This video was inspired by a brilliant tiktok: www.tiktok.com/@anan0tanna/video/7048950728416709935 (I know other people have played Has This Artist Ever Seen a Baby Before, but this particular tiktok was my inspiration!) -John
Well I must have been way ahead of the curve when I visited Avignon nearly 20 years ago. The Palace of the Popes had a 50 picture exhibit featuring Madonna and Child pieces. And yes, many of the babies looked like middle aged men 😆 And of course I asked: have any of these guys ever seen a baby OR a naked woman?
I have seen lots of babies. They come in many flavors: skinny, CHONK, stretchy, fetal, passive, CHAOS, dark, pale, squishy, solid... Let's just say that they have seen a baby, but all babies are unique and need snuggles. #DFTBA going to snuggle my kids every day, even when they are embarrassed by it.
i’d love to see two works by the same artist with baby improvement so as to give the commentary: “you can pinpoint with some accuracy the point at which this artist met a baby”
It doesn't matter how fairly commonplace it is to see Sarah in videos these days, my brain will always be like "the yeti?!" every time. I hope this never changes.
Omg! My friends and I went to the Louvre in June, and we also played "does this artist even know what a baby looks like?"! It was so fun! We also laughed for like 10 minutes over the statue holding guy
Oddly enough, that guy looks like he should be holding a baby, and in no way looks like he is trying to hold *that* statue, and I think the artist was just like "Imma be real, I do not know how to draw a baby, here's a nekkid lady statue instead...I spent a lotta time doing those in school."
“i don’t know if this is a good painting but after all this religious iconography and mythology it was just nice to see a 400 year old Michael Cera cradling a statue”
I feel like... that's it. I've seen the Louvre. Got the Mona Lisa in there for approximately the time you'll get to see the Mona Lisa at approximately the size of the Mona Lisa, got a tour of all the VERY interesting babies. Like, what more is there? Boom, case closed. John Green, bringing you to the Louvre OUT OF HIS OWN POCKET.
I often think about how the statues were painted and when people found out, they said they would have looked really gawdy with intense colours and stuff... But the technology probably is just picking up the basecoat and stuff and there would have been so much more detail added on top.
Oh that's a good theory. I want to believe you're right. Otherwise -- how can you carve something so intricate then just slap some blocks of color on it and call it a day?
I recommend looking at the fayum portraits to see just how lifelike some ancient art was! There was the little speculative story I read about a party in ancient rome only lit by candles and oil lamps and being wine drunk when you see a painted statue and mistake it for a serving boy. That idea just haunts me.
They were also gullible enough to believe the new parents who told them that their baby was cuter than any other. Working backwards from below-average is a great way to reach goblin-tier.
😂I remember having a similar discussion in a Western Literature class, and the resounding question was "did the artists just never leave their studios or have children of their own?" And the resounding conclusion was a class-wide shrug and a "Maybe not."
I made myself laugh at the end because i thought you were going to say "the artist had not only seen a baby but was one" as if the answer to all these bad baby paintings was that no artists had ever once been babies they were all Benjamin Buttons
Same, but my prediction was that he was going to say the artist had not only seen a baby, but actually loved one. The contrast between loved and held was enough for me!
I'd like to note, some of these examples appear to fit more into the category of "had never seen a baby above the neck". We all get the reasoning behind the old-man faces, but their heads should still be shaped like human heads, right?
"He's just seen adults and imagined they were once smaller" is my favorite quote of the week. I realize it's only Tuesday but I'm confident nothing will top this.
Imagine how bizarre it would look if they painted parts of government buildings in Washington, DC, to "look more accurately" neoclassical. I think we would *all* hate it.
Artemisia Gentileschi has some of the best paintings of babies from her time period because she actually had kids and was the main caretaker, plenty of time for observation.
played this exact game at the louvre in May and again at the philadelphia museum of art last friday - the best ones are northern renaissance (Netherlands, Belgium, Germany etc. during late 15th century to the 16th century) because they have not seen babies, birds, or people with emotions
Never been to the Louvre but I understand that they should just officially change the name of the Mona Lisa room to "The People-Waiting-to-See-the-Mona-Lisa Room", since that's the real point. Good on you for shrugging it off publicly.
