Gargoyle & Grotesque

Gargoyle (pronounced gahr-goil)

(1) A grotesquely carved figure of a human or animal crafted as an ornament or projection, especially in Gothic and neo-Gothic architecture.

(2) In architecture, a spout, terminating in a grotesque representation of a human, animal or supernatural figure with open mouth, projecting from the gutter of a building for throwing rain water clear of a building.

(3) Archaic slang for person with a grotesque appearance, especially if small and shrivelled.

(4) Fictional monsters; pop-culture creations inspired by the decorative and/or functional projections in Gothic and neo-Gothic architecture.

1250–1300: From the Middle English gargoile & gargurl (grotesque carved waterspout) from the Old French gargouille & gargoule (throat) and it’s from here modern English gets gargle.  Even in the Gothic period, not all gargoyles were conduits for draining rainwater; many were purely decorative and were therefore grotesques.

Grotesque (pronounced groh-tesk)

(1) In architecture, a thing odd, unnatural or fantastic in the shaping and combination of forms, as in the sixteenth-century decorative style (in any material) combining incongruous human, animal or supernatural figures with scrolls, foliage etc.

(2) Distorted, deformed, weird, antic, wild.

(3) In the classification of art, of or characteristic of the grotesque.

(4) In typography, the family of 19th-century sans serif display types

1555:1565: From the Middle French grotesque from the Italian grottesco (of a cave), derived from grotta from the Vulgar Latin grupta.  Ultimate root is the Classical Latin crypta from which English picked up crypt.  Grotta entered French from the Italian pittura (grottesca) (cave-painting) and it was via French English picked up grotto.  Connection with the decorative forms attached to gothic architecture is the fantastical nature of some cave-paintings.  Spreading from Italian to the other European languages, the term was long used interchangeably with arabesque and moresque for decorative patterns using curving foliage elements.

The Gargoyle and Water Management

Gargoyle: Bern Minster, Switzerland.

Often used interchangeably, the technical difference between gargoyles and grotesques is that gargoyles contain a water sprout, carved usually through the mouth, whereas grotesques do not.  A gargoyle thus has a function in engineering whereas a grotesque’s purpose is essentially decorative although it is nominally functional in that they were believed to provide protection from evil, harmful, or unwanted spirits.  The application of more modern techniques of rainwater management has had the effect of turning many gargoyles into grotesques although architectural historians maintain the original designations.  As long ago as the sixteenth century, drainpipes were installed in the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris so the gargoyles became merely ornamental, although, they did of course continue to ward off evil.

Gargoyle: Cologne Cathedral, Germany.

The number of gargoyles attached to a building and their size and shape was a product of climate and fluid dynamics.  Architects used multiple gargoyles to divide the flow of rainwater off the roof to minimize the potential damage of a rainstorm and that number was influenced by the rainfall prevalent in the area where the structure sat.  The architect needed to consider not the annual rainfall but the heaviest prolonged rain-events expected; they thus had to cater for peak demand and the gargoyles needed to be sufficient in total capacity to evacuate the volume of water expected during the heaviest falls.  To achieve this, a trough was cut in the back of the gargoyle, rainwater typically exiting through the open mouth.  Gargoyles usually assumed their elongated fantastical animal forms because the length of the gargoyle determines how far water was thrown from the wall, the shape thus determined by fluid dynamics.  Prior to the extensive use of pipes reaching to the ground, the gargoyles were sometimes augmented by other techniques; when Gothic flying buttresses were used, aqueducts were sometimes cut into the buttress to divert water over the aisle walls.  Typically cut from stone, Non-ferrous metals and alloys such as aluminium, copper, brass and bronze have been used.

Grotesque: Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh.  Technically, this is a pair of chimeras (a subset of the grotesque).

The term originates from the French gargouille (throat; gullet) from the Latin gurgulio, gula & gargula (gullet; throat) and similar words derived from the root gar (to swallow) which represented the gurgling sound of water (such as the Spanish garganta (throat) & g‡rgola (gargoyle)).  It was connected also to the French verb gargariser (to gargle).  Most helpful are the languages where the translation is architecturally precise.  The Italian word for gargoyle is doccione o gronda sporgente (protruding gutter), the German is Wasserspeier (water spewer) and the Dutch is waterspuwer (water spitter or (even better) water vomiter).  A building with gargoyles is said to be "gargoyled" but, during the Middle Ages, babewyn was slang used to describe gargoyles and grotesques, a word derived from the Italian babuino (baboon), an indication of what the things resembled, especially when viewed from a distance.  The size and shape of a gargoyle was thus dictated by function but the detail was left to the imagination of the designer.  Those creating grotesques had few limitations.  Because of the need to scare off and protect from evil or harmful spirits, the carvings often had the quality of chimeras, creatures a mix of different types of animal body parts creating a new animal, some notable chimeras being griffins, centaurs, harpies, and mermaids, these eerie figures serving as a warning to those folk who might underestimate the devil.

Grotesque: National Cathedral, Washington DC.  Although there's an open mouth, this plays no part in water management and is purely decorative.

In water management, the gargoyle has a long history.  In the architecture of Ancient Egypt, there was little variation, the spouts typically in the form of a lion's head carved into the marble or terracotta cymatium of the cornice.  The Temple of Zeus had originally 102 of these but, being rendered from marble, they were heavy and many have broken off or been stolen and only 39 remain.  Nor have they always been chimeric, some instead depicting monks, or combinations of real animals and people, many of which were humorous but as urbanisation increased, building codes were imposed which rendered the gargoyles, expect for their spiritual purpose, obsolete.  Typical was London’s 1724 Building Act which mandated the use of downpipes compulsory on all new constructions.

