. It is this feeling, a certain ambivalent sense of push as well as pull. It is at times disturbing, yet simultaneously comforting. It is anxiety and serenity, like a sickness working its toils within the confines of a sterile hospital, for it must be that much worse and retched to succumb to illness within a palace of cleanliness. What I speak of is a concept that exists within all realms, but for the purpose of this essay will focus in on two specific examples to act as a starting point for a broader discussion, a building of the Spanish Architect Gaudi, and the contact sheet of American photographer Diane Arbus. Also, the painting “Strange Masks” by Paul Ensor will be commented on to illustrate another aspect of the grotesque. Photography is an art of capturing found images; while to some extent the photographer is able to manipulate the subject, for instance asking the subject to smile, the photographer is not able to make a person’s nose larger to highlight a certain aspect of humanity the photographer might be attempting to capture. Because of this, the normalcy against the grotesque can be found in photography is based on the idea that photographers in general have created this normalcy. For instance, the previously mentioned example of a photographer asking a subject to smile has in part created the “normalcy” of photography. Leafing through a family’s photo album, one is bound to find a high majority of smiling faces. This amalgamation of smiling faces creates an image of the family as happy. When people are fighting, angry, hurt, or sad, people are not likely to take pictures of these events because a photograph of this kind of event, which would create a lasting memory of the pain. This is perhaps the main reason behind the collection of smiling faces called family photo albums. Of course, this also leads to an unrealistic representation of the family. Diane Arbus’ proof sheet of a boy in a park contains all of these aspects within in it. The photographs show the boy smiling in all of the pictures except for one, which is the most famous one and the one which will be discussed in depth. Arbus had a “fashion-photographer background” and was influenced in the “specifically American, specifically New York culture of the carnivalesque to which she was attracted” (34). Both of these aspects of Diane Arbus can be seen as having an effect upon the photographs discussed, though in rather starkly contrasting ways. The photos of the boy smiling are congruent with the smiling faces of a family’s photo album. The fashion photographer within Arbus was the photographer who took these particular shots. The exception portrays the boy grimacing; the part of Arbus attracted to the carnivalesque, to the “freak-show,” was the part of Arbus that captured this grimace. To use the vernacular, side-show “freaks” can be seen as grotesque because they surprise us; they are not what one is used to seeing. They are, however, very real, and very much part of reality. The starkness of the boy’s expression catches the viewer off-guard. After viewing the other pictures in the set, we are ill-prepared for the transformation of the boy’s face. Of course, we are never prepared for the grotesque; part of being grotesque means that we will not be prepared for the viewing of the object. Immediately it becomes obvious that this photograph is different from the others for many reasons, and it is not simply a matter of a the boy smiling in one picture and the boy not smiling in another picture. The picture captures the boy as vulnerable, susceptible to the difficulties of everyday life. Our culture generally wants to think of childhood as a happy and care-free time. The photo reminds people that even in childhood there is pain and heartache. This runs against the norm created that wishes to portray happiness throughout photography, the norm to which most people might be accustomed. As Wolfgang Kayser states, “We are strongly affected and terrified because it is our world which ceases to be reliable, and we feel that we would be unable to live in this changed world. The grotesque instills fear of life rather than death” (185). Photographs filled with smiling faces affirm to us that life is happy, care-free, and worth living because it is free of dread. They make us fear death because we do not want this happy existence to end. The grotesque on the other hand makes people afraid of living because it reminds people that the world is actually filled with dread, hurt, and pain. As Kayser says: For viewed from the outside, the world of the fairy tale could also be regarded as strange and alien. Yet its world is not estranged, that is to say, the elements in it which are familiar and natural to us do not suddenly turn out to be ominous. It is our world which has to be transformed. Suddenness and surprise are essential elements of the grotesque (185). While the fairy tale is not ominous, it is not natural or realistic. In this way the grotesque is an aspect of reality, and the contrast of the photos of the boy with the photo of him grimacing is the contrast of a portrayed fantasy with that of the real, grim, grotesque reality. The change from the smiling face to the grimace is the