Return of the Review: Now With More Creepy Babies

Dear readers, as you may or may not have noticed, I disappeared for a little while.  

Ok, so maybe it was almost a year. 

But my excuse is that in that time I finished writing a book, got married, traveled for a month, moved to another continent, and started a new job.  Please forgive my tardiness, and rest assured that I am BACK, with a renewed vigor for mocking inconsequential details in artwork made by people far more talented and popular (and usually dead) than me.  

Having read some feedback suggesting that dark backgrounds make some potential readers uncomfortable, I have also changed the look of the site a bit.  I thought that perhaps a nice light blue theme would soothe visitors before showing them depictions of mythical swan seduction and naked people being devoured by demon birds.  

My last entry focused on paintings from the National Gallery of Art in DC.  As it happens, I have now visited the gallery in person, and it turns out they have way more than just awkward American portraits.  They have awkward paintings of everything.  Thus, I am relaunching this blog with a two-part series of paintings of Madonna and Baby Jesus found at the NGA: the first will focus on images in which the holy duo is in some way a little….odd, and the second will look at some of the weird groupies that seemed to hang around with Madonna and Baby Jesus when they were posing for a painting (which was apparently all they did between baby ages 0-10).  You can find all of these images in their online repository.

We’ll start with Mafia Madonna.

Madonna and Child with Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist - Cima da Conegliano, c. 1459-1517 or 1518

I quite like the technical execution of this work.  But my first thought on seeing Momma’s face was, “If I mess with her baby, I will wake up to find a horse head in my bed.”  Even Baby Jesus looks like he’s about to deal with St. Jerome’s stuttering excuses with a cool, calculated measurement for new concrete shoes.

 

It’s not personal, it’s strictly business.

Next up: Seizure Baby Jesus.

The Virgin Adoring the Child - Sandro Botticell, c. 1480-1490

Allegedly Mary is adoring her baby here, but frankly I think she’s posed to defend herself from a child who is showing signs of contorting and clawing for brains in early-onset zombie-itis.

 

He does come back from the dead eventually…

This leads us straight into Possibly-A-Cadaver Baby Jesus.

 

Madonna and Child Enthroned With Saint Peter and Saint Paul – Domenico di Bartolo, c. 1430

Seriously.  That baby is not a healthy color. If it weren’t for his smooth features, I would have taken him for a shriveled centenarian.

 

Or maybe it’s greyscale?

Also, I think that Saint Peter should get that lazy eye seen to. 

Poor Saint Paul’s male pattern baldness has left him susceptible to forehead tarantulas, as well.

Sometimes, instead of being tiny and shriveled, Baby Jesus is a ginormous monster.

The Adoration of the Child – Filippino Lippi, c. 1475-1480

I do not understand how Mary survived the labor.  Although given her hands, and the fact that she seems to be kneeling, maybe he gets his big-boned-ness from his mother.  And the angel has a shrunken skull.

And now, for Animal Sacrifice Jesus.

 

Madonna Enthroned with Saints – Puccio di Simone and Allegretto Nuzi, c. 1354

At least the baby is not obviously deformed in this painting.  However, upon closer inspection he appears to be choking a bird while wearing a tribal necklace.  

Who’s a cute little animal mauler?  YOU are!  Yes you are!

These symbols appears in a number of works: the bird is a finch, to represent his future sacrifice, and the necklace is coral, to protect against evil.  I guess he must have lost that necklace when, you know, he was later betrayed and murdered.  Maybe it was because of his animal strangling hobby.

Sometimes, Baby Jesus is depicted as like someone I would not want to leave my own children alone with.

Madonna and Child – Domenico Veneziano, c. 1445/1450

He looks like he’s either going to have his way with all the women, or make you a terrible deal on a used car, all before he’s been potty trained.

Now, I leave you with this statue.

Madonna and Child with Two Angels - Verona, 14th Century

Mary and Clearly-Not-A-Baby Jesus will DEVOUR YOUR SOUL.

Sleep well!

Awkward American Portraits

The artwork here has been quite Euro-centric, so I decided it was time to look at some good old-fashioned American art.  Recently Amy over at Kid-Free Living (who is hilarious and you should go read her blog!) found some gems at the National Gallery in DC, which pointed me in the direction of their website.  A vast trove of materials awaited!  The 19^th century seems to have been a golden age for awkward portraiture.