Gargoyle: Marble Church, Bodelwyddan, Clwyd, Wales.  Note the protruding spout: because the water flow will over time erode the passage, many gargoyles have internal piping (some now even plastic) which is replaceable.  The function means this Welsh figure is defined as a gargoyle although its hybrid nature is clearly that of a chimera.  

Within the Church however, the spiritual function wasn’t without controversy.  Gargoyles were thought to keep evil outside a church but existed also to convey messages to a people who usually were illiterate, scaring them into attending church, a reminder that the end of days was near.  However, there were some medieval clergy who viewed gargoyles as a form of idolatry and Burgundian abbot, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), was famous for his frequent denunciations, his objections theological, aesthetic and fiscal:

"What are these fantastic monsters doing in the cloisters before the eyes of the brothers as they read?  What is the meaning of these unclean monkeys, these strange savage lions, and monsters?  To what purpose are here placed these creatures, half beast, half man, or these spotted tigers?  I see several bodies with one head and several heads with one body.  Here is a quadruped with a serpent's head, there a fish with a quadruped's head, then again an animal half horse, half goat.  Surely if we do not blush for such absurdities, we should at least regret what we have spent on them."

Grotesque: Crooked Hillary Clinton (digitally altered image).

Even after drainpipes took over responsibilities for drainage, the tradition was maintained by the grotesque, sometimes emulating the earlier elongated lines, sometimes more upright.  Grotesques were popular as decoration on nineteenth and early twentieth century skyscrapers and cathedrals in cities such as New York Minneapolis, and Chicago, the stainless steel gargoyles on New York’s Chrysler Building especially celebrated by students of the art.  The twentieth century collegiate form of the Gothic Revival produced many modern gargoyles, notably at Princeton University, Washington University in Saint Louis, Duke University, and the University of Chicago.  One extensive collection of modern gargoyles is on the National Cathedral in Washington DC.  Beginning in 1908 the cathedral was first encrusted with limestone demons but, over the years, many have been added including Star Wars character Darth Vader, a crooked politician, robots and other modern takes on the ancient tradition.  In England, Saint Albans Cathedral has a grotesque of former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Robert Runcie and one of an astronaut adorns the Cathedral of Salamanca in Spain.

Grotesques modernes, left to right: Star Wars' Darth Vader (from the Star Wars film franchies), National Cathedral, Washington DC; Astronaut or cosmonaut, Cathedral of Salamanca, Spain; Lindsay Lohan, Notre Dame Cathedral of Reims, Marne France (digitally altered image); Dr Robert Runcie (Baron Runcie, 1921–2000; Archbishop of Canterbury 1980-1991) (centre), St Albans Cathedral, England.

Grotesques and chimeras

A chimera of Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, contemplating the city, photographed by Noemiseh91.

So, in architecture, gargoyles are a specialized class of grotesques that include the functional feature of a waterspout and even if a building is renovated with a modern water management system added which means a gargoyle’s spout now longer is connected to the flow, it does not become reclassified as a grotesque; it remains a gargoyle, albeit a “dry” one.  While the difference between a gargoyle and grotesque is a matter of whether the design incorporates the handling of fluid, the distinction between a chimera and a grotesque is at the margins fluid in the metaphorical sense, both being ornamental sculptures most associated with Gothic architecture but critics have created criteria, however loose the parameters may seem.  Classically, a chimera was a fantastical, mythical creature, often a hybrid of multiple animals or a mix of human and animal features and for the architectural feature to be classified thus, it has to conform to this model.  In that chimeras differ from any grotesque which is a representation, however bizarre, of a creature from a single species.  What that means is that while all chimeras are grotesques, not all grotesques are chimeras.

Horodecki House (House with Chimaeras), Ukraine, Kyiv.

One of the most celebrated buildings said (erroneously) to be adorned with chimeras is Horodecki House in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, a structure better known on Instagram as “House with Chimaeras” which received much attention when Volodymyr Zelensky (b 1978, president of Ukraine since 2019) in February 2022 stood in front of it to deliver his “Our weapon is truth” address following the Russian “special military operation” (invasion of Ukraine).  Classified as being in the Art Nouveau style, the building was designed by Polish architect Władysław Horodecki (1863–1930) and despite all the intricate detailing and other complexities, it was completed in little more than two years, opened in 1903.  One thing which made the speed of construction possible was the core technique of using concrete piles as the underpinning, something necessitated by the land being steeply sloped, resulting in an asymmetric building with six floors on Ivan Franko Square while three face Bankova Street.  Another novelty was the use of cement as the finishing material, something at the time not unknown but still rare.  Despite the popular moniker “House with Chimaeras”, the many sculptures which lend Horodecki House its distinctiveness are technically grotesques because all, bipeds & quadrupeds, are representations of real animals, not figures from mythology or fantastical hybrids and it’s believed it picked up the romantic nickname because it imparts such a wonderful air of gloominess and recalls the Gothic style.  The grotesques, rendered in cement, were the work of the Italian sculptor Emilio Sala (1864-1920) who spent most of his working life in St Petersburg (Leningrad) and Kyiv (Kiev).

Interior detailing, Horodecki House Ukraine, Kyiv.

The motif was the theme also for the interior detailing with stuccos, high reliefs and sculptures decorating the ceilings, walls and stairs and of particular interest is that while what’s depicted on the exterior uses only living creatures as a model, inside, everything is dead and often dismembered; Horodetskyi was an avid hunter.  Despite the pervasive feeling of gloom as one approaches the thing, it’s different inside because (the many carcases notwithstanding) the rooms are bright and airy with the floral ornaments typical of early Modernism although it’s of regret all the original furniture and many of the frescos fell victim during World War II (1939-1945) to marauding Red Army soldiers and other looters.  Although in recent years substantially restored, no attempt was made to re-create the frescos, the space now taken by paintings.

