Tuesday 5 March 2013

Awkward Baby Paintings: Ugly Renaissance Babies Edition


Dear readers, this week my totally awesome friend over at The Calamity Cat directed me to the Ugly Renaissance Babies tumblr.  And once again an afternoon was lost in the awesomeness that is bizarre and hilarious art.  What follows here is a small random sampling from the site; I highly recommend checking it and its snappy commentary out.

Francesco Bianchi, Arion Riding on a Dolphin

A dolphin?  Really?  It looks like a cross between a whale and a giant sea leech.  And Arion is wearing the latest in Stoned Baby Cape fashion while he jams on his…lute?  Mandolin?  Do you use a bow to play the mandolin?  How well could a dazed superhero baby play an instrument while balanced on a mutant bloodsucking dolphin, anyway?

Ignacio Chacón, Lactation of Saint Pedro Nolasco

In a totally not creepy scene, a woman breastfeeds a baby and an old man at the same time while standing on a pile of decapitated baby heads.  More heads fly through the air as young and old are “nurtured.”

Workshop of Guilo Romano, A Mermaid Feeding Her Young

Along this theme, this is definitely not how I had envisioned Ariel and her six sisters growing up.

Maerten van Heemkerck

Starting a steroid regimen very young.  He’ll go far in the Renaissance weightlifting circuit!

Rembrandt, Abduction of Ganymede

I always thought it was storks that brought children.  This explains why they scream so much. 

Franceschini Baldassarre, Amore Venale

The world’s first cartoon villains.  I hope that they are emptying someone’s piggy bank after stealing candy from a baby.  Also I see where Cruella de Vil got her penchant for long cigarette holders. 

British Library, Harley 4425, f. 140

Is…is she forging a baby?  Is that how it worked in the Renaissance period?  Or maybe they actually had a robot infant army.  In the corner there is a lifeless pile of forged robot baby shells, presumably waiting for replacement limbs and Sonic Shriek vocal implants.

In conclusion, I feel that modern baby photography has lost some of the charm of baby-painting back in the day.  Look at what we are missing!

22 comments:

  1. The Chacón painting is freaky and gave me flashbacks to The Grapes of Wrath with adult suckling. At least it's not as creepy as that swan sex painting which still gives me the jitters.

    Is that a magnifying glass on the privates in Maerten van Heemkerck's work? That's just plain weird - like the muscular child isn't?

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    1. Maybe the strategic magnifying glass highlights some of the dangers of steroid use?

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  2. Very disturbing. The baby being suckled by the queen has a twin who's an old man; the baby being carried off by the eagle has the buttocks of an old man. The only pleasant distraction is counting the number of breasts on the mermaid - I make it five.

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    1. Indeed, she makes Eccentrica Gallumbits jealous. I guess you can never have too many breasts...?

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  3. I'm starting to think that maybe people just didn't know what babies were back in the Renaissance period.

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    1. It was very important to teach all theories of baby creation and growth in Renaissance schools.

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  4. Are there any cute Renaissance babies? I can't seem to think of any. And really, Octo-boobs is a little creepy.

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    1. There may have been cute Renaissance babies, but they were all destroyed in a fit of jealousy by their less attractive compatriots before they could be painted.

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  5. I am legitimately disturbed now. Were all babies in the Renaissance evil? I'm beginning to think they were all evil.

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    1. I think babies have always been evil, but now they have better PR.

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  6. Not only were all babies evil back then, but women had far too much free time on their hands if they were nursing old men and babies while forging and plotting to overthrow the government . With their baby! I think the one that freaks me out the most though is the mermaid nursing her young. How many teats does a mermaid have in the first place to be able to nurse all those mutant merbabes?

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    1. Disney has lulled us into a false sense of mer-humanity. The Little Mermaid would have been very different if Ariel had a five-breasted rack. Although maybe Prince Eric wouldn't have been so hung up on her voice...

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  7. I remember my youth (half a dozen centuries ago) - drugs were so much better then, and so much more freely available.

    Scary Carrie's idea for a new American Super-Heroine is splendid - "Octo-Boobs". Someone tell Hollywood...

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    1. I bet Octo-boobs already exists, if you look in the right kind of entertainment establishments.

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  8. I love Ugly Renaissance Babies. That first one, I feel like Elton John's baby has a cape and rides a weird mutant dolphin thing too. I love the "first cartoon villains". Was that artist just really trapped in a loveless marriage and took out that frustration on the canvas. And I didn't think the lady was standing on a pile of decapitated baby heads as much as they were flying decapitated baby heads (like those in the left corner) that swooped in to get a closer look up the lady's dress.

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    1. While you may well be correct on that latter point, I am not sure that flying decapitated baby heads trying to get an upskirt view of a dual-breastfeeding woman is better than her just standing on them.

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  9. The cartoon villains scare the hell out of me. I'm going to have nightmares for a week.

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    1. Yeah, somehow I can just hear their haunting, wicked cackling echoing through the ages and into my brain. Well played, Baldassarre.

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  10. I've seen a goose having sex with a lady on your blog and this by far is the scariest stuff I've seen.

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    1. Whatever you have seen, someone has always painted something more terrifying.

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  11. That final picture is pretty scary.

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    1. It's a dramatic alternative to the "fetus" theory of baby formation.

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