The Secret Behind Ugly Medieval Babies

Dive into the real reason why there are so many ugly babies in medieval art...

There’s no nice way to put it: in medieval art, babies were pretty damn ugly. 

But why?

It’s not because artists hadn’t worked out how to paint them properly – in fact, this was a deliberate stylistic choice… In medieval artwork, one baby popped up a whole lot more than the others: Jesus Christ.

There was a popular notion that Jesus was born “perfectly formed” and remained “unchanged” over time; this led to artists depicting him as a sort of weird little old man – and influenced portrayals of other babies too!

This all changed with the dawn of the Renaissance, and a new emphasis on realism in art.

Plus, as artists began to embrace non-religious subjects, wealthy patrons could commission portraits of their own families – and they didn’t want their own children looking like little old men!

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So, ugly babies were out and cute babies were in. Way less disturbing, but nowhere near as fun…