Woman with Catfish, Horodecki House Ukraine, Kyiv, photographed by Константинъ. 

Although there are two creatures in this sculpture, it's still a grotesque because they're separate beings; had the depiction been part fish and part human, it would have been as chimaera.  Although large, certain catfish reach 3 metres in length so the sculptor was rendering still still in the realist tradition.

Following restoration, in 2004 the building was designated a museum but since 2005 it has enjoyed official status as the “Small Residence of the President of Ukraine”, curious term meaning it’s used for meetings with foreign dignitaries and in that there are many advantages, the location meaning it’s easy for security forces to secure the site while the larger rooms are spacious and make a most attractive backdrop for photo opportunities.  Daily Art Magazine has a feature with a fine collection of images.

Docker

Docker (pronounced dok-er)

(1) In seaport operations, a laborer on shipping docks engaged in the loading or unloading of a vessel (and sometimes “other duties as required”); known in North America also as a longshoreman or stevedore, the latter also used elsewhere in the English-speaking world (“stevedore” can also be used of corporations which run loading & unloading operations).  The general idea is of a “dock-worker”.

(2) A person who cuts off or trims the tails or (less commonly the ears) of certain animals used in agricultural production (used sometimes also of the tools they employ).

(3) In military aviation, a device used to connect (dock together) two aircraft during air-to air refueling operations.

(4) In aerospace, the assembly used to permit two space craft to “dock”, providing a port for access between the two.

(5) In engineering, any device allowing the temporary connection of two components.

(6) In commercial food preparation, as “roller docker”, a utensil resembling a small rolling pin with spikes, used to pierce dough to prevent over-rising or blistering, the device creating in food: “docker holes”.

(7) One who engages in the sexual practice of docking (where the tip of one participant's penis is inserted into the foreskin of their partner (the success of the act said to be judged by the “extent & effect” of the overlap).  It is a niche activity.

1755–1765: The construct was dock + -er.  Dock was from the Middle English dokke, from the Old English docce, from the Proto-West Germanic dokkā, from the Proto-Germanic dukkǭ (similar forms including the Old Danish dokke (water-dock), the West Flemish dokke & dokkebladeren (coltsfoot, butterbur), from the primitive Indo-European dhew (dark) (which may be compared with the Latvian duga (scum, slime on water)).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  Docker is a noun, docking is a noun & verb and docked is a verb; the noun plural is dockers.

The use in agriculture (one who cuts off or trims the tails or (less commonly) ears of certain animals) dates from the early nineteenth century.  Although there are dockers who dock, in English there is no tradition of dockee (that which has been docked) which is unusual in English when referring to devices which sometimes use the male-female anatomical descriptor model.  In IT, there have been many “docks” (the best known being “docking stations” which allow something like a laptop temporarily to be tethered, gaining ports and such to allow various components and peripheral devices to be attached) but there never seem to have been “dockers”.

More than one authoritative site has rated the team song of Western Australia's Freemantle Dockers (1994) AFL (Australian Football League, which evolved from the told VFL (Victorian Football League (which apparently still own the AFL)) to become the national competition for football played under "Australian Rules") the worst of the 18 currently in use.  Some on-line polls have confirmed the view but Dockers’ fans, when offered four alternatives, opted to retain the original, presumably on the assumption opposition fans must hate hearing it played (it's a tradition to play the winning team's song at the end of each match).  The team’s name is an allusion to the docks at the Port of Freemantle.

Lindsay Lohan Leather Jacket (078LCJ) by Docker Trend, Kyiv.

The surname Docker was from the ancient Anglo-Saxon culture of the Britain Isles and was occupational, the name for a trapper of small game and translating literally as “cut the hare's tail”, derived from the Old English dokc (cut off) and hare, a very old word which meant then what it means now.  So the surname definitely predates the Norman Conquest and the oldest known instance is the parish records in what is now the county of Cumberland. However, there was also a second linguistic fork for the surname and that was not occupational but locational, traced back to two small hamlets in Westmoreland and Lancashire, both named “Docker”, the name meaning “the grazing land in the valley”, from the pre seventh century Olde Norse-Viking dokr.  Quite when the settlements were founded or named is uncertain but village in Westmoreland appears in the charters of the county for the year 1155 as Docherga, while the associated surname seems not to have been recorded before the sixteenth century and, given the high reliability of English parish records, is believed to indicate it had not previously been in use. 

Historians suggest this suggests it’s possible the village was “cleared” in the period of the Enclosure Acts (a kind of “land grab” by the ruling class, a tradition which continues to this day) which occupied parliamentary time for over three hundred years between 1450-1750.  Under these acts, tenant farmers gradually were deprived of their ancient rights to the “land held in common” for grazing & tilling, forced from their humble homes to seek shelter and employment elsewhere, often from the very beneficiaries of the “enclosure project”.  One consequence of this was those expelled often took or were given as their surname the name of their former village.  There were (not unusually) many alternative spellings of what evolved as “Docker”, the form not standardized until well into the 1800s, the alternatives including Docker, Dockwra, Dockray, Dockwray & Dockrell, some differences existing even within the one family, a not uncommon practice of “branch differentiation” in the pre-modern era.  In a phenomenon typical of the period of European colonization, as the British Empire spread around the globe, the Docker name travelled thus and is now known in Australia, the US, Canada, the West Indies, New Zealand, a number of African states and the Indian sub-continent.

