On this page you can download two black and white designs of grotesque animals.
The designs come from the book "Principles of decorative design" (published 1870); they were drawn by Christopher Dresser, the author of the book. ’Grotesque’ refers to a style of decorative art that uses odd and fantastic combinations of natural, human and animal forms, so that they are distorted and unnatural in shape or size into absurdity, ugliness or caricature. In medieval architecture, grotesques are carved stone sculptures commonly used as a decorative element. They are often confused with gargoyles, but the distinction is that gargoyles are figures or sculptures that contain a water spout through the mouth, while grotesques do not. To put it straight, gargoyles are both ornamental and functional as they convey water away from the sides of buildings.
In the picture you can see what the grotesques look like and if you have an idea how to use them, you can download them in 2D CAD (dwg) or vector (svg and eps) file formats.
If you are interested, use a search engine and type the word ’grotesques’. You will see some bizarre yet fascinating stone sculptures. In the old books, you can find a large number of illustrations of grotesque masks, ornaments and animals. For all those who like things out of the ordinary, exploring this style of art can be very interesting.
Submitted by Ceh Jan
