FROM PLEASURE TO DISGUST . THE GROTESQUE IN THE OEUVRE OF JOÃO DE RUÃO

Operando no quadro teórico da investigação sobre o grotesco, o monstruoso, a marginalidade e a transgressão, nas margens físicas e epistemológicas da arte, este artigo pretende abordar a relação entre a produção escultórica de João de Ruão e o grotesco. A partir dos diversos desafios e estímulos lançados pelo longo século XVI ao aparato conceptual e visual de um artista tão industrioso e qualificado como João de Ruão, torna-se necessário questionar em que circunstâncias e com que recursos se terá apropriado do grotesco enquanto categoria expressiva e plástica. Para isso, é essencial iniciar o questionamento da natureza, contexto e função da expressão de qualidades como a bizarria, o hibridismo, a fealdade e a monstruosidade, a partir de figuras parergónicas como gárgulas e mascarões, mas também “infiéis”, carrascos e até o próprio demónio, adversários últimos da Cristandade. A partir de quatro estudos de caso, que tentaremos contextualizar e compreender num quadro comparativo, ensaiar-se-á um primeiro olhar a estas imagens menos visíveis, na expectativa de contribuir para adensar o nosso conhecimento sobre o papel de João de Ruão enquanto artista do Renascimento Europeu.

As an artistic concept and as a word, the birth of the grotesque is contemporary with the life and work of João de Ruão. But beyond the lavish inventiveness displayed in the grottesche, though still mediated by the principle of decorum, there was yet another form of inventio particularly associated with proteiform hybridism, deformation, exaggeration, transgression, and borderline ugliness. It layed in the grotesqueness of demons, monsters, and mascheroni, as well as in the devilish ugliness of saint's executioners and enemies of the faith. The bizarre, the deformed or the ugly were then the main ingredients of a formula which, as complementary to that of the grottesche, aimed at something more than the display of artistic virtuousness and creative ability, or "the relaxation of the senses", as pointed out by Francisco de Holanda (Holanda, ed. Alves, 1984: 58). Its aim was, then, manifold but nevertheless specific: to teach, to amuse, to scare, to enrage, to move. A plethora of seemingly well calculated reactions, from pleasure to disgust.
Despite the preliminary nature of this approach, it is tempting to affirm from the start that in the global oeuvre of João de Ruão and his workshop, whether clearly identified or only attributed, the grotesque -here mostly considered as a quality and not only as a type of ornament -makes carefully dosed, yet quite impressive appearances.
As it would be expected from an artist formed and affirmed in the acme of a humanist culture, his approach to ugliness, wickedness, moral perversion and physical deformity, invariably starts in and with the human body. And, from such a long career -which left its mark for many decades after his death -, it is also obvious that this focus on humanity would inevitably cross the path of normalized, didactic Counter Reformation principles. Thus, in João de Ruão's work, explicit and unequivocal ugliness is usually linked to moral deformity and iniquity, and always counterbalanced by a powerful example of moral faultlessness and physical beauty. In this sense, hangmen become the perfect embodiments of human grotesque in João de Ruão's oeuvre, while the devil himself epitomizes the most expressive form of non-human grotesque.
This "ugly grotesque" is then complemented by a "bizarre grotesque" in which the figures are not necessarily ugly or evil, but rather bizarre, monstrous, hybrid, caricatured [ Fig. 1]. At the margin, framing, decorating, and enhancing the central images and scenes, human and nonhuman becomes a blurred distinction, operating within the essential hybridism of the grottesche, 138 digitAR -Revista Digital de Arqueologia, Arquitectura e Artes | número 7 (2020) If the short path from disgust to pleasure is theoretically grounded "on the opposition between the beautiful and the ugly" (Hendrix, 2005: 15), it is nevertheless a highly demanding challenge, which can only be achieved by the most excellent artists, since their virtuosity and skill rely on their power of imitatio.