The Docker Daimlers

In the slang of English divorce lawyers, chatelaine was a term for a sub-set of husband-hunting women for whom the most important criterion in their search was the quality of the house which came with the prey, the play on words based on the ancient role of the chatelaine being the "the keeper of the castle".  Applied mostly either to the impoverished gentry or aspirational young ladies seeking upward-mobility, chatelaines were famously good "housekeepers"; after the divorce often "she kept the house".  The more accessible modern form is gold-digger.  An exemplar of the type was the admirable Norah Docker (Lady Docker, formerly Callingham, formerly Collins, née Turner; 1906–1983) a dance-club hostess who was thrice-married, each husband proving more lucrative than the last.  Her most famous acquisition was Sir Bernard Docker (1896–1978), chairman of the Daimler motor company for which she helped design half a dozen cars; known as the Docker Daimlers, they were an acquired taste but certainly large and conspicuous as intended, each generating much publicity though it's doubtful they made any positive contribution to Daimler's bottom line.  Some of the more generous critics were prepared to concede some weren't as bad as the others.

1955 Daimler DK400 Golden Zebra

The last of the Docker Daimlers, the Golden Zebra was a two-door fixed head coupé (FHC) with coachwork by Hooper, built on the existing DK400 (1954-1959) chassis.  The interior was finished with an African theme, the dashboard of ivory and the upholstery in zebra-skin while external metal trim was gold-plated.  Lady Docker personally chose the zebra skin, claiming she found mink unpleasantly hot.  It was first shown at the 1955 Paris Motor Show and it's of note this stylistic mashup of pre-war motifs and mid-century modernism appeared in the same building used for the debut of the Citroën DS (1955-1975) which, although with some parts under the skin more ancient than any of the Daimler's underpinnings, contained enough that was revolutionary to give the crowds a vision of the future, even though decades would elapse before some of its implications were realized.

Sir Bernard (with cigar, left) and Lady Docker (in mink) unveiling the "Golden Daimler", Earls Court Motor Show, London, 1951.

Imposing though it was, dimensionally, being DK400-based, the Golden Zebra was actually less extravagant than some Daimlers built on the even bigger DE chassis (1946-1953) which was the last car in the UK with a straight-eight engine offered for general sale, the even more exclusive Rolls-Royce Phantom IV (1950-1956) available only to crowned royalty and heads of state.  The UK in the early 1950s was still living through a period of post-war austerity but the Docker Daimlers were surprisingly well-received by the public which seemed to enjoy the splash of color they brought to the dreariness of the time when some consumer products were still rationed.  The reaction of critics generally was less kind, the “Docker Specials” decried variously as “archaic”, “irrelevant”,  “vulgar” or that worst of English insults: “tiresome”.  It’s thought also not a coincidence that it was during Lady Docker’s supervision of the Daimler drawing boards the royal family’s automotive allegiance switched to Rolls-Royce, the association pre-dating even the royal warrant granted in 1902 by King Edward VII (1841–1910; King of the UK & Emperor of India 1901-1910), shortly after his accession to the throne, a Daimler 6hp mail phaeton delivered to Buckingham Palace on 28 March 1900, fulfilling an order place by the king while still Prince of Wales.  So the Daimlers, in the Royal Mews since the nineteenth century, began to be relegated to secondary roles and another wouldn’t be ordered until well after Jaguar's takeover of the company in 1959.

Straight-eight Docker Daimler "Blue Clover" (1952), trimmed in blue lizard skin, now on display in a museum in Seoul, RoK (Republic of Korea (South Korea)).

Lady Docker’s intention however was to achieve sensation and if some thought the cars vulgar so be it, subscribing to the axiom of both Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) & Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945): “It doesn’t matter what people are saying about us as long as they’re saying something.”  To ensure her vision would be rendered in metal as she intended, she had her obedient husband appoint her to the board’s of Hooper’s, (the corporation’s in-house coach-builder) as a director with “special responsibility for styling matters”.  The irony was that unlike those on the Daimler board, she was quite correct in perceiving their cars had become staid and unexciting with a change of stylistic direction required; the problem was the direction she followed.  When Lady Docker’s first project, the spectacular “Golden Daimler” was unveiled at the 1951 Earls Court Motor Show, it certainly got people talking, mostly about money.  The “Golden” appellation, while not a designation of a victory, was well deserved, gold plate applied to the trim where chrome usually appeared, some 7000 gold stars appearing on the flanks, below the waistline.  Quickly the press did their calculations and determined the Stg£900 of the metal used would have been enough to purchase two small cars and a motor-cycle but when asked, Lady Docker explained: “It was practically impossible to obtain chrome.” which wasn't bad for the spur of the moment.  Inside, the theme continued, the headliner and upholstery in the rear compartment hand-made from gold silk brocade woven on a loom, the timberwork all Australian camphor, selected for its honey-gold hue, the traditional burl walnut just too dark.  The timber fittings were fine examples of the coach-builder’s craft, a matched pair of cabinets containing a gold & crystal cocktail set to the left while in the right sat a gold and black china tea set with a gold-plated Thermos tea jug.  Built into the electrically-operated central divider were two folding picnic tables, able to be laid with the linen tablecloth and napkins kept in a natty little container while just in case a fingernail might be damaged when one was adjusting the gold-plated radio controls in the armrests, a vanity set (in a gold case) was provided.  Really, Lady Docker thought of everything.

