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85-578: Graffito is the singular form of the Italian graffiti , meaning "little scratch". Graffito may also refer to: Graffiti Graffiti (singular graffiti or graffito , the latter only used in graffiti archeology ) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times , with examples dating back to ancient Egypt , ancient Greece , and

170-600: A loggia corridor space in the Apostolic Palace open to the elements on one side, were decorated around 1519 by Raphael 's large team of artists, with Giovanni da Udine the main hand involved. Because of the relative unimportance of the space, and a desire to copy the Domus Aurea style, no large paintings were used, and the surfaces were mostly covered with grotesque designs on a white background, with paintings imitating sculptures in niches, and small figurative subjects in

255-466: A penguin ( Linux mascot ), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$ 120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs. In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign , taking notice of

340-712: A "way out". The term " Theatre of the Grotesque " refers to an anti- naturalistic school of Italian dramatists, writing in the 1910s and 1920s, who are often seen as precursors of the Theatre of the Absurd . Characterized by ironic and macabre themes of daily life in the World War 1 era. Theatre of the Grotesque was named after the play 'The Mask and the Face' by Luigi Chiarelli, which was described as 'a grotesque in three acts.' Friedrich Dürrenmatt

425-573: A complete system of ornament in the Loggias that are part of the series of Raphael's Rooms in the Vatican Palace , Rome. "The decorations astonished and charmed a generation of artists that was familiar with the grammar of the classical orders but had not guessed till then that in their private houses the Romans had often disregarded those rules and had adopted instead a more fanciful and informal style that

510-461: A direct continuation of the medieval traditions of the drolleries in the border decorations or initials in illuminated manuscripts . From this the term began to be applied to larger caricatures, such as those of Leonardo da Vinci , and the modern sense began to develop. It is first recorded in English in 1646 from Sir Thomas Browne : "In nature there are no grotesques". By extension backwards in time,

595-603: A form of public art . According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles graffiti is an effective tool of social emancipation , or for the achievement of a political goal. In times of conflict graffiti has offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and has been an effective tool for establishing dialog. The Berlin Wall

680-419: A form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous to hinder prosecution. With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that

765-793: A formal introduction to classical values and to the dangers of grotesque or mixed form. Indeed, the departure from classical models of order, reason, harmony, balance and form opens up the risk of entry into grotesque worlds. Accordingly, British literature abounds with native grotesquerie, from the strange worlds of Spenser 's allegory in The Faerie Queene to the tragi-comic modes of 16th-century drama. (Grotesque comic elements can be found in major works such as King Lear .) Literary works of mixed genre are occasionally termed grotesque, as are "low" or non-literary genres such as pantomime and farce. Gothic writings often have grotesque components in terms of character, style and location. In other cases,

850-425: A graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up". People who appreciate graffiti often believe that it should be on display for everyone in public spaces, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for

935-599: A horse is given legs made of leaves, a man has crane's legs, with countless other impossible absurdities; and the bizarrer the painter's imagination, the higher he was rated". Vasari recorded that Francesco Ubertini, called "Bacchiacca" , delighted in inventing grotteschi , and (about 1545) painted for Duke Cosimo de' Medici a studiolo in a mezzanine at the Palazzo Vecchio "full of animals and rare plants". Other 16th-century writers on grottesche included Daniele Barbaro , Pirro Ligorio and Gian Paolo Lomazzo . In

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1020-538: A large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture , such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur . Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture. Spray paint and markers are

1105-482: A new shape with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll , when a girl meets fantastic grotesque figures in her fantasy world. Carroll manages to make the figures seem less frightful and fit for children's literature , but still utterly strange. Another comic grotesque writer who played on the relationship between sense and nonsense was Edward Lear . Humorous, or festive nonsense of this kind has its roots in

1190-455: A prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it. Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020,

1275-476: A revival of Ancient Roman style. This large array provided a repertoire of elements that were the basis for later artists across Europe. In Michelangelo's Medici Chapel Giovanni da Udine composed during 1532–1533 "most beautiful sprays of foliage, rosettes and other ornaments in stucco and gold" in the coffers and "sprays of foliage, birds, masks and figures", with a result that did not please Pope Clement VII Medici , however, nor Giorgio Vasari , who whitewashed

1360-525: A sense of the grotesque clash of opposites. In a similar fashion, Ernst Friedrich (1894–1967), founder of the Berlin Peace Museum, an anarchist and a pacifist, was the author of War Against War (1924) which used grotesque photographs of mutilated victims of the First World War in order to campaign for peace. Southern Gothic is a genre frequently identified with grotesques and William Faulkner

