I have always felt a close connection with mythology as I am constantly drawn to creatures such as trolls, dwarfs, elves and other grotesque beings which most commonly, or at least in the beginning, appear in stories and fairy tales. In my dissertation I wished to explore the origin of mythology and the creation of mythological beings more thoroughly as well as when they appear in their grotesque form in sculpture. I am interested in what way the well-known as well as slightly less recognized creatures of mythology are depicted and in which moment the myths from fairly tales found their way to reality.
In the first segment of my dissertation I therefore defined the terms satire, irony, caricature, humor and grotesque in detail, with emphasis on the latter. In continuation I explore the history of mythology and how the grotesque is shown through the depiction of mythological creatures. Other than the history of mythology I will also research how these myths find their way to reality and in what way they appear in sculpture. I will certainly include works of art by contemporary artists in this dissertation - sculptors who at first glance do not have anything in common with mythology, but whose depiction of the grotesque is achieved by manipulating material, figureand simple deformation of already known objects.
At the end of the first segment I also display my own works of art that were created while writing this dissertation as a result of inspirations and emotions at the time. At the end of the second segment of this dissertation I describe a pedagogical execution of an art assignment in two first year classes in middle school. I recount how I walked the students through the history of mythology and transfered the grotesque to present times. The students then combined this new information with previously obtained knowledge and created mythological beings from materials they had not handled before. I am happy that the students showed utmost effort despite the fact the assignment was carried out on the last day of school and most of them were already dreaming of summer holidays.
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