A Tumblr account is putting an entertaining new spin on art history – and earning a legion of fans in the process – by highlighting the ‘ugliest babies’ featured in Renaissance paintings.
The account, which is aptly-named Ugly Renaissance Babies, features a series of images of artworks that have been specially cropped to highlight the different baby faces hiding within them – many of which, as each of the posts points out, see the young children making rather pained, or even aggressive expressions.
And to add to the humor, the account owners also inject further entertainment into the posts by adding a witty caption, often written from the point of view of the baby being featured.
The Lord of the Rings: A Tumblr account is highlighting the ‘ugliest’ babies in Renaissance paintings, including this child, which has been compared to Gollum
Little man: One person pointed out that this baby looks more like a small man than a child by hilariously comparing him to the fictional character Benjamin Button
Ladies man: While posting a picture of this baby, his nakedness and rather saucy expression were highlighted perfectly in the accompanying caption
Eye roll: The baby in Andrea Mantegna’s painting Virgin and Child, looked – according to the person posting it – like it was high on drugs, thanks to his pained expression and eye roll
While sharing an image of artist Andrea Mantegna’s painting Virgin and Child, also known as Madonna and Child, the poster chose to highlight the baby’s rather bizarre facial expression, suggesting in the caption that the kid was high on narcotics.
‘Guys. GUYS. Oh my dad, I am totally tripping my balls off,’ the caption shared with the painting – thought to have been done between 1480 and 14095 – read.
Another image, this time of an unnamed painting which features a baby being circumcised, was shared along with the hilarious caption: ‘Just a little off the top and taper the sides, please.’
Meanwhile other captions feature the imagined thoughts of other people captured in the paintings, or even of the person posting the image on the site.
In a painting by Maerten van Heemskerck, a mother is holding her baby boy who has a fully sculpted body with rock hard abs and muscles. The person who posted the photo shared his thoughts on the muscular baby saying, ‘Goddamn, you could grate cheese on those abs.’
Abs: This painting by Maerten van Heemskerck, depicts a baby with sculpted abs and the poster couldn’t help but comment on how shocking they are
C-section: The poster of this photo sarcastically joked that this painting accurately depicts a normal Cesarean section, even though it’s not the real procedure
Poet: The poster of this unnknown photo gave the baby from the painting a full manuscript pretending he was a middle-aged philosopher
Santa: One user shared a photo of a St. Nicholas painting found in their art book that made them laugh, another user with a dirty mind replied that the St. Nick implied, was Santa Claus
Another hilarious caption depicts the thoughts of the baby in the painting, Madonna and Child, by Alesso Baldovinetti, where the child is wrapped up tightly in fabric, closely resembling a mummy.
The caption of the photo features the imagined thoughts of the child, stating: ‘OK. Mom. I don’t want to question your swaddling abilities, but, uh… I am getting just a little claustrophobic.
‘Seriously, I feel a bout of SIDS coming on.’
With over 30,000 likes and follows on the Facebook page, Ugly Renaissance Babies Fanpage and over 104,000 shares of the Bored Panda article linking to the page, the Tumblr account is quickly gaining popularity and going viral.
As well as sharing posts found by the team behind the account, the site also features images and captions submitted by fans.
Christ Cake: One user made dialect for the man to the left in the photo because of the puzzled look on his face about the prongs sticking out of the baby’s head
Swaddled: This user hilariously captioned the circa 1464 Alesso Baldovinetti painting with imagined thoughts that the baby must have had at the time, as he’s wrapped like a mummy
Funny: In this unknown painting, the poster gave the baby words to say, based off the funny look on his face and his twisted mouth
Circumcised: In this Jacob Cornelisz Van Oostsanen painting, The Circumcision of Christ, from 1517, the user gave dialogue to the mother of the baby as to how she wanted the circumcision
Scared: This user shared their thoughts on how the baby, Ganymede, (son of the King of Troy in Greek Mythology) must have felt at the time in this 1635 painting by painter Rembrandt
Quote: This user used a quote from the movie Total Recall as the caption to this unknown painting of a baby reaching his hands out
Mad: In this sketch of a boy from 1521, the poster of the photo hilariously pretended that the baby’s angry face made it seem like he was ready for a fight
Drunk: One user captioned this circa 1500 painting, with a comment about how the baby is drunkenly peeing in public and that it’s embarrassing