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Grotesque Quotes

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Grotesque Quotes

“But if it so happens ... a work ... under pain of otherwise becoming shameful or false, requires fantasy ... [and that] certain limbs or elements of a figure are altered by borrowing from other species, for example transforming into a dolphin the hinder end of a griffon or a stag ... these alterations will be excellent and the substitution, however unreal it may seem, deserves to be declared a fine invention in the genre of the monstrous. When a painter introduces into this kind of work of art chimerae and other imaginary beings in order to divert and entertain the senses and also to captivate the eyes of mortals who long to see unclassified and impossible things, he shows himself more respectful of reason than if he produced the usual figures of men or of animals.”

ImaginationFantasyMonstrousGrotesque
Author:Michaelangelo
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“I know, you were much closer to the painter than any of us. In spite of that, your lips, too, will want to curl up into a smile. There are levels of tragedy whose mind-numbing properties can only be checked by laughter, and what story does not contain an inkling of the grotesque? When we Germans will have learnt to laugh like the Gauls, we will truly be the rulers of this earth; even more so than before, one might add." "John Hamilton Llewellyn's End”

LaughterGrotesque
Book:Nachtmahr: Strange Tales
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“In principio, quando il mondo era giovane, c'erano molti pensieri ma non esisteva nulla si simile a una verità. Le verità le fabbricò l'uomo, e ogni verità fu composta da un grande numero di pensieri imprecisi. Così in tutto il mondo ci furono verità. Ed erano meravigliose. Il vecchio aveva elencato nel suo libro centinaia di verità. Io non cercherò di riferirvele tutte. C'erano la verità della verginità e la verità della passione, la verità della ricchezza e quella della povertà, della modestia e dello sperpero, dell'indifferenza e dell'entusiasmo. Centinaia e centinaia erano le verità, e tutte meravigliose. Poi veniva la gente. Ognuno, appena compariva, si gettava su una delle verità e se ne impadroniva; alcuni, molto forti, arrivavano a possederne una dozzina contemporaneamente. Erano le verità a trasformare la gente in caricature grottesche. Il vecchio aveva una sua complessa teoria a questo proposito. Era sua opinione che quando qualcuno s'impadroniva di una verità, e diceva che quella era la sua verità e si sforzava di vivere secondo essa, allora costui si trasformava in una caricatura, e la verità che abbracciava in una menzogna.”

TruthGrotesqueHuman KindCaricature
Book:Winesburg, Ohio
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“à l’ombre des quelques hommes riches qui bombent le ventre pour étaler leur importance sociale se cache une foule des personnages grotesques, présentés sur les scènes de l’histoire comme des êtres parasites, cupides et caricaturaux.”

GrotesqueSocial StatusSemioticsParasiteGluttonGrossophobia
Book:Mangeuses : Histoire de celles qui dévorent, savourent ou se privent à l'excès
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“I had always believed that the very best food contains something elementally repugnant. That its innate grotesquerie is what makes it so perversely alluring. My own favorite foods tended toward a certain sludgy, muddy texture. And from the most expensive and genteel through to the indulgently crass, the appeal of slop abides: caviar, escargots, foie gras or hamburgers, kebabs, macaroni and cheese. Even vegetable soup forms a membrane. Apples begin rotting from the very first bite. No matter which end of the spectrum, there lies fundamentally and yet delectably disgusting, some squirmy, sinewy, oozing, greasy, sticky, glutinous, mushy, fatty, chewy, viscous thing that compels. The line between pleasure and revulsion can seem so very thin, if it even exists at all.”

Food For ThoughtGrotesqueRevulsionFine LineRepugnant
Book:Supper Club
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“My idea of a perfect surrealist painting is one in which every detail is perfectly realistic, yet filled with a surrealistic, dreamlike mood. And the viewer himself can't understand why that mood exists, because there are no dripping watches or grotesque shapes as reference points. That is what I'm after: that mood which is apart from everyday life, the type of mood that one experiences at very special moments.”