Mrs. Harlow A. Pease – Erastus Salisbury Field, 1837 (Source)

The 19^th century was a period before closets were invented, so women were forced to wear all of their clothes stuffed into their sleeves and tied under their skirts.  Unused lace curtains were turned into attractive head and shoulder coverings.

Interior Scene - 1840

At this time, people had hands and feet a fraction of the size that they do today.  Books were made in miniature to accommodate tiny fingers.  Also, perspective did not exist yet.

 

Girl with Reticule and Rose – Joseph Whiting Stock, 1840

Terribly awkward haircuts for children did exist, however, along with the child’s resultant seething being immortalized in paint.

 

Mary and Francis Wilcox – Joseph Whiting Stock, 1845

 “Please can we go now, Mummy?  Little Francis Green-Dress wants to take her dollhouse sledding and teach me how to hover an inch off the ground like she does.”

 

Eliza Welch Stone – Thomas Skynner, 1845

I assume Eliza divided her free time between flower arranging to maintain a veneer of femininity, and being a linebacker.  She needed to be careful about getting her portrait done when her five o'clock shadow was showing, though.
 

Charles H. Sisson – Joseph Goodhue Chandler, 1850

Little Charles already excelled in the art of beating the livestock and servants by the age of five.  

 

Plains Indian – J.W. Bradshaw, 19^th century

So I imagine Mr. Bradshaw was trying to show respect in painting the portrait of this individual.  Unfortunately his face seems to be melting a bit.  On the plus side, his portrait later served as inspiration for the Muppet Workshop.

I think the winner for Most Awkward American Portrait this round, however, goes to Edward Hicks, for his “Portrait of a Child.” 

Source

Yes, that face will haunt you for the rest of the day.  You’re welcome!

The old saying goes, those who can’t do, write snarky blog posts about those who at least attempt to do.  I confess I once tried my hand at doing a self-portrait, with a Technicolor result that would have made Picasso scratch his head.  The difference is that my work didn’t wind up in the National Gallery. 

A Gull(ible) Feast

Dear readers, I have just returned from a journey to Salt Lake City in Utah.  In case you are unaware, Salt Lake City is the Home of the Mormon Church and Not Much Else.  As a result, while my fiancé was off doing important work-related things, I spent a lot of time staring into the mountains and pondering the meaninglessness of existence.  But when I wasn’t doing that, I wandered over to look at the LDS temple, the grounds of which were massive, well-groomed, and full of cringe-worthy statues.  The statue that caught my eye the most, however, was the Seagull Monument. 

This is the monument.

 

If you do an image search for “Mormon seagulls” (and who wouldn’t?), you’ll find pictures like this:

Golden seagulls!  So majestic!  They’re practically eagles, but with a greater penchant for eating out of a dumpster!

The problem is that when you first approach this monument from the main walkway in the middle of the temple square as I did, this is the view you get:

Basically it looks like one of the seagulls is taking a massive dump on its majestic sphere perch.

The images on the bottom of the monument show the Mormon pioneers looking forlornly at fields with their oxen.  So as an uninformed outsider, my actual thought on looking at this monument was that the pioneers must have arrived at this horrible place with like 90% salt content in the soil and had been unable to grow anything until these seagulls arrived and fertilized everything with their guano.

It turns out the story is actually even better than this. 

Indeed, the pioneers were having trouble with their crops.  Then these crickets came along and were eating what little they had managed to farm.  But all of a sudden, a flock of seagulls miraculously appeared, and everyone started rocking really weird new-wave hairstyles. 

Wait, sorry.  This flock of seagulls appeared and started eating the crickets.  Then, the gulls went to the stream, vomited, and went back to eat more crickets, and continued this cycle until all the crickets were gone.  So basically the Mormon pioneers were saved by bulimic seagulls.  And the water supply was never the same again.  Inspirational!

I will leave you with this painting I found in looking for info on this story, attributed to the “International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers.”  It appears to depict an alternate history in which the pioneers are about to be devoured in an invasion of giant man-eating gulls.