Such ideas may be found, for instance, at the Poetics of Aristotle that, rediscovered in 1530s, would soon be accompanied by Longino's On the Sublime (1554/1555), both fueling the debate on beauty and its absence as artistic resources -a debate that would naturally keep up with the normative effects of Counter Reformation (Hendrix, 2005: 14-15). But even before this intense moment of theoretical assessment of the sublime, with ugliness, displeasure, disgust and horror entering the realms of poetry and visual arts as dynamic counterforces to their positive equivalents, Italian artists were exploring it through "concepts like decorum, affetto and especially imitation" (Hendrix, 2005: 15). By rendering images plausible, there may be beauty in ugliness, as clearly stated by Saint Thomas Aquinas a long time before any renaissance artist began using the rhetorical device of decorum: "An image is called beautiful if it perfectly represents something, even something ugly" (Summa Theologiae, I: 39, 8c).
Among the cultors of this coexistence, João de Ruão deserves a particular attention, not only for his impeccable manipulation of the grotesque within the realms of the ideal, the beautiful and even the sacred through the mediation of decorum, but also for having tried, throughout his career, virtually all the possibilities of grotesqueness, confirming it as an immanent quality in art.

Manga Cloister (Claustro da Manga), Monastery of Santa Cruz, Coimbra 1533
At the Monastery of Santa Cruz de Coimbra, an institution whose connection with João de Ruão's career is well known (Craveiro, 2002: 125-133;Gonçalves, 2006;Gonçalves, 2011: 117-140), the fountain of the so-called Manga Cloister displays a total of sixteen gargoyles perched on the outer border of the central dome (eight) and the four circular turrets (two per turret, in a total of eight) [Fig. 2]. Here, the baffling sophistication of the architectural setting -whose project may be attributed to João de Ruão even if its sources or immediate parallels are not yet clear (Dias, 2003: 128;Craveiro, 2011: 38) -, seems to commit to the survival of a figurative and plastic tradition which may be unmistakably identified with the "lavoro tedesco" so harshly criticized by the most distinguished heralds "dalla Bella maniera de'romani" (Visconti, 1840: 24), and by no means alien to the Portuguese renaissance elites (Francisco de Holanda, for instance, calls it a "superfluidade bárbara", or barbarian superfluity (Holanda, ed. Alves, 1984: 58  Whether these figures were intended to depict some specific social type or human behavior suitable for such a marginal task, or to "simply" convey in very plain (but still expressive) plastic means the human act of vomiting or spouting water, we still don't know, and perhaps never will.
It is nevertheless tempting to indulge in the idea of a similitude between these figures and the alltime popular fool whose common caricatured  And, in fact, this seems to be the case with another of these gargoyles, depicting a putto with his cheeks swollen like balloons, as he opens his mouth wide with the help of his hand to let the waters run down.
But, on the other hand, this same gesture may still be metonymically associated with screaming and speaking, which in the case of both the "fool" and the putto could imply saying nonsense, or babbling. The same may apply to another curious figure, common in both medieval and early modern marginalia, and twice depicted between the fountain's gargoyles: the ape [ Fig. 4]. Unable to refrain themselves from mimicking (aping) human behaviors and gestures, apes and monkeys could never profit from the precious and distinctively human gift of speech (Janson, 1952), just like (perhaps) nothing but thin air or running water would come out of the Manga's apes mouths, even if they are dressed like men.
In Renaissance Europe, apes and monkeys were still a luxury item displayed in rich households in an ever-growing variety, due to an increasingly 141 digitAR -Revista Digital de Arqueologia, Arquitectura e Artes | número 7 (2020)  (Gschwend, 2010: 7;Masseti, 2018: 52). Frequently fettered, to prevent the escape of such an expensive and prized possession, they appear in domestic settings as well as in the hands of their owners and, quite significantly, carried by court jesters or fools. Used as entertainment props, for their amusing nature, they were also an extension of the fool's real or fictional idiocy. Thus, we naturally find a fully "Ars simia naturae", or art as the ape of nature, is then an expression that gains place in the conceptual framework of the renaissance artist, and not without its tensions and conflicts (Cohen, 2017: 219-220;Janson, 1952: 290-293).