1445-606: A site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall . Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" (" Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman ") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel. Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa ( MENA ), especially following

1530-452: A stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies . Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological. Many analysts and art critics see artistic value in some graffiti and recognize it as

1615-493: A strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis , and people used to read and circulate them very widely. Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio , Raphael , Michelangelo , Ghirlandaio , or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea , they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate

1700-618: A very active graffiti culture, and graffiti are very common in Brazilian cities. This is blamed on the high uneven distribution of income, changing laws, and disenfranchisement. Pichação is a form of graffiti found in Brazil, which involves tall characters and is usually used as a form of protest. It contrasts with the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite . Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos , Boleta, Nunca , Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. There are also

1785-628: Is Bozo Texino? . Contemporary graffiti has been seen on landmarks in the US, such as Independence Rock , a national landmark along the Oregon Trail . In World War II , an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World: Austin White – Chicago, Ill – 1918 Austin White – Chicago, Ill – 1945 This

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1870-411: Is a major author of contemporary grotesque comedy plays. In architecture the term "grotesque" means a carved stone figure. Grotesques are often confused with gargoyles , but the distinction is that gargoyles are figures that contain a water spout through the mouth, while grotesques do not. Without a water spout, this type of sculpture is also known as a chimera when it depicts fantastical creatures. In

1955-507: Is at this point that a grotesque creature such as Frankenstein's monster begins to be presented more sympathetically as the outsider who is the victim of society. But the novel also makes the issue of sympathy problematic in an unkind society. This means that society becomes the generator of the grotesque, by a process of alienation. In fact, the grotesque monster in Frankenstein tends to be described as "the creature". The grotesque received

2040-511: Is known about who made them or why. Early artists created stencil graffiti of their hands with paint blown through a tube. These stencils may have functioned similarly to a modern-day tag . The oldest written graffiti was found in Ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences, but also includes word games such as the Sator Square , "I

2125-507: Is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol , England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine . In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout

2210-405: Is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist . Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He

2295-571: Is often cited as the leading exponent. Flannery O'Connor wrote, "Whenever I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one" ( Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction , 1960). In O'Connor's often-anthologized short story A Good Man Is Hard to Find , the Misfit, a serial killer, is clearly a maimed soul, utterly callous to human life, but driven to seek

2380-406: Is performed by a skillful artist." The delight of Mannerist artists and their patrons in arcane iconographic programs available only to the erudite could be embodied in schemes of grottesche , Andrea Alciato 's Emblemata (1522) offered ready-made iconographic shorthand for vignettes. More familiar material for grotesques could be drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses . The Vatican loggias ,

2465-488: Is simply a villain or a monster .) Obvious examples would include the physically deformed and the mentally deficient, but people with cringe-worthy social traits are also included. The reader becomes piqued by the grotesque's positive side, and continues reading to see if the character can conquer their darker side. In Shakespeare's The Tempest , the figure of Caliban has inspired more nuanced reactions than simple scorn and disgust. Also, in J. R. R. Tolkien 's The Lord of

2550-407: Is the last time I want to write my name here. During World War II and for decades after, the phrase " Kilroy was here " with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with

2635-563: Is the most complex form of modern graffiti. It can be difficult for those unfamiliar with the art form to read. Wildstyle draws inspiration from calligraphy and has been described as partially abstract. The term "wildstyle" was popularized by the Wild Style graffiti crew formed by Tracy 168 of the Bronx , New York in 1974. Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged

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2720-698: Is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface. Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne , where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis. Stickers, also known as slaps, are drawn or written on before being put up in public. Traditionally, free paper stickers like

2805-633: The grottesche style of decoration. In the 1790s, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt . Lord Byron 's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica , Greece. The oldest known example of graffiti monikers were found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who

2890-550: The Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation. Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders

2975-568: The Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates , Israel , and in Iran . The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one 's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag , has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become

3060-595: The Roman Empire . Modern graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered vandalism . Modern graffiti began in the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s and later spread to the rest of the United States and throughout the world. "Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from

3145-524: The Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic , is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria , eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia . Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD. Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over

3230-472: The United States Postal Service 's Label 228 or name tags were used. Eggshell stickers, which are very difficult to remove, are also frequent. Stickers allow artists to put up their art quickly and discreetly, making them a relatively safer option for illegal graffiti. Tagging is the practice of writing ones "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to

3315-460: The anarcho-punk band Crass , who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war , anarchist , feminist , and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam , graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered in names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti, a punk magazine

