Normal Children Who Are Very Comfortable And At Ease In Western Art History

by Mallory Ortberg · April 21, 2015

normal

normal3

normal normal, everything normal here

normal4

hello, it’s me: normal things are happening, why don’t you come a little closer and see how normal things can get

normal5

diagnosis normal

normal6

nooooooorrrrrmalllll

tess

normal normal, time to marry this horse

normal2

remember this normal thing from before? it’s back, and it’s NORMAL

welp2

normal bed, normal snake, normal secrets and blood

bathing a deer

normal deer-washing time, you’re just in time to help us wash this deer for some reason

welp

only some of us have faces, that’s normal, time for blood

[Images via]

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.


107 Comments

  1. ashley +65

    Ohhh Gelert, SO DISTRESSING. Don’t murder your dogs, people, they’ve totally just saved your babies.

    1. BestLaidPlans +12

      I never heard this story until my roommate named her dog Gelert. Our dog came to a much better end but was not nearly so helpful

    3. Natushka +32

      My learned Toasties, methinks this might actually be Guinefort not Gelert. Same basic story but Guinefort saved the baby from a viper. My favourite part of this tale is that a bunch of medieval peasants just decided together that Guinefort was a saint, by popular acclaim, thus collectively flipping the bird to the literates and all their nonsense about dogs not having souls.

  3. longlostlullaby +197

    I know that painters didn’t have a good grasp on physiology for a long time. I get that. But how did the painter of #7 never notice that babies do not generally have washboard abs? Babies are notoriously bad at crunches.

    1. Mary +102

      I have a baby and I must respectfully disagree. Once they’ve got over the “not good at anything” stage, babies are AMAZING at crunches and have core muscles like woah. My baby does crunches all the time (she hasn’t yet worked out how to use her arms to get from lying to sitting, so tries to go directly up using just her core – and she nearly makes it!) Babies can also lie in their backs and manipulate objects half their own length and 1/8 their own weight over their heads, which is like upper upper level Pilates.

      I agree that they do not look like six packs though.

      1. longlostlullaby +19

        In my defense, I only said crunches because it’s the only ab exercise I know, because I am super lazy.

    2. Mary +53

      Of course, it’s possible that not everyone thinks babies are as fascinating as I do at the moment.

    4. nicolemgk +17

      Actually you’ll never have core strength as good as you did when you were 18 months old. When a toddler is engaging their core you can totally see a six pack! Usually they are chubby though, so it’s not always obvious. I can’t do anything my toddler can do with his core strength.

      2. LeastBittern +40

        Like when you try to buckle a toddler into a carseat, and they press their heels and their head against the seat and manage to arch their ENTIRE TORSO based on those two points of contact? Like someone tetanizing?

    5. fcjaugusta +40

      I’m actually surprised more babies DON’T have washboard abs. That whole stage between larval and walking is constant ab workouts. Trying to sit up. Trying to get on all fours. Trying to lift their heads. Babies are pretty hardcore.

    6. voltairineballis +21

      I was going to hop on here to tell the world about the crunches my newborn sons used to do, I should have realized others would jump on the band wagon. I will add that the penis grabbing babies remind me of the scene at my house when my two preschoolers are having “naked time.” The caption read “normal!” And I thought, “I see why this is on the list but actually yeah it is normal at my house.” The things I’ve had to say!

      1. robotneedslove +33

        I used to nanny for twins, and one time when they were about 4 one came to me and said “Sometimes I like to touch Johnny’s penis, and sometimes he likes to touch mine.” I said “Oh, interesting, tell your mom.”

        I’m 100% sure he was trying to get a rise of me (the sly smile gave it away).

        The only remaining question is whether or not to tell that story at one of their weddings.

        2. voltairineballis +9

          The Law here at home is “we only touch our own penis,” and I repeat it often. Your story does sound like trying to get a rise out of you, and also maybe a bit of a reality check, possibly. Your answer sounded totally composed and reminded me why I did not get a job taking care of kids in high school or college. Once when my nephew was about 2 or 3, he was watching a video naked and I was reading in the same room and I hear this tiny little voice saying, “look aunt mssnvrnchtngsmttl!” And he had a little wooden train signal from a train set and had wrapped his scrotum around it, just because, and wanted to show me his efforts, because otherwise, what’s the point? I forget what I said, because I was not good at this. Pretty sure he wasn’t scarred for life by my reaction, but definitely didn’t have your apparent composure.

