Grotesque
The term comes from the decorations on the walls of caves (grotti) of the classical era. These decorations, which were very popular in the 16th century, included fantastic shapes of human beings and animals mixed with flowers, garlands and arabesques, in order to form a symmetrical pattern that covered the walls or ceiling. Over the years, the term came to imply the distortion and the exaggeration (humorous or frightening) in different types of art, particularly in sculpture.