grotesque
Petrified Waters: The Artificial Grottoes of the Renaissance and Beyond
Idling alongside the waters of artificial grottoes, visitors found themselves in lush, otherworldly settings, where art and nature, pleasure and peril, and humans and nymphs could, for a time, coexist. Laura Tradii spelunks through the handmade caves of the Italian Renaissance and their reception abroad, illuminating how these curious spaces transformed across the centuries. more
J.-K. Huysmans pastiche? Formative influence on Allen Ginsberg’s Howl? Ben Hecht’s Fantazius Mallare (1922) is at turns obtuse, grotesque, and moralizing — and sought to provoke the obscenity trial of the century. Only it didn’t, quietly vanishing instead. Colin Dickey rereads this failed satire, finding a transcendent rhythm pulsing beneath the novel’s indulgent prose. more