growth of the images. If the pictures only portrayed the boy smiling, then there would be a lack of growth in these pictures. Something must change in order for growth to exist. When children are young, they perceive the world in an unrealistic fashion. A child’s world is one where everything makes sense and everything happens for a reason. When children grow up they enter the realistic adult world in which things don’t always make sense and everything does have to have a reason to happen. This change is growth, and it is this growth that is represented in the changes between the photographs. It is only natural for a form to continue to develop and grow, and in this we can see that the grotesque naturally comes out of the perceived normal form, as the grotesque cannot exist without something to serve as the basis of normalcy. This is the perception of growth that I realized from these particular photos by Diane Arbus. The architect Gaudi rejected the norms found in architecture. Aspects of architecture that appeared for their own sake did not have a place within Gaudi’s work: “As elements of construction, Gaudi abhorred arbitrarily curved forms, the ‘curves of sentiment’ so much in vogue in Art Noveau” (89). Of course, architecture stands in sharp contrast to photography in the ways in which they are formed. As photography is able to manipulate found objects, architecture derives its form completely a priori; there are no houses and buildings to be found in nature. While caves and a clustering of trees might afford some sort of shelter, it is obvious that these forms did not lead people to construct four walls, a ceiling, and a roof. Especially regarding more abstract examples of architecture, the architects themselves fashioned columns, spires, and towers. More traditional schools of architecture found ornaments to be useful in the decoration of buildings; they felt that the walls were too drab by themselves and needed to find some way in which to express themselves aesthetically: “Seen in a rush, ornament is a wild celebration of freedom and fantasy, a deliberate flouting of whatever canons of naturalism happen to prevail” (Trilling 21). Ornament in architecture, in a sense, existed for its own sake; we can imagine it is saying “Here! Look at me! Aren’t I nice to look at?” As I said, this took place in more traditional schools, mainly before the rise of modernism in architecture. Adolf Loos wrote specifically against ornaments in architecture: “What makes our culture grand is its inability to create new ornaments. The evolution of humanity goes hand in hand with the ordinary object’s moving away from embellishment.” Loos felt that ornament was a sign of a lower culture, a culture that needed to occupy its buildings with things to look at for their own sake. Accordingly, Gaudi rejected the use of ornament also as much as he did arbitrary curves. Two examples of his work following this aesthetic are the Colonia Guell Chapel and the Church of Sagrada Familia. I wish to discuss specifically the Church of Sagrada Familia, which “summarizes for us the entire development of Gaudi’s later attitudes toward form and structure” (77). Architecture developed a norm because people continued to use designs found in previous architects; new designs could be said to be reactions against previous designs, and in that way the old designs are still in a sense responsible for the new. The grotesque can be seen as a reaction against these previous designs that were in use for so long that they became seen as the normal. To see the church is to be immediately taken aback; it is from a distance almost nightmarish in character. Its tall towers and spires are sharp and rough looking at the same time. This gives it the appearance of a weapon, of being dangerous. It appears also to be formed naturally, the patterns evoking the patterns or erosion. It is because of its design that it would seem from a distance made by nature and not by man. But obviously structures like this are not found in nature; it is because of this that we are surprised. As man-made structures generally were not based on structures found in nature, we are not prepared for something to appear to be made by a natural function such as erosion. Also, buildings were generally made to be pleasant looking, while this church gives off an ominous air. It is mostly this ominous air that makes the church grotesque. However, there is a lot more to the church than just this. Upon closer examination, we find that it is, while lacking in ornaments, still intensely complex in its structure. This also adds to the surprise and suddenness of the church; while from afar it appears almost rugged looking, up close it turns out to quite intricate. In describing the finials of the church, we find: Proceeding from top to bottom: round cornered quadrilaterals bordered by spheres of varying size and leaning apart from each other; truncated pyramids from which other pyramids project sideways; pseudo-regular polyhedra formed by cutting off the corners of cubes or octahedra; triangular pyramids evolving from hexagonal pyramids, which sit in turn upon downward projecting pyramids (89). While because of traditional architecture we