Straight-eight Docker Daimler "Stardust" (1954), trimmed in hand-woven silver silk brocatelle and pale blue crocodile leather, the coachwork (left), Lady Docker "touching up" (centre) and the rear compartment (right).  

Unfortunately, the comparison which was obvious was with the new Daimler Regency (1951-1958) which also made its debut at Earls Court.  The Regency was emblematic of the very problem Lady Docker had identified: it was conservative, staid and owed more to the past than the present, let alone the future; compared with the modernist lines being seen in the US and even Europe, it looked like something which could have come from a decade earlier.  The company was aware the world was moving on without them and did embark on new projects, developing two of the best V8 engines of the post-war years (in 2.5 litre (155 cubic inch) & 4.6 litre (278 cubic inch) displacements) and even an unexpected sports car which used the smaller V8.  The car was not a success and while the drive-train attracted unqualified praise, reaction to the rest of the package was muted at best; it was an engine crying out for a car and typified the company’s piecemeal approach to things, culminating in Jaguar’s takeover in 1959.  Jaguar had some fine cars but really needed V8 engines for the US market so it would have seemed logical to combine the two but, obsessed with the notion engines should have six or twelve cylinders, neglected the opportunity and made only niche use of the eights, retiring them in 1969.

Docker Daimler "Silver Flash" (1953).  

As a design, the Silver Flash was the most interesting of the Dockers and was a representation perhaps of what a large FHC (fixed head coupé) would have looked like circa 1946, had there been no war.  What can't be guessed is whether the design trends in the US, Europe and the UK (all with different traditions although always exchanging influences) would have tended to drift apart or begin to assume the kind of "international style" which came to architecture in the post-war years.

Satisfied however with what she had achieved in 1951, Lady Docker continued undeterred and oversaw the development of a further four “Docker Daimlers”, designed on the basis of “more of the same” (it's not known if she had in mind an old Docker family motto: Semper eadem (Always the same)).  Released annually, usually to a not uncritical reception but there was always the splash of publicity she craved so in that sense the designs worked.  Within the corporation though, as the 1950s dragged into middle-age, the lifestyle and spending habits (with Daimler’s money) of the Dockers was causing increasing disquiet and early in 1956, a “boardroom coup” was organized, the conspiracy culminating in May when a special meeting of the board was summoned at which Sir Bernard was voted out, his wife departing with him.  As if to exorcise the demons, the board ordered the Docker Daimlers be stripped of their expensive trimmings and sold.  Despite these vicissitudes, 

Prevent & preempt or pre-empt

Prevent (pronounced pri-vent)

(1) To keep from occurring; avert; hinder, especially by the taking of some precautionary action.

(2) To hinder or stop from doing something.

(3) To act ahead of; to forestall (archaic).

(4) To precede or anticipate (archaic).

(5) To interpose a hindrance.

(6) To outdo or surpass (obsolete).

1375–1425: From the late Middle English preventen (anticipate), from the Latin praeventus, past participle of (1) praevenīre (to anticipate; come or go before, anticipate), the construct being prae- (pre; before) + ven- (stem of venīre (come)) + -tus (the past participle suffix) and (2) praeveniō (I anticipate), the construct being prae- (pre; before) + veniō (I come).  In Classical Latin the meaning was literal but in Late Latin, by the 1540s the sense of “to prevent” had emerged, the evolution explained by the idea of “anticipate to hinder; hinder from action by opposition of obstacles”.  That meaning seems not to have entered English until the 1630s.

The adjective preventable (that can be prevented or hindered) dates from the 1630s, the related preventability a decade-odd later.  The adjective preventative (serving to prevent or hinder) is noted from the 1650s and for centuries, dictionaries have listed it as an irregular formation though use seems still prevalent; preventive is better credentialed but now appears relegated to be merely an alternative form.  The adjective preventive (serving to prevent or hinder; guarding against or warding off) has the longer pedigree (used since the 1630s) and was from the Latin praevent-, past-participle stem of praevenīre (to anticipate; come or go before, anticipate).  It was used as a noun in the sense of "something taken or done beforehand” since the 1630s and had entered the jargon of medicine by the 1670s, and under the influence of the physicians came the noun preventiveness (the quality of being preventive).  The noun prevention came from the mid-fifteenth century prevencioun (action of stopping an event or practice), from the Medieval Latin preventionem (nominative preventio) (action of anticipating; a going before), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of the Classical Latin praevenīre.  The original sense in English has been obsolete since at least the late seventeenth century although it was used in a poetically thus well into the 1700s.  Prevent is a verb, preventable (or preventible), preventive & preventative are adjectives, preventability (or preventibility) is a noun and preventably (preventibly) is an adverb.  The archaic spelling is prævent.

Many words are associated with prevent including obstruct, obviate, prohibit, rule out, thwart, forbid, restrict, hamper, halt, forestall, avoid, restrain, hinder, avert, stop, impede, inhibit, bar, preclude, counter, limit & block.  Prevent, hamper, hinder & impede refer to so degree of stoppage of action or progress.  “To prevent” is to stop something by forestalling action and rendering it impossible.  “To hamper” or “to hinder” is to clog or entangle or put an embarrassing restraint upon; not necessarily preventing but certainly making more difficult and both refer to a process or act intended to prevent as opposed to the prevention.  “To impede” is to make difficult the movement or progress of anything by interfering with its proper functioning; it implies some physical or figurative impediment designed to prevent something.

Preempt or pre-empt (pronounced pree-empt)

(1) To occupy (usually public) land in order to establish a prior right to buy.

(2) To acquire or appropriate before someone else; take for oneself; arrogate.

(3) To take the place of because of priorities, reconsideration, rescheduling, etc; supplant.