    1. projectbeks +14

      …what happens when they hatch? Do I want to know? I probably don’t want to know.

    1. irishbreakfasttime +68

      “Mama, where do babies come from?”
      [shows child #4] “Well, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, they give the local blacksmith a pound of flesh apiece and she forges it into a child. She only requires a fancy snood for payment!”
      [child backs out of room whimpering]

      1. Raney

        And that’s why mommies are so fat right before they have a baby. They are storing up extra flesh in their tummies!

    2. Currer_Belle +65

      Never in my life could I have guessed that this would be entitled “Nature Forging A Baby.”

      I did not read that painting correctly…

      1. Blanche de Shambles +49

        Yeah, I thought it would be something more along the lines of “Elizabeth Bathory Gives Up on the Virgin Blood, Says Fuck It, I’m Just Eating Babies Now.”

  7. RoseMarshmary +12

    I want to look into these artists’ minds at the moments they put these lines onto paper/vellum/whatever pigmented surface. Can that be my obscure superpower?

  8. sausagedog +20

    That last one, though. Illumination that a monk used as a napkin after a greasy lamb shank? Or screenshot from a horror movie as the satanic text begins to shift and morph before the protagonist’s very eyes?

  9. spillionaire +93

    #5 If ALL tampons had faces, people would look FORWARD to menstruation instead of complaining so much.

      1. spillionaire +28

        But you could collect and trade, and choose for use according to whim or mood!

        POSSIBILITIES = ENDLESS.

        1. irishbreakfasttime +100

          I just watched Mad Men last night and I am definitely envisioning this Draper pitch. “People don’t look FORWARD to periods. We need to redefine the terms, change the whole mood. Look to the future with a hopeful expression. Peggy, fill me in on what the hell menstruation is.”

    2. irishbreakfasttime +55

      those definitely look like the faces of tampons resigned to their fate. “Welp, Mom, you were right, shoulda stayed in law school. Whaddya gonna do, though.”

  11. smeesmeesmee +17

    Jesus. The right-hand cocoon baby. So pale and scary. I mean, they’re both scary – two upright cocoon babies looking weird, sure. But for some reason when my eye scanned right and saw the super pale one I jumped a bit.

      1. smeesmeesmee +12

        THANK YOU! That’s calmed me down a bit. I am afraid I find it hard to feel sorry for paleface even though now I know they’re anaemic as does anaemia also make your eyes totally black like I imagine a demon’s eyes to look I don’t think so.

        1. Site_for_Soris +7

          I think I also read somewhere (when I fell down the twin-to-twin transfusion rabbithole) that also before anyone knew this was a thing, some (european) people thought the sickly twin was cursed or possessed and would leave it to die D:

      2. Isua +11

        My twins were born looking like this, and it kind of helped us tell them apart for a month or two. (The OB told me “there were no signs of twin-to-twin transfusion” and the NICU nurses were all like “oh they totally had it, duh.” I believe the nurses.)

  13. irishbreakfasttime +19

    The ginormous sword in the last one, tho. I’m picturing the king-looking guy as a judge in a reality cooking show, berating the dude in green for clearly not having the proper cutlery for precision baby-slicing. “And, frankly, your presentation is crap. Where’s my plate? Am I just supposed to jab my oversized fork in randomly while you swing it around by the leg? Christ, at least throw some fresh herbs on that thing to pretty it up a little.”

    3. Blanche de Shambles +9

      I figured it was just one of those Brazilian or Argentine restaurants where all the waiters dress like gauchos and slice meat off skewers for you at your table.

  14. Es_Petal +72

    !) That is indeed a marriage material horse though.
    2) Nobody wants a dirty deer, which means you have to wash them.

    1. projectbeks +10

      “Doctor McCoy, would you care to assist me in performing surgery on a torpedo?”
      “Fascinating!”

  17. wallofillusion +41

    Is number 8 what happens when the bedbird puts you to bed? Or is it what happens if the bedbird isn’t taking care of you??

