Okay, let’s just get right to the point: Renaissance babies are ugly. Okay, there were a few exceptions, but for the most part Renaissance babies were very ugly especially when it came to painting baby Jesus. Why did they look so ugly? That I have no clue because before the Renaissance and after the Renaissance the babies in pictures looked decent and sometimes even cute though not during the Renaissance. The ceramic ones are kind of cute. The other ones are not.
During the Renaissance we got “fish” baby Jesus and “full grown man but short with no beard” baby Jesus. I don’t think the artists in the Renaissance ever actually saw babies but acted like they knew what a baby looked like. Also I wasn’t posting as much earlier because of school and because I tend to procrastinate, though because school is over for me now I am hoping that I will start to post more again.
Because some of the galleries at the MFA are closed right now for changes I couldn’t take pictures of everything I wanted to since I can’t get to it. But I found some on their website to show my point and my mom had old pictures on her phone.
A fun activity at a museum is to look at every Renaissance painting with baby Jesus and try to find the ugliest baby Jesus. It can be an alone game or a multi player game. If it’s a multi player game you can argue over which one is the ugliest. It gets real heated when you have different results. I hope you try this game and have fun.
Virgin and Child with an Angel, Luca Signorelli, About 1470-1475, Museum of Fine Arts Boston 
Adoration of the Shepherds (?), I couldn’t find it again, Museum of Fine Arts Boston 
The Nativity, Sandro Botticelli, About 1482-1485, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 
Altar of the Holy Kinship, German, Saxony, About 1510-1520, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 
This is a cute baby. Nativity with Gloria in Excelsis Deo, Luca della Robbia, About 1470, Museum of Fine Arts Boston 
Virgin and Child, Lorenzo Ghiberti, 1425-1450, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Museums with Mina 