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Has this artist ever seen a baby?

2022-07-26 · documentary visit · John · 3:53 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Pop culture (also: History & curiosities) · mode: Comedy & performance · tags: on location, guest or collab

At the Louvre with Sarah, John plays 'has this artist ever seen a baby?', judging paintings and sculptures by how realistic their babies look, with side notes on painted ancient sculpture, the homunculus baby Jesus and a weird painting of a young man holding a statue.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Arrival at the Louvre with his spouse; the game: which artists have seen a baby; cherubs

  • ★★★ At the Louvre, with the help of his spouse, John sets out to determine which artists have seen a baby. (playful) — 00:00:00 · Sarah Urist Green
  • ★ John grants that cherubs are not technically babies, but says making a good cherub requires having seen a baby. (playful) — 00:00:15

00:00:29 — Side note one: ancient Greek and Roman sculptures were painted, so unpainted neoclassicism is not neoclassical

  • ★★★ The ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, now seemingly unpainted, were mostly painted, often brightly, so neoclassical architecture and art with unpainted stone is not actually neoclassical. — 00:00:35

00:00:58 — Jacques-Louis David, Botticelli, Paolo Veneziano, the Mona Lisa crowd, Titian

  • ★★ John's verdicts: Jacques-Louis David has definitely seen a baby, Botticelli once long ago, Paolo Veneziano more recently than a woman, and Titian has. (playful) — 00:00:58

00:01:27 — Beccafumi; side note two: the homunculus baby Jesus; Dürer's rhinoceros

  • ★★ The homunculus convention, especially in medieval European art, painted the baby Jesus as both small and a full-grown man, since Jesus was held to be fully God and all-knowing even as a baby. — 00:01:42
  • ★★ In 1515 Albrecht Dürer made his picture of a rhinoceros without ever having seen an actual rhinoceros. — 00:02:13

00:02:26 — More verdicts; side note three: a young man cradling a statue; Rubens; the final painting of babies in space; sign-off

  • ★ John was entranced by a weird painting of a young man lovingly cradling a statue with a just-dumped face; after so much religious iconography, it was a relief. (playful) — 00:02:45
  • ★★ Finally John finds a painting of sweet babies floating in space among flowers by an artist who may even have held a baby, ending his journey. (playful) — 00:03:25

In the description and comments

  • ★ The description says John and Sarah spent five hours at the Louvre in Paris asking whether the artists had ever seen a human baby. — video description · Sarah Urist Green
  • ★★ In a channel comment John says his preference for unpainted statues is at least partly a product of the aesthetic traditions he was raised in; he cannot tell if it is objectively real. — creator comment
  • ★★ Having looked at the crowd waiting for the Mona Lisa rather than the painting, John says in a comment that seeing it behind glass is not much different from a photograph; he enjoys seeing brushstrokes up close. — creator comment
  • ★★ In a channel comment John credits a TikTok as the inspiration for the video, noting others have also played 'Has This Artist Ever Seen a Baby Before'. — creator comment · TikTok

Humor (dominant)

  • John judges Botticelli's babies. — 00:00:58

    “Botticelli, I think, saw a baby once years ago, but he's never seen a baby throw up on anyone.”

  • John judges Domenico Beccafumi, whose babies look like small adults. — 00:01:27

    “He's never even had a baby described to him. He's just seen adults and imagined that they were once smaller.”

  • Dürer drew a rhinoceros in 1515 without ever seeing one. — 00:02:26

    “and you're telling me that this artist has seen a baby?”

  • A painting of a young man lovingly holding a statue, looking like he was just dumped. — 00:02:55

    “it was just nice to see a 400-year-old Michael Cera cradling a statue.”

Mentioned

Central: Louvre

Also: People: Albrecht Dürer · Domenico Beccafumi · Jacques-Louis David · Louis Le Nain · Michael Cera · Paolo Veneziano · Peter Paul Rubens · Sandro Botticelli · Sarah Urist Green · Titian

Works: Dürer's Rhinoceros · Mona Lisa

Concepts: homunculus · neoclassical architecture · polychromy

Myths: Jesus

Only in the description or credits: Paris · TikTok

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