3400-482: The bizarro genre of fiction . Other contemporary writers who have explored the grotesque in pop-culture are John Docker , in the context of postmodernism; Cintra Wilson , who analyzes celebrity; and Francis Sanzaro , who discusses its relation to childbirth and obscenity. Alien Resurrection (1997) is the only film rated by the MPAA to have "grotesque images" in its rating description, mainly due to its depiction of

3485-488: The "genuine antibourgeois style". Some of the earliest written texts describe grotesque happenings and monstrous creatures. The literature of myth has been a rich source of monsters; from the one-eyed Cyclops from Hesiod 's Theogony to Homer's Polyphemus in the Odyssey . Ovid 's Metamorphoses is another rich source for grotesque transformations and hybrid creatures of myth. Horace 's Art of Poetry also provides

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3570-484: The "grotesque" figures, in the ordinary conversational sense, commonly appear in the genre grotesque art , also known as fantastic art . One of the first uses of the term grotesque to denote a literary genre is in Montaigne's Essays . The Grotesque is often linked with satire and tragicomedy . It is an effective artistic means to convey grief and pain to the audience, and for this has been labeled by Thomas Mann as

3655-427: The "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra , manifesting

3740-424: The 17th and 18th centuries the grotesque encompasses a wide field of teratology (science of monsters) and artistic experimentation. The monstrous, for instance, often occurs as the notion of play . The sportiveness of the grotesque category can be seen in the notion of the preternatural category of the lusus naturae , in natural history writings and in cabinets of curiosities. The last vestiges of romance, such as

3825-541: The Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν — graphein —meaning "to write". Most petroglyphs and geoglyphs date between 40,000 and 10,000 years old, the oldest being cave paintings in Australia. Paintings in the Chauvet Cave were made 35,000 years ago, but little

3910-713: The Middle Ages, the term babewyn was used to refer to both gargoyles and grotesques. This word is derived from the Italian word babbuino , which means " baboon ". The word "grotesque", or "Grotesk" in German, is also frequently used as a synonym for sans-serif in typography . At other times, it is used (along with "neo-grotesque", "humanist", " lineal ", and "geometric") to describe a particular style or subset of sans-serif typefaces. The origin of this association can be traced back to English typefounder William Thorowgood , who introduced

3995-524: The Newborn xenomorph and the failed clones of Ellen Ripley , who all featured grotesque human–alien ( hybrid ) characteristics. Grotesque manner also can be found at Disney's famous ride, The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, Walt Disney World and other theme parks, where some of its details may contain a symbolism of Memento Mori , Samsara's circle or themes describing the fragility of human existence, passions that baffle and how they could be avoided or find

4080-447: The Rings , the character of Gollum may be considered to have both disgusting and empathetic qualities, which fit the grotesque template. Victor Hugo 's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is one of the most celebrated grotesques in literature. Dr. Frankenstein's monster from Mary Shelley 's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus can also be considered a grotesque, as well as

4165-493: The airy well-spaced style used by the Romans and Raphael. Soon grottesche appeared in marquetry (fine woodwork), in maiolica produced above all at Urbino from the late 1520s, then in book illustration and in other decorative uses. At Fontainebleau Rosso Fiorentino and his team enriched the vocabulary of grotesques by combining them with the decorative form of strapwork , the portrayal of leather straps in plaster or wood moldings, which forms an element in grotesques. In

4250-697: The arrival of American graffiti and was associated more with the punk rock scene than with hip-hop. In the 1980s, American graffiti and hiphop began to influence the European graffiti scene. Modern graffiti reached Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Some of the earliest graffiti exhibitions outside of the USA were in Amsterdam , The Netherlands. Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt , Lebanon ,

4335-401: The artist that can be displayed anywhere from sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be shown to everyone for free. Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing onesself. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some

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4420-488: The city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti. While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer —others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch , considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. While those who did early modern graffiti called it "writing", the 1974 essay "The Faith of Graffiti" referred to it using

4505-525: The early 1980s. Fab   5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983. With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol , a heart , and

4590-676: The end of the fifteenth century and subsequently imitated. The word was first used of paintings found on the walls of basements of ruins in Rome that were called at that time le Grotte ('the caves'). 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 AD 64, which had become overgrown and buried, until they were broken into again, mostly from above. Spreading from Italian to

4675-587: The environment described may be grotesque – whether urban ( Charles Dickens ), or the literature of the American south which has sometimes been termed " Southern Gothic ". Sometimes the grotesque in literature has been explored in terms of social and cultural formations such as the carnival(-esque) in François Rabelais and Mikhail Bakhtin . Terry Castle has written on the relationship between metamorphosis, literary writings and masquerade. Another major source of