Apropos of this concept, Simona Cohen recalls that the Renaissance culture was permeable to both negative and positive uses of the ape imagery, suggestive enough to keep exposing and ridiculing human flaws through beastliness, but also human enough to act "the metaphoric alterego of the artist himself" (Cohen, 2017: 219). In more than one circumstance, thus, we will find apes and monkeys carefully and (more or less) discretely placed at the borders of both intimate pictures or great narrative cycles of paintings, while gazing outside the pictorial space or looking directly into the observer's eyes -as it happens, for instance, in Albrecht Dürer's Virgin and Child with the Monkey (c. 1498), where the animal's tail even leads to (and almost touches) the artist's monogram.
Beyond the challenges of the paragone debate which theoretically antagonized painters and sculptors, at a practical level, the creative role of the artist was commonly placed between the apparently unlimited resources of inventio and the imitatio of Nature, ultimately perceived as the work of God (for further readings on the implications and consequences of the paragone, see for instance the early works of Hecht, 1984: 125-136;Dundas, 1990: 87-92; and more recently Hendler, 2013). Placed at the edge of the fountain's chapels, the two apes carved by João de Ruão (or his co-workers) may as well be a virtuous reminder of the sculptors' ability to mimic nature in its real, tridimensional form, without ever being more than a trick performed by the artist, always fettered to a fiction to be perceived by others. Indeed, the apes depicted in these gargoyles seem to be Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus), one of the African species most common in Europe since Antiquity and one of the most frequently portrayed in art. If this is the case, the sinuous line that appears under the animal's legs, resting under its crossed feet, should be a rope or a chain, and not a tail. And this his, perhaps, why the ape's left-hand rests on its ankle, as if directing our gaze to that detail.
Beyond all speculation seems to be the fact that the sculptor wished to stress the ape's feet mobility, as they gently grasp the rope just like another pair of hands.
Precariously hanging from the outer border of the four chapels, all the creatures carved in these gargoyles have a rather convincing physical connection with the frieze from which they spout. More than simple extensions of the architectural frame or, on the contrary, individual stone blocks projecting from the wall, they are illusionistically placed on its horizontal mouldings, where they sit and lean, and which they touch and grab, always keeping a natural and effortless connection with the support. This is not only important for the sake of the artistic statement itself, but also for the layered symbolical reading of these images, which may also depict the vices and sins which plague the worldly path of the men trying to achieve spiritual perfection through meditation, prayer, solitude and penance. This is, in fact, a logical assumption from the spiritual profile of such an exceptional architecture, indelibly connected with the reformation of the Monastery of Santa Cruz of Coimbra by Frei Brás de Barros, and probably impossible to frame within the scope of a single influence, model or inspiration source (Abreu, 2009: 33-52;Abreu and Barreira, 2010: 1-25).
In this sense, it is perhaps useful to step back and note that the images carved in the architectural body itself are but a few, and they clearly obey to a dialectic of opposites: inside/ outside; central/liminal. Inside the circular turret-like chapels, four altarpieces display models of eremitic devotion: Saint John the Baptist; Saint Anthony the Great; Saint Paul the Hermit; and Saint Jerome, are all examples to meditate upon while experiencing a very alternative way of solitude (or soledade) within the very walls of the monastery. Outside the same chapels, exposed and harder to grasp, the gargoyles take the shape of three men with grinning, grotesque facial expressions, two fettered apes, and three hybrids: a faun, a griffin, and humanoid creature with reptilian feet whose state of conservation doesn't allow a precise identification. These are all categorizable creatures, whose grotesqueness plays upon a humanity which is never too far, and never too diluted. Even in the case of the griffin -which holds a plain heraldic shield -, the resonance of the flight of Alexander the Great, is almost immediate (Frugoni, 1973). All, except the griffin, are human or humanoid. All, except the griffin, are telluric and somewhat beastly creaturesfrom behavior even if not from nature, as it happens with the three men. And all of them, including the griffin, may serve the purpose of pointing to the earthly bounds of violence, lust, stupidity, ignorance, and foolishness -conveyed by bodily expression, since none of them masters proper verbal language -which the reformed crúzios should overcome. By connecting sky and earth, the griffin may be a reminder of the vanity of those who, like Alexander, search to know the unfathomable nature of Heaven without realizing that the path begins on the firm grounds of worldly hardships.