IdeasMomentsPerfectWatchesSpecialPaintingTypeShapesFilledEverydayDetailsMoodRealisticEveryday LifeViewersSurrealismGrotesqueDrippingSurrealistSpecial Moments
Author:Ian Hornak
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“We hardly know an instance of the strength and weakness of human nature so striking and so grotesque as the character of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other.”

KnowsWorldHumansCharacterNatureHalfStrengthHuman NatureArmsWeaknessBlueInstancePoisonPocketsVersesGrotesqueVigilantResoluteStrength And WeaknessStockingsHaughty
Author:Thomas B. Macaulay
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“It is often said that the modern exhibition has ruined painting. It is an unfortunate fact that it does encourage competition, so that, to attract attention to his work, an artist is tempted to descend to sensationalism, whether it is expressed by strong colour, grotesque handling, unusual subject, or sheer size.”

DoeSaidFactsArtistStrongAttentionModernSubjectsPaintingCompetitionSizeColourUnusualSheerUnfortunateRuinedTemptedGrotesqueExhibitionsSensationalism
Author:Walter J. Phillips
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“The world is rather shot to pieces [end of World War II - 1945], but the spectators climb out of their caves and pretend to have again become normal and customary humans who ask each other's pardon instead of eating one another or sucking each other's blood. The entertaining folly of war evaporates, distinguished boredom sits down again on the dignified old overstuffed chairs.. .May I report about myself that I have had a truly grotesque time, brim-full with work, Nazi persecutions, bombs, hunger, and again and again work - in spite of everything [a. o. using his bed sheets as canvas for the new paintings].”

WorldHumansMayWarEndsAsksPiecesBloodBedNormalEatingShotsHungerWar Of The WorldsBoredomFollyBombsReportsSpiteClimbsChairsWorld War IiEntertainingWorld War IAgain And AgainCanvasNaziSheetsPersecutionCavesSpectatorsDistinguishedPardonGrotesqueBed Sheets
Author:Max Beckmann
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“The intellectual ... may live for ideas, as I have said, but something must prevent him from living for one idea, from becoming obsessive or grotesque. Although there have been zealots whom we may still regard as intellectuals, zealotry is a defect of the breed and not of the essence.”

MayHas BeensSaidStillsIdeasBecomingIntellectualEssenceRegardDefectsObsessiveGrotesqueZealotZealotry
Book:Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
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“Many consider that Shostakovich is the greatest 20th-century composer. In his 15 symphonies, 15 quartets, and in other works he demonstrated mastery of the largest and most challenging forms with music of great emotional power and technical invention...All his works are marked by emotional extremes - tragic intensity, grotesque and bizarre wit, humour, parody, and savage sarcasm.”

FormChallengesCenturyEmotionalHumourExtremesWitInventionTragicSarcasmIntensityComposerMasterySavages20th CenturyBizarreSymphonyParodyGrotesqueQuartetsEmotional PowerShostakovich
Author:Dmitri Shostakovich
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“The last level of metaphor in the Alice books is this: that life, viewed rationally and without illusion, appears to be a nonsense tale told by an idiot mathematician. At the heart of things science finds only a mad, never-ending quadrille of Mock Turtle Waves and Gryphon Particles. For a moment the waves and particles dance in grotesque, inconceivably complex patterns capable of reflecting on their own absurdity.”

HeartBookMomentsLastsLevelsCapableIllusionMadComplexesMetaphorWavePatternsTalesIdiotNonsenseMathematicianAbsurdityParticlesReflectingMockNever EndingGrotesqueTurtles
Author:Martin Gardner
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“[Vathek] has, in parts, been called, but to some judgments, never is, dull: it is certainly in parts, grotesque, extravagant and even nasty. But Beckford could plead sufficient "local colour" for it, and a contrast, again almost Shakespearean, between the flickering farce atrocities of the beginning and the sombre magnificence of the end. Beckford's claims, in fact, rest on the half-score or even half-dozen pages towards the end: but these pages are hard to parallel in the later literature of prose fiction.”