4760-710: The events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem . South America has

4845-473: The following description: For example, reeds are substituted for columns, fluted appendages with curly leaves and volutes take the place of pediments, candelabra support representations of shrines, and on top of their roofs grow slender stalks and volutes with human figures senselessly seated upon them. Emperor Nero 's palace in Rome, the Domus Aurea , was rediscovered by chance in the late 15th century, buried in fifteen hundred years of land fill. Access into

4930-424: The graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers. Grotesque The English word first appears in the 1560s as a noun borrowed from French, itself originally from the Italian grottesca (literally "of a cave" from the Italian grotta , 'cave'; see grotto ), an extravagant style of ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered at Rome at

5015-433: The grotesque decor in 1556. Counter Reformation writers on the arts, notably Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti , bishop of Bologna, turned upon grottesche with a righteous vengeance. Vasari, echoing Vitruvius, described the style as follows: "Grotesques are a type of extremely licentious and absurd painting done by the ancients ... without any logic, so that a weight is attached to a thin thread which could not support it,

5100-813: 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. In art, grotesques are ornamental arrangements of arabesques with interlaced garlands and small and fantastic human and animal figures, usually set out in a symmetrical pattern around some form of architectural framework, though this may be very flimsy. Such designs were fashionable in ancient Rome , especially as fresco wall decoration and floor mosaic. Stylized versions, common in Imperial Roman decoration, were decried by Vitruvius (c. 30 BC) who, in dismissing them as meaningless and illogical, offered

5185-486: The grotesque is in satirical writings of the 18th century. Jonathan Swift 's Gulliver's Travels provides a variety of approaches to grotesque representation. Corporeal hybridity is an essential marker in Swift. In poetry, the works of Alexander Pope provide many examples of the grotesque. In fiction, characters are usually considered grotesque if they induce both empathy and disgust. (A character who inspires disgust alone

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5270-472: The home front became commonplace. The accompanying growth in the prosthetic industry struck contemporaries as creating a race of half-mechanical men and became an important theme in dadaist work.' The poetry of Wilfred Owen displays a poetic and realistic sense of the grotesque horror of war and the human cost of brutal conflict. Poems such as Spring Offensive and Greater Love combined images of beauty with shocking brutality and violence in order to produce

5355-766: The legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse". When graffiti is done as an art form, it often utitlises the Latin script even in countries where it is not the primary writing system. English words are also often used as monikers. Stencil graffiti artists such as Blek le Rat existed in Western Europe, especially in Paris , before

5440-457: The main tools used for tagging , throw ups , and pieces . Paint markers , paint dabbers, and scratching tools are also used. Some art companies, such as Montana Colors , make art supplies specifically for graffiti and street art. Many major cities have graffiti art stores. Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders ) to form an overall design or image. The stencil

5525-399: The marvellous also provide opportunities for the presentation of the grotesque in, for instance, operatic spectacle. The mixed form of the novel was commonly described as grotesque – see for instance Fielding's "comic epic poem in prose" ( Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones ). Grotesque ornament received a further impetus from new discoveries of original Roman frescoes and stucchi at Pompeii and

5610-554: The meantime, through the medium of engravings the grotesque mode of surface ornament passed into the European artistic repertory of the 16th century, from Spain to Poland. A classic suite was that attributed to Enea Vico , published in 1540–41 under an evocative explanatory title, Leviores et extemporaneae picturae quas grotteschas vulgo vocant , "Light and extemporaneous pictures that are vulgarly called grotesques". Later Mannerist versions, especially in engraving, tended to lose that initial lightness and be much more densely filled than

5695-447: The other European languages, the term was long used largely interchangeably with arabesque and moresque for types of decorative patterns using curving foliage elements. 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

5780-541: The other buried sites round Mount Vesuvius from the middle of the century. It continued in use, becoming increasingly heavy, in the Empire Style and then in the Victorian period, when designs often became as densely packed as in 16th-century engravings, and the elegance and fancy of the style tended to be lost. Artists began to give the tiny faces of the figures in grotesque decorations strange caricatured expressions, in

5865-527: The palace's remains was from above, requiring visitors to be lowered into it using ropes as in a cave, or grotte in Italian. The palace's wall decorations in fresco and delicate stucco were a revelation. The first appearance of the word grottesche appears in a contract of 1502 for the Piccolomini Library attached to the duomo of Siena . They were introduced by Raphael Sanzio and his team of decorative painters, who developed grottesche into

