grotesque的词源
英文词源
- grotesque
- grotesque: [16] Etymologically, grotesque means ‘grotto-like’. Its Italian source, grottesco, was used in the phrase pittura grottesca, literally ‘grotto-like pictures’, denoting wall paintings of the sort discovered in the excavated basements of old buildings. Many of them were evidently bizarre or highly imaginative, and so grottesca came to mean ‘fanciful, fantastic’.
English acquired the word via Old French crotesque (crotescque was the earliest English spelling, later re-formed as grotesque on the basis of French grotesque and Italian grottesca), and in general use from the mid-18th century onward it slid towards the pejorativeness of ‘ludicrous, absurd’. The colloquial abbreviation grotty is first recorded in print in 1964.
=> grotto - grotesque (adj.)
- "wildly formed, of irregular proportions, boldly odd," c. 1600s, originally a noun (1560s), from Middle French crotesque (16c., Modern French grotesque), from Italian grottesco, literally "of a cave," from grotta (see grotto). The explanation that the word first was used of paintings found on the walls of Roman ruins revealed by excavation (Italian pittura grottesca) is "intrinsically plausible," according to OED. Originally merely fanciful and fantastic, the sense became pejorative, "clownishly absurd, uncouth," after mid-18c. As the British name for a style of square-cut, sans-serif letter, from 1875. Related: Grotesquely; grotesqueness.
中文词源
grotesque（怪诞的）：仿效古罗马金宫壁画风格的“洞穴画派”
暴君尼禄统治罗马帝国时，在罗马城中修建了一座类似阿房宫的金碧辉煌的宫殿，史称“金宫”。尼禄死后，金宫被废弃填平，后人在其上部修建了大角斗场等其他建筑，从此再无人记得“金宫”的存在。一直到了15世纪末，有个罗马人，走在山路上不小心摔进了一个大坑里，人们这才发现了金宫的废墟。废墟的四壁上画满了各种风格怪异的壁画。很快地，这个神秘的“山洞”成了罗马一处新“景点”，前去观光考察的，大多是当时的顶尖艺术家，包括正在为教皇装修梵蒂冈宫殿的米开朗琪罗和拉斐尔。他们带上绳索、火把下到洞里，仔细研究那些前所未闻的壁画。
15世纪正是艺术史上改朝换代的文艺复兴时期，画家们从“山洞”的壁画中得到灵感，发起一场立竿见影的艺术革命。流丽的线条和夺目的色彩被复制到王公贵族的府邸、别墅，一个新的绘画流派形成了，名称就叫“洞穴画派”，意大利语为grottesco，英语为grotesque，字面意思就是“洞穴的”，源自意大利语grotta（洞穴）、英语单词grotto（洞穴）。
该词本来用来形容金宫废墟里的壁画，由于这些壁画风格过于独特怪诞，grotesque一词后来衍生出“怪异”的意思，它本来的词义倒被人淡忘了。
grotesque：[grə(ʊ)'tesk] adj.奇形怪状的，怪诞的，可笑的n.怪诞风格，奇异东西
grotto：['grɒtəʊ] n.洞穴，岩穴，人工洞穴
该词的英语词源请访问趣词词源英文版：grotesque 词源，grotesque 含义。
来自grotto, 石窟，洞穴，词源同crypt, 隐藏。来自意大利语，通常认为来自16世纪在罗马废墟洞穴发现的奇怪的壁画，因而引申该词义。
