in its usual acceptation, is applied to anything distorted in figure; hence unnatural, wildly formed. Dryden says—"There is yet a lower sort of poetry and painting which is out of nature; for a farce is that in poetry which grotesque is in a picture: the persons and actions of a farce are all unnatural, and the manners false—that is, inconsistent with the characters of mankind; grotesque painting is the just resemblance of this."

In architecture, grotesque is applied to the light and fanciful ornaments used by the ancients in the decorations of the walls and some of the subordinate parts of their buildings. The term was thus applied from their having been long buried: the Italians call any subterranean apartment by the name of grotta, whence grotesque. Arabesque is also applied to the same kind of ornament which was much in use about the time of the Renaissance.