That's grotesque

Spent most of the day Saturday afternoon in the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK - Museum für Angewandte Kunst) on the Ringstraße. I suppose an equivalent in the UK would be the V&A in London but on a smaller scale. We wandered through rooms of baroque pomp and mirrors, exquisite lace and glass from the 16th century and rooms of chairs from from one of the first ever mail order catalogues in Europe (date), and past full size sketches by Klimt of the famous wall frieze in the Palais Stoclet in Belgium.

The main reason for my wanting to go to the MAK, was an exhibition of ornamental prints I had noticed in one of the listings sites. These prints were taken from bookplates, illustrations, pattern books, architectural drawings and other ornate designs (for jugs etc) and are all grotesque. By that I don't mean they are horrible. "Grotesque" refers to a style of decoration that is wild and fanciful and features fantastical mythological creatures with swirls and arabesques. It originally became fashionable following the discovery of Emperor Nero's villa (Domus Aurea) in Rome in the early 1500's. The villa was covered in this kind of fanciful decoration.

This might sound really dull, but this kind of stuff has fascinated me since I was a little boy, though I can't remember where I would have first seen it, maybe in the Manchester Museum? I don't know.

This was a lovely exhibition and one where. Some of the exhibits were so detailed and so small (Christmas postage stamp size) that there were powerful magnifying glasses available so you could see them properly without going crosseyed. Thank you Mr/Ms MAK for that.

We retired across the road to the Café Pruckerl and although the air inside was thick with smoke and it took an age to get served, we persevered and I eventually had a fantastic potato goulash, topped with a Debreziner (a spicy hot-dog sausage from Debrecen in Hungary).

What more could a hungry boy wish for?