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.
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| Francesco Bianchi, Arion Riding on a Dolphin |
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| 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.”
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| 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.
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| Maerten van Heemkerck |
Starting a steroid regimen very young. He’ll go far in the Renaissance
weightlifting circuit!
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| Rembrandt, Abduction of Ganymede |
I always thought it was storks that brought children. This explains why they scream so much.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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.
ReplyDeleteIs that a magnifying glass on the privates in Maerten van Heemkerck's work? That's just plain weird - like the muscular child isn't?
Maybe the strategic magnifying glass highlights some of the dangers of steroid use?
DeleteVery 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.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, she makes Eccentrica Gallumbits jealous. I guess you can never have too many breasts...?
DeleteI'm starting to think that maybe people just didn't know what babies were back in the Renaissance period.
ReplyDeleteIt was very important to teach all theories of baby creation and growth in Renaissance schools.
DeleteAre there any cute Renaissance babies? I can't seem to think of any. And really, Octo-boobs is a little creepy.
ReplyDeleteThere 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.
DeleteI am legitimately disturbed now. Were all babies in the Renaissance evil? I'm beginning to think they were all evil.
ReplyDeleteI think babies have always been evil, but now they have better PR.
DeleteNot 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?
ReplyDeleteDisney 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...
DeleteI remember my youth (half a dozen centuries ago) - drugs were so much better then, and so much more freely available.
ReplyDeleteScary Carrie's idea for a new American Super-Heroine is splendid - "Octo-Boobs". Someone tell Hollywood...
I bet Octo-boobs already exists, if you look in the right kind of entertainment establishments.
DeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteWhile 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.
DeleteThe cartoon villains scare the hell out of me. I'm going to have nightmares for a week.
ReplyDeleteYeah, somehow I can just hear their haunting, wicked cackling echoing through the ages and into my brain. Well played, Baldassarre.
DeleteI've seen a goose having sex with a lady on your blog and this by far is the scariest stuff I've seen.
ReplyDeleteWhatever you have seen, someone has always painted something more terrifying.
DeleteThat final picture is pretty scary.
ReplyDeleteIt's a dramatic alternative to the "fetus" theory of baby formation.
Delete