Grotteschi 

Curator: Here we have a drawing entitled "Grotteschi," attributed to Pinturicchio. It's rendered in ink on paper. Editor: My first impression is that these are whimsical architectural fantasies—they remind me of half-remembered dreams about Roman ruins, all swirling lines and odd little faces peering out. Curator: Grotesques like these, full of playful, hybridized forms, were a popular motif in the Renaissance. The discovery of Nero's Domus Aurea in the late 15th century fueled the fashion. Artists found themselves copying the decorations found in these underground "grottoes", thus the name. Editor: It feels like looking at a highly refined doodle. I wonder what the working conditions were like when this was being made? What kind of light, what sort of pressures from patrons, or fellow artists in the workshop. You get this sense that something spontaneous and unconstrained emerged within quite a rigid professional context. Curator: The material conditions are crucial here. These drawings functioned both as autonomous artworks, commodities circulated among collectors, but they also provided crucial templates for artisans and builders in multiple trades. Editor: Absolutely. It feels like a testament to human creativity, doesn't it? A desire to push boundaries and imagine new possibilities—rendered with such elegance. Like this hybrid monster here, what does he feel like? An anxious gargoyle? Curator: The beauty is that we can't know for sure; there’s a marvelous openness here, it resists easy categorization. They weren't merely copying classical forms but creatively adapting them, participating in the market. Editor: A marketplace of ideas, of forms, a negotiation between past, present, and an imagined future…I think I see why these are always a thrill for me, some promise to discover novelty hiding in old forms. Curator: And what the means of artistic production tell us about how those pasts are remade over time. Editor: It is something special when the labor produces this odd beauty and reveals new potential!