(4) In bridge, to make a preemptive bid (a high opening bid, made often a bluff by a player holding a weak hand, in an attempt to shut out opposition bidding).

(5) To forestall or prevent (something anticipated) by acting first; preclude; head off.

(6) In computer operating systems, the class of actions used by the OS to determine how long a task should be executed before allowing another task to interact with OS services (as opposed to cooperative multitasking where the OS never initiates a context switch one running process to another.

(7) In the jargon of broadcasting, a euphemism for "cancel” (technical use only).

1830: An invention of US English, a back formation from preemption which was from the Medieval Latin praeēmptiō (previous purchase), from praeemō (buy before), the construct being prae- (pre; before) + emō (buy).  The creation related to the law or real property (land law), to preempt (or pre-empt) being “to occupy public land so as to establish a pre-emptive title to it".  In broadcasting, by 1965 it gained the technical meaning of "set aside a programme and replace it with another" which was actually a euphemism for "cancel”.  Preempt is a verb (and can be a noun in the jargon of broadcasting and computer coding), preemptor is a noun and preempted, preemptory, preemptive & preemptible are adjectives.  The alternative spelling is pre-empt and the (rare) noun plural preempts.

In law, broadcasting and computer operating system architecture, preempt has precise technical meanings but when used casually, it can either overlap or be synonymonous with words like claim, usurp, confiscate, acquire, expropriate, seize, assume, arrogate, anticipate, commandeer, appropriate, obtain, bump, sequester, take, usurp, annex & accroach.  The spelling in the forms præemption, præ-emption etc is archaic).

Preemptive and Preventive War

A preemptive war is a military action by one state against another which is begun with the intent of defeating what is perceived to be an imminent attack or at least gaining a strategic advantage in the impending (and allegedly unavoidable) war before that attack begins. The “preemptive war” is sometimes confused with the “preventive war”, the difference being that the latter is intended to destroy a potential rather than imminent threat; a preventative war may be staged in the absence of enemy aggression or even the suspicion of military planning.  In international law, preventive wars are now generally regarded as aggressive and therefore unlawful whereas a preemptive war can be lawful if authorized by the UN Security Council as an enforcement action.  Such authorizations are not easily gained because the initiation of armed conflict except in self-defense against “armed attack” is not permitted by the United Nations (UN) Charter and only the Security Council can endorse an action as a lawful “action of enforcement”.  Legal theorists suggest that if it can be established that preparations for a future attack have been confirmed, even if the attack has not be commenced, under international law the attack has actually “begun” but the UN has never upheld this opinion.  Militarily, the position does make sense, especially if the first two indictments of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) assembled at Nuremberg (1945-19465) to try the surviving Nazi leadership ((1) planning aggressive war & (2) waging aggressive war) are considered as a practical reality rather than in the abstract.

Legal (as opposed to moral or ethical) objections to preemptive or preventive wars were not unknown but until the nineteenth century, lawyers and statesmen gave wide latitude to the “right of self-defense” which really was a notion from natural law writ large and a matter determined ultimately on the battlefield, victory proof of the ends justifying the means.  Certainly, there was a general recognition of the right forcibly to forestall an attack and the first legal precedent of note wasn’t codified until 1842 in the matter of the Caroline affair (1837).  Then, some Canadian citizens sailed from Canada to the US in the Caroline as part of a planned offensive against the British in Canada.  The British crossed the border and attached, killing both Canadians and a US citizen which led to a diplomatic crisis and several years of low-level clashes.  Ultimately however, the incident led to the formulation of the legal principle of the "Caroline test" which demands that for self-defense to be invoked, an incident must be "…instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation".  Really, that’s an expression little different in meaning to the criteria used in many jurisdictions which must exist for the claim of defense to succeed in criminal assault cases (including murder).  The "Caroline test" remains an accepted part of international law today, although obviously one which must be read in conjunction with an understanding of the events for the last 250-odd years.

The "Caroline test" however was a legal principle and such things need to be enforced and that requires both political will and a military mechanism.  In the aftermath of the Great War (1914-1918), that was the primary purpose of the League of Nations (LON), an international organization (the predecessor of the UN) of states, all of which agreed to desist from the initiation of all wars, (preemptive or otherwise).  Despite the reputation the LON now has as an entirely ineffectual talking shop, in the 1920s it did enjoy some success in settling international disputes and was perceived as effective.  It was an optimistic age, the Locarno Treaties (1925) and the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) appeared to outlaw war but the LON (or more correctly its member states) proved incapable of halting the aggression in Europe, Asia and Africa which so marked the 1930s.  Japan and Italy had been little punished for their invasions and Nazi Germany, noting Japan’s construction of China as a “technical aggressor” claimed its 1939 invasion of Poland was a “defensive war” and it had no option but to preemptively invade Poland, thereby halting the alleged Polish plans to invade Germany.  Berlin's claims were wholly fabricated.  The design of the UN was undertaken during the war and structurally was different; an attempt to create something which could prevent aggression.

There have been no lack of examples since 1939.  Both the British and Germans staged preemptive invasions of Norway in 1940 though the IMT at Nuremberg was no more anxious to discuss this Allied transgression than they were war crimes or crimes against humanity by anyone except the Nazis.  The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941 proceeded without undue difficulty but that couldn’t be said of the Suez Crisis of 1956 when the British, French and Israelis staged an war of aggression which not even London was hypocritical enough to claim was pre-emption or preventive; they called it a peace-keeping operation, a claim again wholly fabricated.  The Six-Day War (1967) which began when Israel attached Egypt is regarded by most in the West as preemptive rather than preventive because of the wealth of evidence suggesting Egypt was preparing to attack although the term “interceptive self-defense” has also be coined although, except as admirable sophistry, it’s not clear if this is either descriptive or helpful.  However, whatever the view, Israel’s actions in 1967 would seem not to satisfy the Caroline test but whether “…leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation”, written in the age of sail and musketry, could reasonably be held in 1967 to convey quite the same meaning was obviously questionable.