Even if this is not the time or the place (and space) to attempt such a demanding task as to take a closer and lengthy look at the grottesche in João de Ruão -a most necessary task which is nevertheless endeavored in other chapters of this volume -, it is still impossible to ignore their importance as one of the many approaches to grotesqueness. Indeed, it is at the frames,

Saint Michael fighting the Devil, Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha (MNMC), 1537
Beyond the rapture eventually provoked by the prodigious composite figures sprouting from the artist's imagination, there was another, perhaps less pleasant genre of invention: one expressed through strangeness, alterity, ugliness and 149 digitAR -Revista Digital de Arqueologia, Arquitectura e Artes | número 7 (2020)  In any case, the effect achieved by João de Ruão is far more refined and complex, drawing on a list of long lasting ingredients of the demonic portrait, but presenting them in a new way, which is not far from the formula established by Leonardo da Vinci for the invention of a fantastic animal (animal finto) (Da Vinci, ed. Amoretti, 1804: 172-173) or the one attributed by Francisco 152 digitAR -Revista Digital de Arqueologia, Arquitectura e Artes | número 7 (2020) a new creature so plausible in its hybridity that its biological existence may seem almost unquestionable. Convincing as it is, João de Ruão's devil is no less detailed and appealing than his archangel Michael. By carefully scanning his face and body, one finds surprising additions which aim at rending him scarier, stranger and more repulsive altogether: these are, for instance, the beastly faces that appear in the place of his knees (a typical ingredient of the composite, proteiform demon of the 15 th century); the long, black moustache which, by the 1530s is not yet fashionable and will remain associated with pagans and Ottoman Muslims (Harper, 2011: 45) and the lizard which nests on the top of his head, only clearly visible laterally and at a short distance.
Made for the monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha in Coimbra, this altarpiece was originally kept at chapel not yet identified, and later transferred to a place of its own, the Chapel of Saint Michael placed at the high choir, built as a last attempt to avoid the damage of constant flooding of the river Mondego (Gonçalves, 2006: 790). The secluded nature of its successive settings, along with the richness of details in this altarpiece makes it plausible to assume that a certain proximity of observation was predicted and permitted. And perhaps this helps to explain the damage inflicted to the devil's face, repeated once and again on the monstrous faces carved on his knees. The defacement of the devil is, indeed, a typical feature of sculptures of Saint Michael (and Saint Bartholomew), which frequently present marks of sharp blows or smashing directly on the nose, eyes and mouth. While some of these marks may be due to a hazardous or precarious keeping of the sculptures on the long run, others are too directed and precise not to be associated with iconoclasm. And although we may not be able to date these damages, they are nevertheless an unrelenting evidence of the disturbing power of these images, which crystallize a type of grotesqueness and monstrosity which is still effective today.
Wondrous and horrifying at the same time, this devil, embodiment of all grotesqueness, was made -and this is, perhaps, significant to notefor female beholders. The gendered gaze, which is always so hard to grasp, is nevertheless unavoidable when approaching the ways in which a work of art may have functioned in its In João de Ruão's oeuvre, the process seems to begin by the mid-century, with the Saint Michael of the church of São Salvador displaying a less monstrous, composite, and beastly devil.
Though some elements do remain, such as the dragon claws, the spiky membranous wings, the horns and the tail, the general appearance of this devil is that of a man [Fig. 14]. The thick fur disappears, such as the beast-faced joints, the facial hair, the monstrous face and the huge tusks. It is much more a fallen angel than the embodiment of chaos and inhumanity previously tested by painters and sculptors alike.