5950-564: The seventeenth century traditions of fustian, bombastic and satirical writing. During the nineteenth-century category of grotesque body was increasingly displaced by the notion of congenital deformity or medical anomaly. Building on this context, the grotesque begins to be understood more as deformity and disability, especially after the First World War , 1914–18. In these terms, the art historian Leah Dickerman has argued that "The sight of horrendously shattered bodies of veterans returned to

6035-513: The term "graffiti", which stuck. An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading " Clapton is God " in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton . Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in Islington , north London, in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on

6120-450: The term "grotesque" and in 1835 produced 7-line pica grotesque —the first sans-serif typeface containing actual lowercase letters. An alternate etymology is possibly based on the original reaction of other typographers to such a strikingly featureless typeface. Popular grotesque typefaces include Franklin Gothic , News Gothic , Haettenschweiler , and Lucida Sans (although the latter lacks

6205-419: The term became also used for the medieval originals, and in modern terminology medieval drolleries, half-human thumbnail vignettes drawn in the margins, and carved figures on buildings (that are not also waterspouts, and so gargoyles ) are also called "grotesques". A boom in the production of works of art in the grotesque genre characterized the 1920–1933 period of German art . In contemporary illustration art,

6290-762: The theme of grotesques in decorating the Villa Madama , the most influential of the new Roman villas. In the 16th century, such artistic license and irrationality was controversial matter. Francisco de Holanda puts a defense in the mouth of Michelangelo in his third dialogue of Da Pintura Antiga , 1548: "this insatiable desire of man sometimes prefers to an ordinary building, with its pillars and doors, one falsely constructed in grotesque style, with pillars formed of children growing out of stalks of flowers, with architraves and cornices of branches of myrtle and doorways of reeds and other things, all seeming impossible and contrary to reason, yet it may be really great work if it

6375-753: The title character, Erik in The Phantom of the Opera and the Beast in Beauty and the Beast . Other instances of the romantic grotesque are also to be found in Edgar Allan Poe , E. T. A. Hoffmann , in Sturm und Drang literature or in Sterne's Tristram Shandy . The romantic grotesque is far more terrible and sombre than the medieval grotesque, which celebrated laughter and fertility. It

6460-804: The truth. The less obvious grotesque is the polite, doting grandmother who is unaware of her own astonishing selfishness. Another oft-cited example of the grotesque from O'Connor's work is her short story entitled A Temple of the Holy Ghost . The American novelist Raymond Kennedy is another author associated with the literary tradition of the grotesque. Contemporary writers of literary grotesque fiction include Ian McEwan , Katherine Dunn , Alasdair Gray , Angela Carter , Jeanette Winterson , Umberto Eco , Patrick McGrath , Jessica Anthony , Natsuo Kirino , Paul Tremblay , Matt Bell , Chuck Palahniuk , Brian Evenson , Caleb J. Ross (who writes domestic grotesque fiction), Richard Thomas and many authors who write in

6545-482: The use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes ( throwies ) as new media for graffitists. Yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists. Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn , who in 1962 painting declared in

6630-491: The wall . Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi , MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of

6715-419: The words "Bird Lives". Modern graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and started with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia . Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti, starting with artists like TAKI 183 and Cornbread . Later, artists began to paint throw-ups and pieces on trains on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into

6800-401: The world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is

6885-649: The writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti. A number of recent examples of graffiti make use of hashtags . Throw ups, or throwies are large, bubble-writing graffiti which aim to be "throw onto" a surface as largely and quickly as possible. Throw ups can have fills or be "hollow". They prioritise minimal negative space and consistency or letter space and height. Pieces are large, elaborate, letter-based graffiti which usually use spray paint or rollers. Pieces often have multi-coloured fills and outlines, and may use highlights, shadows, backgrounds, extensions, 3D effects, and sometimes characters . Wildstyle

6970-400: Was all lightness, elegance and grace." In these grotesque decorations a tablet or candelabrum might provide a focus; frames were extended into scrolls that formed part of the surrounding designs as a kind of scaffold, as Peter Ward-Jackson noted. Light scrolling grotesques could be ordered by confining them within the framing of a pilaster to give them more structure. Giovanni da Udine took up

7055-489: Was extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures related to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR . Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes

7140-555: Was here" type markings, and comments on gladiators. Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was generally not considered vandalism. Certain graffiti was seen as blasphemous and was removed, such as the Alexamenos graffito , which may contain one of the earliest depictions of Jesus . The graffito features a human with the head of a donkey on a cross with the text "Alexamenos worships [his] god." The only known source of

7225-430: Was started that was called Gallery Anus . So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s, there was already a vibrant graffiti culture. The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive,

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