My college art professor told us that if we ever go to the Louvre we should just skip the Mona Lisa and look at a reproduction in the gift shop as we'd get a better look.
Last time I went to the Mona Lisa room it was not to see the Mona Lisa but to see The Wedding at Cana which is across from it.... and it was being restored 😭
I remember hurrying to get ahead of a bunch of teenagers (it was European spring break apparently) and we wanted to get ahead of the to see the winged Victory. Meanwhile they had no interest in the statue. Probably on their way to see the Mona Lisa 😆
It's so strange how THAT painting became so iconic that it needs barriers and darkened glass to protect it from hoards of people who come for a faraway glimpse of it. I mean, it's a nice painting, but there are plenty of other ones in the Louvre alone that are also quite nice. It's also kind of a shame that you can't really get a pleasant, organic viewing experience of that particular nice painting now.
If people judged me by my baby drawing skills I would not only appear as if I had never seen a baby, but would look as though I had never even had one described to me.
maybe it's more people who had given birth not getting their art into the Louvre? You can be capable of pregnancy and never do it (hopefully that'll be me) or you could be incapable of pregnancy and see babies all the time and draw a million babies in your lifetime, or you could have once been capable of pregnancy, then stopped being capable of it, and then painted a bunch of babies and still not have your art recognised or appreciated
This made me laugh so much! I feel like some of those artists not only haven’t seen a baby, but also they’re terrified by what they have heard about the babies they have not seen
So happy to see you enjoying my city, Sarah and John! Have a great stay in Paris and for the authentic French experience, be sure to get stuck in a crowded metro! Signed, a frustrated Parisian stuck on commute, who's nonetheless grateful the new vlogbrothers vid dropped right now.
If it makes you feel any better, we New Yorkers get stuck on crowded metros all the time too! 🙂 somehow I'd rather be stuck on a Parisian metro... probably because then I would be on holiday in Paris! 😁 ❤️
A friend of mine did her PhD on the subject of how to present unknowns to the public in terms of archaeology. Like, we know this was painted, but we don't know how it was painted. Any repainting we might do is a guess (and is interfering with archaeology), but leaving it unpainted presents a false idea to the public. (Though she was focused more on tumble-down German castles.) Basically, she was studying what kind of reconstructions and guides most clearly explain to the public what's known and what's educated guesswork. (We are pretty certain that there was a window here, though we can't be sure, and we have no idea what shape it was.) Fascinating stuff. Her PhD defense was online, and I got to watch it.
Not having a PhD in this, but I think with things that have a "manageable" size like statues, it would make sense to make replicas and paint them as close to what we think it looked like as possible and to display both versions next to each other. This is way harder when it comes to things like castles, though. We can't copy them. Not just because it's super expensive, but also because the mountain they sit on is part of the castles and copying a mountain would be a little bit excessive.
Favorite Louvre memory: Getting Vaguely lost on the 3rd level going through relatively tiny room after tiny room until I stumbled upon that Joseph Ducreux painting everyone knows from everywhere and thinking "Well I may be lost, but I'm exactly where I want to be"
as someone who's "never" seen a baby, I would've loved an explanation why some of these where wrong. Some are obvious, but some look like babies to me?
Proportions are off - adult muscles that shouldn't exist - too much teeth in the mouth for the very young - wrong expression and poses in general - adults holding the baby off the center of balance - lack of baby flexibility... there is a lot
I’m in the NICU with my newborn baby and feeling very emotionally raw and scared. I watched this video when they took her to run tests in the lab. It’s the first minute I’ve been alone and had any space to myself. I needed a minute to giggle about the homunculus and about weird art. Thanks for being with me tonight. It’s like having a friend to distract me in the room.
Just as Hank walked us through weird zillow houses, I will need more REAL stories from museums. I would pay for this audio walking tour of the Louvre. No shade to the "real" tour guide who walked us through, but this actually kept my attention. Happy to see other variations like "Has this artist ever seen a" dog/horse/human/shoe, etc. Please and thank you.
