ugly Renaissance babies Archives

November 7, 2016

That Ugly Renaissance Baby thing

“The Madonna on a Crescent Moon,” artist unknown.

I spent the weekend with my grandchildren, who are both perfectly lovely but of distinct and different temperaments. I once painted my grandson. Time got away from me before I could ever paint his sister.

Whenever I spend a lot of time with them, I come back to a conundrum of pop art history: why are babies so misshapen in Byzantine and Renaissance art?

There are several academic explanations for this. The first is that naturalism wasn’t the primary goal of these paintings. Thus the Christ child was never shown crying or having his terribly stinky diaper changed. We like to assume that’s because he was the object of veneration, but we moderns wouldn’t paint babies in those situations either.

“Madonna of Chancellor Rolin,” Jan van Eyck, c. 1435. The infant Jesus is the world’s great high priest in this painting, as indicated by his pose and the landscape.

But we do impute childlike qualities to children, whereas the pre-modern mind was more inclined to see them as little adults-in-training. In Renaissance and Byzantine art, the infant Christ was a representation of his Incarnation—baby, but also always God. Thus he and his mother must foreshadow his agonizing fate, or depict some other characteristic of God Incarnate.

Personally, I think the answer is mainly a practical one. First, the paintings weren’t intended to be viewed up close; they were meant to be seen at a distance, above an altar, in uneven lighting. That meant heavy modeling was important, and that isn’t compatible with the beautiful delicacy of babies.

"The Ognissanti Madonna," Giotto, c. 1310

“Madonna Enthroned,” Giotto, c. 1310.

Real babies make terrible models. As they approach toddlerhood they tolerate sitting only for limited time. They squirm, they wriggle, and they will do anything to get down and play. They are not miniature adults. Their proportions are different and difficult to capture. Their heads are enormous, their eyes widely spaced, and their noses flattened. They have loose folds of fat dangling here and there. Try getting that down on paper while your model is screaming to get loose. I suppose the artists could have drugged the little nippers, but I doubt many mothers would go along with that.

“Maria Hilf,” Lucas Cranach the Elder, c. 1530

Ever take a baby to a studio for a photo shoot? If so, you know you can’t always get a baby to smile for the camera, and if you ask a toddler to smile, you’re likely to get something very artificial. Imagine, then, trying to project a look of complex calm and suffering onto a baby face, especially when you only have minutes to work before the baby falls asleep, soils himself, or is hungry and bored. Changing the expression on a model’s face is one of the most difficult things one can do, even with all the time in the world.

My grandson is not the only baby portrait I’ve painted, but I’ve never painted a young child from life. No modern would ever try it without reference photos, me included. Kudos to those early painters who did.

January 5, 2015

Don’t knock it until you try it

Baby Jake, tiny sketch by me while he slept in my lap.

There is a meme panning ugly Renaissance babies. Every time it pops up, I’m reminded that the posters have most likely never painted a baby from life.

Most of my successful artist pals are childless. This makes perfect sense in the modern world, for fine arts is a career path that requires long hours for little remuneration, and that often requires travel or living in a child-hostile place like NYC. This means that children and motherhood are generally not subjects for serious modern painting, except in portraiture.

I’ve done two baby portraits, and both were done from photos. Babies wiggle, they have unreliable schedules, and when they’re not sleeping, they’re often hungry or upset about something inscrutable.

Tiny gesture drawing of baby Jake. His center of gravity is certainly his bottom, although that head weighs a lot, too.

This weekend I had my infant grandson with me. I’d hoped to paint him during my class, but there were too many students. After class, he and I sat down to rest, and he fell asleep on my lap. I was able to fish a tiny (3.5X5”) sketchbook off the coffee table with my spare hand, and do the attached sketches.

A fast sketch of Jake’s wonderful face before he twisted away again. It’s really hard to get the baby head’s proportions right.

When we do gesture drawings in class I tell my students to look for the “axis of power” in the figure—the place from which the subject’s motion is springing. Usually that’s the pelvis; less frequently, it’s the shoulders. In the case of a young infant, I believe that’s usually his rump. He is learning to control his limbs, he pushes himself up with his legs and then collapses, and when he settles down against you, you inevitably end up patting his bottom.

Tiny gesture drawing of baby Jake as he wiggled himself to sleep.

There have been very few painters who focused on children. Mary Cassatt—who was unmarried and childless—was one; Kathe Kollwitz—who had childcare so she could concentrate on her career—was another. It’s a pity that we dismiss a subject that’s of such primal importance, for all of us at one time or another have been babies or parents.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.

September 18, 2014

Why are art babies so ugly?

The Haller Madonna, Albrecht Dürer, 1498

We interrupt this regularly-scheduled programming to address the age-old question of why babies in paintings are often deformed, distorted, and generally ugly. (And, BTW, this phenom isn’t limited to Renaissance babies, no matter what the current meme says.) It isn’t because the artists can’t draw; I’ve included examples by superb draftsmen.

There are a lot of theories about this, covering context to symbolism to the possibility that earlier babies just were not that good looking in the first place.

The Baby Marcelle Roulin, Vincent van Gogh, 1888

Having had several babies myself, and having done a lot of figure painting, I think the answer is much simpler: babies make lousy models. They squirm and howl when they’re uncomfortable, and they won’t hold a pose. They have no muscle tone and very little neck, and they wobble. Pre-photography, the best the artist could do was limb in a few lines and return the pathetic little creature to its mother’s arms.

The Three Ages of Man, Titian, 1511

On the other hand, I’ve always wondered why so many Renaissance infants are pictured wearing jewelry. Didn’t they get the memo about choking hazards?

Newborn Baby in a Crib, Lavinia Fontana, c. 1583

Enough of this. I have a new little grandson to go visit. He arrived squalling into the world last night, and I haven’t yet begun to paint his portrait.

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