  18. decembrian +30

    The babies in #2 fight dirty. Penis-pinching AND hair-pulling? I fully expect one of them ended the fight with an eye gouge.

    1. Rillquiet +93

      Don’t worry if you can’t see them. It’s okay. Nothing to worry about. They can see you juuust fine.

    2. cleoreads +4

      I was going to ask the same thing. I’m on my phone – maybe looking at it on a bigger screen will help, maybe it will just scar me.

    3. lundelizabeth +2

      I’ve been staring at it for five minutes. I think…there’s a painted out kid in the black dress lady’s dress?

  20. Owl Queen +90

    Wow, that woman hammering the baby. It must be really stressful having to forge new babies, all while keeping your hair so flowing. And look at all the babies she still has to forge!

    Historical baby-forger really has it more together than me.

    1. deleted182847 +28

      The secrets of Valyrian babies were lost in the great Doom.

      “Mark VII! Mark VII! Mark VII, dammit!”

    2. badmuthahydra +31

      Yes, but it’s still infinitely preferable to the way we do it now.

      I’d take arm cramps over potential fistulas any day.

    3. irishbreakfasttime +44

      I don’t want to concern troll her or anything but all that flowing hair has got to be an occupational hazard in an open-flame environment like that baby forge.

  22. catmanscrothers +29

    Also this is esp. great if you read it in Cecil Baldwin as Cecil Palmer’s drawn-out and totally unconvincing “everything is fiiiiiiiine you guys?!” voice

  23. HotDoom +32

    I feeeel liiiiike…as cool as dressing as Nature forging babies would be for Halloween, it might possibly go over the wrong way. Maybe, who knows, I don’t know.

    1. damanoid +51

      I’m pretty sure none of these images depict actual human children with souls.

      “It’s just us, your beloved twin babies, playing around, adorably nude. We’re done playing dick tag and are now larking about with blackjacks. This is a thing baby children do, yes? No? You seem concerned, Mother. Should we not be speaking in unison with a voice like a nest of wasps? It is merely a phase, we assure you. Let us comfort you. Let us comfort you.”

  26. nicoledieker +50

    When I was in elementary school I drew a picture of Romulus and Remus wrestling for a class assignment, and a couple of the other kids said “it looks like they’re having sex!” and I didn’t really know what sex looked like so I was very embarrassed.

    I think that’s what happened to our baby-wrestling artists here, too.

    1. leslieellenjones +8

      I think it’s more likely that they know what sex looks like, but have no experience of human babies. At all.

    2. MsNorrisTWagner +66

      Does… does sex not look like wrestling? Have I been doing it all wrong?

      I suppose now you’re going to tell me that it doesn’t involve nursing from a wolf.

  27. Rosie +12

    is it possible that a couple of these are death portraits – a totally common and VERY NORMAL practice of dressing your baby up and having its portrait done after it died (which was sadly actually pretty normal)?

  28. Social +63

    The next relative who asks if I’m ever going to have kids is receiving this article.

  29. builtahouse +32

    If the babies in #5 can be that chill about being physics-defying lace burritos, then I can get through today at work. Good on you, babies. #tinywizenedsages

  30. rookstone +12

    It’s snowing and April is nearly over. Right now I kind of wish somebody would wrap me up in one of those awesomely sarcophagus-like swaddling getups so I could be all toasty warm and have a great excuse to not do anything because oh no my hands are inside my sarcophagus blanky.

    …that’s normal, right?

  33. winterbymorning +54

    Surprisingly, I really like #1 because it looks like both halves of one of those “Spot the 10 differences between the 2 pictures!” games in newspapers. The woman on the right has rubies on her choker, while the woman on the left has pearls. The woman on the left is holding a real baby, while the woman on the right is holding an eldritch abomination that has temporarily assumed a human (or human-esque) form.

  34. BlancheDuBois +12

    So… we’re just *not* gonna talk about the muscular, blond baby-fight in #7? I mean, if I was as muscular as those babies, I wouldn’t wear clothes to my fights either… but still, its a little disconcerting.

  38. ifsolitude

    I've been staring at it for five minutes. I think…there's a painted out kid in the black dress lady's dress?