Interest in the doctrine of preemption was renewed following the US invasion of Iraq (2003).  The US claimed the action was a necessity to intervene to prevent Iraq from deploying weapons of mass destruction (WMD) prior to launching an armed attack.  Subsequently, it was found no WMDs existed but the more interesting legal point is whether the US invasion would have been lawful had WMDs been found.  Presumably, Iraq’s resistance to the attack was lawful regardless of the status of the US attack.  The relevant sections (Article 2, Section 4) of the UN Charter are considered jus cogens (literally "compelling law" (ie “international law”)).  They prohibit all UN members from exercising "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state".  However, this apparently absolute prohibition must be read in conjunction with the phrase "armed attack occurs" (Article 51, Section 37) which differentiates between legitimate and illegitimate military force.  It states that if no armed attack has occurred, no automatic justification for preemptive self-defense has yet been made lawful under the Charter and in order to be justified, two conditions must be fulfilled: (1) that the state must have believed that the threat is real and not a mere perception and (2) that the force used must be proportional to the harm threatened.  As history has illustrated, those words permit much scope for those sufficiently imaginative.

Mr Putin (Vladimir Putin (b 1952; prime-minister or president of Russia since 1999)), although avoiding distasteful words like "aggression" “war” or “invasion”, did use the language associated with preemptive and preventive wars in his formal justification for Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine.  Firstly he claimed, Russia is using force in self-defence, pursuant to Article 51 of the Charter, to protect itself from a threat emanating from Ukraine.  This threat, if real, could justify preemptive self-defence because, even if an attack was not “imminent”, there was still an existential threat so grave that it was necessary immediately to act (essentially the same argument the US used in 2003).  This view met with little support, most holding any such theory of preemption is incompatible with Article 51 which really is restricted to permitting anticipatory self-defence in response to imminent attacks. Secondly he cited the right of collective self-defence of the Donetsk and Luhansk “republics” although neither are states and even if one accepts they’ve been subject to a Ukranian attack, the extent of Russia’s military intervention and the goal of regime change in Kyiv appear far to exceed the customary criteria of necessity and proportionality.  Finally, the Kremlin claimed the special military action was undertaken as a humanitarian intervention, the need to stop or prevent a genocide of Russians in Eastern Ukraine.  Few commented on this last point.

Chimera

Chimera (pronounced ki-meer-uh or kahy-meer-uh)

(1) In Greek mythology, monster of Lycia commonly represented with a lion's head, a goat's body, and the tail of a dragon or serpent (often with initial capital).  In some tales, the monster breathes fire; it was killed by killed by the hero Bellerophon.

(2) In mythology and art, any similarly grotesque monster having disparate parts.

(3) In architecture, a subset of the decorative grotesques (like a gargoyle, but without a spout for rainwater) distinguished from other grotesques by being a blending of two or more creatures.

(4) Figuratively, a horrible or unreal creature of the imagination and used as a synonym of bogeyman: any terrifying thing, especially as an unreal, imagined threat.

(5) Figuratively, a foolish, incongruous, or vain thought or product of the imagination; an idle fancy.

(6) Figuratively, anything composed of disparate parts.

(7) In biology, an organism (especially a cultivated plant) composed of two or more genetically distinct tissues, as an organism that is partly male and partly female, or an artificially produced individual having tissues of several species.

(8) In genetics, an organism with genetically distinct cells originating from two or more zygotes.

(9) In applied genetics, a slang term used by scientists describing one who has received a transplant of genetically and immunologically different tissue.

(9) In medicine, twins with two immunologically different types of red blood cells.

(10) In zoology, an alternative form of chimaera, a cartilaginous marine fish in the subclass Holocephali and especially the order Chimaeriformes, with a blunt snout, long tail, and a spine before the first dorsal fin.

(11) In the geography of Ancient Greece, a fire-spewing mountain in Lycia or Cilicia, presumed to be an ancient name for the Yanartaş region of Turkey's Antalya province.

(12) In historic geography, (1) the former name of Himara, a port town in southern Albania and (2) the former name of Ceraunian Mountains, the Albanian mountain range near Himara.

1350-1400: From the Middle English chimera, from the Old French chimere, from the Medieval Latin chimera, from the Classical Latin chimaera, from the Ancient Greek Χίμαιρα (Khímaira or Chímaira) (she-goat).  Chimaera translates literally a “year-old she-goat”, the masculine form being khimaros from kheima (winter season) from the primitive Indo-European gheim (winter) and related to the Latin hiems (winter), the Ancient Greek cheimṓn (winter), the Old Norse gymbr and the English gimmer (ewe-lamb of one year (ie one winter) old).  The alternative spelling chimaera is used always of the fish and sometimes of the mythological beast.  Chimera & chimerism are nouns, chimerical & chimeric are adjective and chimerically is an adverb; the noun plural is chimeras.  In scientific use, the derived forms include macrochimerism, microchimerism, allochimeric, antichimeric, nonchimeric and xenochimeric.

Bellerophon Riding Pegasus Fighting the Chimaera (1635) by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640).

