Abstract
Grotesque make-up causes a visual shock among modern people beyond the standardized beauty definition, attracts their attention, and manifests itself as a phenomenon of "something bizarre, extremely unnatural, ugly, and funny." The purposes of this study were to investigate the characteristics of grotesque in today's make-up as well as its concepts and features and to figure out its aesthetic characteristics based on the results. The research scope was limited to the fashion make-up of the collections from 2005 to 2010 and the advertising make-up during the same period. In the make-up phenomenon examined according to the grotesque characteristics, the pale skin expression, frightened eyes, and emphasis on black induce disgusting fear, sadness, death, sin, fear for life and death, and obsession. As the make-up emphasized only one part by neglecting the original form and exaggerated it to the point of distortion, the exaggerated abnormality led to a sense of social crisis, desperation, and absence of form. As for devilish playfulness, the make-up accompanied by grotesqueness and humor brought the suppressed, closed world in a tight framework out to fluidity and openness, conveying satire, ludicrousness, ridicule, and accusation of the modern society. The heterogeneous disharmony was found in the use of objects in heterogeneous combinations, presenting unreality, fiction, displeasure, ambivalence, and loss of value of human existence.