were expecting ornaments, we are surprised by the intensity of the complexity of the finials. It is so complex that it appears unnatural, but that is only because it is incongruous with previous schools of architecture. Gaudi was proclaiming that there was nothing about the previous schools that made them correct, proper, or appropriate. His designs demanded people to study them in depth to try to determine what exactly it is about the building that leaves people uncertain of themselves. It is because of the ominous and uncertain feelings the church instills in people that I find it to be grotesque. Its designs are an outgrowth of previous designs in that they are a reaction against them. The painter Paul Ensor is another artist who dealt with the grotesque in his work. Many of his paintings feature skeletons and people in masks interacting. I wish to discuss his work “Strange Masks” in specific. Ensor was influenced by his surrounding as a child, specifically his parents’ bric-a-brac shop: “Out of this surging sea of disordered forms was born a conception of the beautiful in which the grotesque and supernatural, the sensual and the mythical, form integral parts” (Benson 1). Though there is no single way in which one can portray the grotesque, Ensor used masks to portray the grotesque, a way in which was repeated by others: “the mechanical object brought to life, the robot, and the mask also recur frequently” (Benson 1). This pattern of a way to portray the grotesque is another way in which growth is shown in the grotesque. If single example of the grotesque had to be unique, then there would be know way to develop these ideas further. Also, I think it is important to keep in mind that if an object initially surprises us, and then once we’ve viewed it we become acclimated to it, that could not be truly grotesque, because further viewings of the grotesque object would no longer surprise us or set us an unease, and then it would no longer be grotesque; it would be assimilated into the normal. In “Strange Masks,” we are given several characters in masks to view. The tradition that the painting is evoking is of a portrait painting, except the people have been stripped of their humanity by the use of the masks. The aren’t hardly real people to us anymore, and this simulation of expressions on the masks sets us takes away our sense of ease and comfort. We know that we could have our humanity stripped from us just as easily if we were to be portrayed in masks, and it is this aspect of the painting that makes us uncomfortable. The masks might portray nonchalance, concern, or strength to different people, along with a myriad of different interpretations, but the fact that this is being done without real faces concerns the viewer. It also reminds us as viewers of art that anything created in art is as artificial as these masks; paintings, no matter how realistic, will only portray caricatures of emotions. It is as though the artist has realized this and if wishing to portray this idea to us, saying, “if it will be an artificial interpretations of an emotion anyway, why not just paint the characters in something artificial like a mask anyway?” This is a reaction to previous methods of portraying emotions, and as such is an example of an outgrowth of the grotesque from a normal form. The grotesque is at times rather difficult to exactly explain why it makes us uncomfortable. Sometimes it is little more than a feeling. Let me attempt to make sense a little more of this most concrete of abstract fluidities. What I speak of is architecture, an architecture of all sorts. The traditional sense, and the architecture of emotions, of mental states and memory, of forms both real and psychological. “The grotesque is a structure, the structure of estrangement. Suddenness and surprise, Kayser asserts, are essential elements in this estrangement, the familiar and commonplace must be suddenly subverted or undermined by the uncanny or alien” (462). All of these examples mentioned can help to bring us to an understanding of the grotesque; however, if we were to cncentrate on other pieces, then perhaps we would come to a different perception of the grotesque. This is part of what makes the grotesque so. It is something without a precise definition, which in and of itself is a reaction to the idea that everything can be explained. But the grotesque can’t be explained completely, it can only be explained in our own perceptions of it. Works Cited Armstrong, Carol, “Biology, Destiny, Photography: Difference According to Diane Arbus,” October, vol. 66, (Autumn 1993), pp. 28-54. Benson, E.M., “James Ensor.” Parnassus, vol. 6, no. 2 (Feb., 1934), pp. 1-3. Collins, George R., “Gaudi: Structure and Form.” Perspecta, vol. 8, (1963), pp. 63-90). Harpham, Geoffrey, “The Grotesque: First Principles.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.” Vol. 34, no. 4 (Summer, 1976), pp. 461-468. Kayser, Wolfgang, The Grotesque in Art and Literature. Columbia University Press, New York, 1981. Loos, Adolf, “Ornament is a Crime.” Available from Thomson, Philip, The Grotesque. Methuen, London, 1972. Trilling, James, The Language of Ornament. Thames & Hudson Inc., New York, 2001. Read More