The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (MNMC) ca. 1560-1580
"Molto più mostrerebbe il pittore la forza de l'arte in farlo afflitto, sanguinoso, pieno di sputi, depelato, piagato, difformato, livido e brutto, di maniera che non avesse forma d'uomo. Questo sarebbe l'ingegno, questa la forza e la virtù de l'arte, questo il decoro, questa la perfezzion de l'artefice." (Gilio, 1564: 86) In the Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, whose authorship is not known but whose conception From whatever period it may belong to, more or less attuned with anatomical correction or with a naturalist view of the human body, the depiction of the flaying of St. Bartholomew is always a terrible, nerve wrecking, shuddering thing to see.
The elasticity of the skin being pulled from the body or heavily pending from it, along with the gleaming viscosity of the bloody tissues and the vibrantly red muscles, are brutally imposed over the observer's body before anything else. Before any empathy with the saint or contempt for the torturers. Before any rational approach to narrative or composition. In a painted sculpture, such as the one kept at the Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro, the effect on the observer should not be subtler. Even if we ignore its provenance and its original setting, this group sculpture's dimension is set to impress. As are the many details that build up the tension of observing the defenseless (though dignified) figure of the saint being tortured by two men.
Drawing on a formula of contrasts, very close to the Petrarchian struggle between opposites, ugliness and disfigurement coexist with the beauty of resilience, acceptance, and retrain, all mediated by the power of art. The image of the saint, whose absolute (and in that sense somewhat artificial) detachment from the scene is only betrayed by the subtle signs of tension on his face, with slightly raised eyebrows and lips ajar, is grasped in the moment it becomes ugly, with the skin wide open and the flesh exposed. And yet he is still (in theory) a role model for the devout Christian, who learns the purifying effects of suffering and pain when humbly accepted and patiently experienced (Klemettilä, 2006: 33).
Nevertheless, it is the grotesque ugliness of the tormentors' physical portrait that is intended to unsettle the observer. While exuberantly dressed, they are both somewhat disheveled and slovenly.
One of them is presented standing, flaying the back of the saint: one hand holding the knife close to his right arm, and the other pulling apart the skin to the level of the left shoulder. The imposing figure of this tormentor, who is even taller than saint Bartholomew, is a disturbing one: committed and focused on his task, he slightly sticks his tongue out, pressing it between his teeth, while making the effort of pulling a man's skin off. Bartholomew would probably resonate contemporary images of mercenary soldiers but also of proper executioners, men whose profession was to carry out legal sentences of capital punishment. If the public torture and execution of a convict was a socio-normative spectacle, requiring from the executioner a respectful look (not necessarily the black robed and hooded creepy figure from neo-medieval reenactments), it was also a physically demanding task, which required some practical solutions to ease the movements and spare clothes from blood and dirt (Klemettilä, 2006: 109-164). And that is exactly what João de Ruão portrays in the tormentors of Saint Bartholomew, whose sleeves are rolled up to the elbow or even tied in a knot at the level of the shoulder, leaving the full length of the arm exposed, with their nether hose (or stockings) sagging from the garters down, leaving the knees bare and free to move. But, to these seemingly practical details, which are a specific and much debated trait of the executioners' iconography (Melinkoff, 1993, I: 204-208), one must add some derogatory details intended to point to their low social status, 157 digitAR -Revista Digital de Arqueologia, Arquitectura e Artes | número 7 (2020)

Final remarks
This permanent commitment with humanity is, in conclusion -and certainly with everything yet to be said -one of the most coherent marks of João de Ruão's oeuvre, the organic and rather efficient matter that glues together the centre and the margins, the devotional and the ornamental, the ideal beauty and the inventive grotesqueness.
The search of a limes, a border or frontier between the intelligibility and verisimilitude (physiognomic and physiological, psychological and moral) of the human face and body in its most extreme distortion, fluctuates then between an almost anthropological research on the ugly and the bizarre, and the anticipation of their visual efficacy as something more than rhetorical devices. In João de Ruão, as with the most acclaimed artists of his time, the dissection of the real serves, then, the fundamental goal of its (re)composition, as a way of suggesting a new reality to which only the artist, the imagier or imaginador, may give shape, leading the observer from pleasure to disgust and back again.