The Chimera, a mythical fire-breathing creature depicted often with a lion's head, a goat's body and the tail of a dragon or serpent, was one of the many fantastical offspring of Typhon and Echidna and a sibling of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra.  In all of antiquity, sighting the Chimera was an omen of storms, shipwrecks, and natural disasters (particularly volcanoes) and was depicted usually by (almost always male) writers as female.  The awful beast was slain by Bellerophon (who led a bloodthirsty life before being killed by Zeus, after which he was venerated as a hero) on the command of King Iobates of Lycia who had begun to find tiresome the Chimira’s raids on his kingdom tiresome.  There arose the tradition that the Chimera was supposedly an ancient personification of snow or winter, but the connection to winter might be no more than the ancient habit of reckoning years as "winters" or maybe just another of the many quasi-mythological imaginings of Medieval writers.  It was in antiquity held to represent a volcano so perhaps the idea of a link to a symbol of "winter storms" (another sense of Greek kheima) and generally of destructive natural forces held some appeal. The word was used generically for “any grotesque monster formed from parts of other animals”, creatures which in the pre-modern world were frequently conjured up for any number of reasons.  The now extinct alternative spelling was Chimeraor and the practice of using an initial capital (known from Latin) when describing the mythical monster is common (on the basis of it being counted as a proper noun) although for this there’s no basis in the rules of English.  The most common modern use, the figurative meaning “wild fantasy” was known in thirteen century French and first recorded in English in the 1580s.

A gargoyle on Cologne Cathedral (left) and a gargoyle on Marble Church, Bodelwyddan, Clwyd, Wales (centre).  The drainage function means the Welsh figure is defined as a gargoyle although its hybrid form is clearly that of a chimera.  The Lindsay Lohan sculpture (digitally altered image, right) is a pure grotesque (single species form, no water spout). 

Grotesques and chimeras

A chimera of Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, contemplating the city, photographed by Noemiseh91.

In architecture, gargoyles are a specialized class of grotesques that include the functional feature of a waterspout and even if a building is renovated with a modern water management system added which means a gargoyle’s spout now longer is connected to the flow, it does not become reclassified as a grotesque; it remains a gargoyle, albeit a “dry” one.  While the difference between a gargoyle and grotesque is a matter of whether the design incorporates the handling of fluid, the distinction between a chimera and a grotesque is at the margins fluid in the metaphorical sense, both being ornamental sculptures most associated with Gothic architecture but critics have created criteria, however loose the parameters may seem.  Classically, a chimera was a fantastical, mythical creature, often a hybrid of multiple animals or a mix of human and animal features and for the architectural feature to be classified thus, it has to conform to this model.  In that chimeras differ from any grotesque which is a representation, however bizarre, of a creature from a single species.  What that means is that while all chimeras are grotesques, not all grotesques are chimeras.

Horodecki House (House with Chimaeras), Ukraine, Kyiv.  This is the aspect which faces Ivan Franko Square.

One of the most celebrated buildings said (erroneously) to be adorned with chimeras is Horodecki House in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, a structure better known on Instagram as “House with Chimaeras” which received much attention when Volodymyr Zelensky (b 1978, president of Ukraine since 2019) in February 2022 stood in front of it to deliver his “Our weapon is truth” address following the Russian “special military operation” (invasion of Ukraine).  Classified as being in the Art Nouveau style, the building was designed by Polish architect Władysław Horodecki (1863–1930) and despite all the intricate detailing and other complexities, it was completed in little more than two years, opened in 1903.  One thing which made the speed of construction possible was the core technique of using concrete piles as the underpinning, something necessitated by the land being steeply sloped, resulting in an asymmetric building with six floors on Ivan Franko Square while three face Bankova Street.  Another novelty was the use of cement as the finishing material, something at the time not unknown but still rare.  Despite the popular moniker “House with Chimaeras”, the many sculptures which lend Horodecki House its distinctiveness are technically grotesques because all, bipeds & quadrupeds, are representations of real animals, not figures from mythology or fantastical hybrids and it’s believed it picked up the romantic nickname because it imparts such a wonderful air of gloominess and recalls the Gothic style.  The grotesques, rendered in cement, were the work of the Italian sculptor Emilio Sala (1864-1920) who spent most of his working life in St Petersburg and Kyiv.

Interior detailing, Horodecki House Ukraine, Kyiv.

The motif was the theme also for the interior detailing with stuccos, high reliefs and sculptures decorating the ceilings, walls and stairs and of particular interest is that while what’s depicted on the exterior uses only living creatures as a model, inside, everything is dead and often dismembered; Horodetskyi was an avid hunter.  Despite the pervasive feeling of gloom as one approaches the thing, it’s different inside because (the many carcases notwithstanding) the rooms are bright and airy with the floral ornaments typical of early Modernism although it’s of regret all the original furniture and many of the frescos fell victims during World War II (1939-1945) to marauding Red Army soldiers and other looters.  Although in recent years substantially restored, no attempt was made to re-create the frescos, the space not taken by paintings.

Woman with Catfish, Horodecki House Ukraine, Kyiv, photographed by Константинъ. Although there are two creatures in this sculpture, it's still a grotesque because they're separate beings; had the depiction been part fish and part human, it would have been as chimaera.  Although large, certain catfish reach 3 metres in length so the sculptor was rendering still still in the realist tradition.

Following restoration, in 2004 the building was designated a museum but since 2005 it has enjoyed official status as the “Small Residence of the President of Ukraine”, curious term meaning it’s used for meetings with foreign dignitaries and in that there are many advantages, it’s location meaning it’s easy for the security forces to secure the site, the larger rooms are spacious and an make a most attractive backdrop for photo opportunities.  Daily Art Magazine has a feature with a fine collection of images.