The art of transformation

'Grotesque' is commonly used to describe the surprising, monstrous, or bizarre, across historical periods and in all forms of cultural expression. This book uses 'grotesque' in its specific art-historical sense, which designates ornamental frescoes typical of the thriving Italian city-states of the sixteenth century. As site-specific art, grotesques were remarkably popular in the palaces and villas of the elite within this rather brief period in the history of art, from the late fifteenth century to around 1600. Originally, 'grotesques' (grottesche) referred to the frescoes that decorated the so-called grottoes of ancient Roman ruins. Sixteenth-century grotesques, however, differ from their ancient predecessors due to the strategies of change and ambivalence that inform them. Interpreting sixteenth-century grotesques as an art of transformation, this book also considers other art forms, such as gardens, artificial grottoes, and decorative art, which were likewise conditioned by this contemporary preoccupation with metamorphosis in style and content. This extensively illustrated book analyzes grotesques thematically, focusing on the concept of the artist and notions of artistic creation as well as relationships to traditions of Antiquity and the medieval period, art and nature, and movement and space. It offers an overview of important tendencies in sixteenth-century visual culture that have been neglected in art histories of canonical great masters and autonomous easel painting, as known from museums. The Art of Transformation brings the grotesques of sixteenth-century Italy to the fore as a field in visual culture with the potential to transform conventional views concerning art of this period.