Paris is such a good time. I was worried I'd get Paris Syndrome when we visited but we ended up walking for around 16 hours across two days trying to see everything. It felt like every centimeter of my leg bones had fractured by the end. We got on a cruise shortly thereafter and just laid on the bed gently touching our legs and hoping it would stop hurting. It took...a while.
The image evoked by "gently touching our legs" was so specific and so precisely what I do after way too much walking. It's a pain that demands to be felt, like maybe provoking the ache a little will heal it faster and you can't just NOT touch the sore muscles while you wait.
I also love playing this game!! My current favourite weird baby/cherub are ones decorated on a building in my neighbourhood. They look like they are under immense distress trying to keep the windows from falling off the building. Amazing!
I love getting these videos, which are more slice of life rather than educational, because while I dearly love the educational content, these are very entertaining, and I had to be careful not to giggle in public while viewing it. Which is my favorite kind of Vlogbrothers video, regardless of the subject. :)
I do love some good classical art humor. I knew my husband was the right one for me when we were solemnly touring the classical sculpture exhibit at the Getty Museum in LA and my husband dryly remarked, “raise your hand if you’re a bronze naked lady.” I cracked up when I noticed that pretty much all of the bronze naked lady statues had at least one arm up. 😂
this video went straight into my "nerdfighteria favorites and essentials" playlist and ALSO made me want to play this game every time i visit an art museum for the rest of my life, lol
What a fun video! My daughters (who are both now artists) and I used to have similar discussions when they were kids- except about dogs and other animals- whenever we went to art museums.
I feel like this video can be considered under the educational category and therefore exceed the 4 minute imposed video length. Which would conveniently give me more louvre art to look at, and we all need more art in our lives.
I was also just at the Louvre last week and unfortunately we did not get to enjoy much as there were so many people! What we did see was nice. Wish we had booked a guided tour with Sarah. She would have made it interesting.
This is maybe my favourite vlogbrothers video ever (or certainly the one I've enjoyed the most). Something about an Art History degree I can't really use in my current job and a desperate pandemic-era desire to once again travel overseas and go museum-hopping.
I've always been much more Hank-like in my strong preference for math and science over the arts and could only admire you and Sarah for being so artistic. Given that, I'm pleasantly surprised to see you two appreciating art in the kind of way I might rather than taking it overly seriously. Good to know artsy people can have fun with it too :D
I love this video! You should do another one, since you’re doing the museum thing, on paintings of saints being tortured to death but not appearing to notice anything unusual going on.
I'll take exception to the idea that Neoclassical architecture isn't neoclassical. If anything it is exceptionally NEO-classical specifically because it ISN'T classical. That's what makes it neo and what makes it unique and enjoyable for entirely different reasons. The exposed marble has always been a testament to how far society has come since the dark ages, to me. When I went to DC for the first time I, several times, made the comment to my partner that it's amazing how much marble and artists to carve it our society was able to produce and/or acquire for a seemingly inconsequential purpose. The fact that it remains unpainted draws attention to the material, not the design, and allows it to serve as a testament to post-capitalism and the world we might one day inhabit.
I was thinking along the same lines and came to the comments to make a similar observation. It's exactly the sterility of the unadorned materials that make it NEOclassical.
I think about that Neoclassical thing all of the time. Like, in an attempt to emulate this very specific style, a completely different thing ended up being created.
This seems like a fun game for any of the old art museums.. Loved mentioning the animal thing, could play that game too, "Has the artist ever seen the animal it has painted". It seems like that rhinoceros guy was given a brilliant overall description of the body shape but then when it came to the skin he was like uhhhh idk kind of like a fish but kind of like a reptile, but also kind of like leather but overall like an armadillo.
I was at the Met Cloisters with my partners on Saturday, and we played this precise game, which has been a favorite of mine for many years! (Spoiler: Very few medieval artists had seen babies, but those who had seen them had REALLY seen them.)
1:00 Jacques louis david also succeeded in paintin what is the **only** baby i can say that ive looked at and thowt "Hmm, they look kinda pensive". Pensive is the last word i wud think of to describe a baby, but this paintin captures that feeling entirely and this baby truly looks to be havin some deep and serious thoughts rn.