EndsHardFactsLiteratureHalfFictionJudgmentPagesClaimsLocalsSufficientColourDullProseScoreDozenContrastNastyParallelsAtrocitiesExtravagantGrotesqueMagnificenceFarce
Author:William Thomas Beckford
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“Despite his reputation as one of America's foremost "serious" filmmakers, Oliver Stone's name under the "director" caption does not guarantee a good movie. I learned that lesson while enduring the seemingly-endless tedium of The Doors, and was reminded of it during some of the long, drawn-out portions of JFK. However, nothing that Stone has directed or misdirected prepared me for the grotesque mess that is Natural Born Killers.”

LongDoeAmericaNamesBornNaturalDoorsSeriousLessonsDirectorsStonesPreparedEndureEndlessReputationDespiteMessFilmmakerGuaranteesPortionsKillersGood MovieGrotesqueTediumCaption
Author:James Berardinelli
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“Sleep takes off the costume of circumstance, arms us with terrible freedom, so that every will rushes to deed. A skillful man reads his dreams for his self-knowledge; yet not the details, but the quality. What part does he play in them - a cheerful, manly part, or a poor, drivelling part? However monstrous and grotesque their apparitions, they have a substantial truth.”

MenDoeSelfPlayDreamSleepPoorQualityArmsCircumstancesTerribleDetailsDeedsSelf KnowledgeCostumesCheerfulMonstrousManlySkillfulWearinessGrotesqueApparitions
Book:The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: With a Biographical Introduction and Notes
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“I believe that there is no test of greatness in periods, nations or men more sure than the development, among them or in them, of a noble grotesque, and no test of comparative smallness or limitation, of one kind or another, more sure than the absence of grotesque invention, or incapability of understanding it.”

MenBelieveKindI BelieveNationsUnderstandingGreatnessDevelopmentPeriodsTestsNobleAbsenceInventionLimitationGrotesqueSmallnessIncapability
Book:The Stones of Venice -: The Fall
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“Wherever the human mind is healthy and vigorous in all its proportions, great in imagination and emotion no less than in intellect, and not overborne by an undue or hardened pre-eminence of the mere reasoning faculties, there the grotesque will exist in full energy.”

MindHumansEnergyImaginationEmotionHealthyMereIntellectReasoningProportionFacultyHuman MindVigorousGrotesqueHardenedEminence
Book:The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings
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“I think that, honestly, people's censorship issues are personal but I disagree with most of those personal choices that I see others make. You know, I watch television and there's a grotesque amount of violence on almost every show that you would watch that comes on past 8:00 pm. And I think my dirty brand of humor is far less destructive to a child's mentality.”

PeopleThinkingChildrenShowsChoicesWatchesIssuesViolenceTelevisionAmountHonestlyBrandsDirtyDestructiveDisagreeCensorshipMentalityGrotesquePersonal Choice
Author:Seth Rogen
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“Its obvious nonsense, but it makes nice people feel good about themselves to do their bit for the planet. Its vanity of a grotesque kind to believe that mankind, and our carbon footprint, has more impact on the future of Earth than Nature, which bends our planet to its will, as it sees fit.”

PeopleFeelsBelieveKindEarthBitsNiceMankindPlanetsFitImpactObviousFeel GoodVanityNonsenseCarbonOur PlanetFootprintGrotesqueNice PeopleCarbon Footprint
Author:Charles Saatchi
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“It seems to me that if one had kept silence up to now regarding religion, people would still be submerged in the most grotesque and dangerous superstition ... regarding government, we would still be groaning under the bonds of feudal government ... regarding morals, we would still be having to learn what is virtue and what is vice. To forbid all these discussions, the only ones worthy of occupying a good mind, is to perpetuate the reign of ignorance and barbarism.”

PeopleIfsMindStillsSeemsGovernmentSilenceMoralVirtueAtheismDangerousIgnoranceVicesWorthyPositive AtheismDiscussionSuperstitionsReignBarbarismGrotesqueSubmergedGroaningGood Mind
Author:Denis Diderot
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