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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: That means it's time to go into that old vault.

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Speaker 1: So what are we busting out today or Robert, Oh,

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Speaker 1: we're busting out some Christmas content? Is this Christmas? It's

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Speaker 1: the Nativity? Right? Yeah? You know, we get into holiday

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Speaker 1: holiday the holiday season here, and I'm I'm not the

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Speaker 1: I'm not a full blown grinch, but I'm not the

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Speaker 1: biggest holiday enthusiast these days. But that doesn't mean we

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Speaker 1: don't have a few choice holiday episodes to refer to.

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Speaker 1: And our most recent holiday episode, there was a whole

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Speaker 1: lot of fun, was Baby Jesus and the Homunculus. So

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Speaker 1: this is the episode where we talked about all those

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Speaker 1: paintings where Baby Jesus is like this tiny adult man

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Speaker 1: who's royd ripped. Yes, yeah, or just it just it

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Speaker 1: gets into a lot of it's a fair amount of

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Speaker 1: like art history in this episode and just finding humor

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Speaker 1: and at times grotesque or other worldly babies and what

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Speaker 1: it says about how people of the past thought about

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Speaker 1: children in some of the cases, oh and thought about

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Speaker 1: thought about reproduction, human reproduction, and how that exactly came about.

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Speaker 1: We talked about the sperm mists and the ovists and

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Speaker 1: all that. Yeah. So it's a fun one, a little

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Speaker 1: bit of holiday cheer, a little Baby Jesus, a little

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Speaker 1: uh weird and generally incorrect hypotheses about the new workings

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Speaker 1: of human reproduction. I don't did we already say when

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Speaker 1: this original yeared? I don't remember if we didn't, it

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Speaker 1: was December. Yeah, so last Christmas season. All right, so

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Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed Baby Jesus and the Homunculus. Hi,

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Speaker 1: I'm here to see the baby. Oh you mean the

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Speaker 1: child whose birth was foretold in the stars. Uh well yeah,

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Speaker 1: there was this angel that told me to come. An angel, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: big winged fella made out of fire and light and

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Speaker 1: all these like spinning wheels and stuff. Oh of course, yes,

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Speaker 1: Well step right this way. Just we should warn you

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Speaker 1: be prepared. Oh, no, worries that I've been around babies before,

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Speaker 1: I got two of my own. I'll keep quiet. No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: you don't understand. This is a special infant. It looks different.

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Speaker 1: Oh ugly baby, don't worry, I got it. I know

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Speaker 1: how to respond, what to say what not to say.

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Speaker 1: I don't think you do, know, my friend, this baby

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Speaker 1: is unlike anything I've seen before in my travels in

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Speaker 1: the far East to the far West. It is unusual. Well,

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Speaker 1: now I really want to see this baby. Let's do this. Well,

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Speaker 1: you should take a moment to prepare your so Jesus,

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Speaker 1: yes that is his name. He looks like a tiny

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Speaker 1: old man, and not in the way that he's supposed

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Speaker 1: to look like a tiny old man. He looks like

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Speaker 1: a miniature old man with are those abs? Yes they are,

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Speaker 1: And we're all a bit confused about the blonde hair

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Speaker 1: like I'm only now noticing that there's a disk of

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Speaker 1: cosmic radiance surrounding his head because I'm distracted by the

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Speaker 1: fact that he looks like a miniature old man with

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Speaker 1: wood muscles. Strange, isn't it. Oh, he's looking this way.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to blow your mind from how stuff

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Speaker 1: weren't dot com? Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. And hey,

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Speaker 1: it being right around the Christmas season for for these

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Speaker 1: Christmas celebrating cultures all over the place, that we should

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Speaker 1: ask you to do a little thought experiment going through

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Speaker 1: the history of art in depiction of the Christian Nativity scene,

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Speaker 1: and maybe Jesus, imagine you're one of those shepherds or

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Speaker 1: wise men or farm animals or other assembled masses on

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Speaker 1: the premises in the Nativity scene. So you're there in

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Speaker 1: the barn and the major and there's the baby. But

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Speaker 1: the baby doesn't look right, indeed, and it doesn't look

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Speaker 1: right in a way that is is quite unsettling. It

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Speaker 1: looks like a like a tiny adult. Yeah, Mary is there,

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Speaker 1: Joseph's looking on sometimes depending on the painting, and she's

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Speaker 1: got the baby in her arms or on her lap

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Speaker 1: or or in the manger. But no matter what, the

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Speaker 1: baby kind of looks like Alan Arkin. Yeah, the christ

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Speaker 1: Child often does in some of these these paintings that

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be discussing here today. Or Philip Seymour Hoffman, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a little bit of Philip Seymore Hoffman. Sometimes they catch

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Speaker 1: a little bit of Vladimir Putin in there. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's you've got a baby putin sometimes, or sometimes the

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Speaker 1: christ Child looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes, yeah, this uh,

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Speaker 1: this is the case. If if you look at a

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Speaker 1: lot of medieval art and even early Renaissance art, you'll

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Speaker 1: see these depictions of the Christ Child that are a

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Speaker 1: little jarring, especially if you're used to more modern interpretations

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Speaker 1: of a baby in a manger, and and that in

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Speaker 1: includes like actual live nativity scenes where you have an

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Speaker 1: actual infant standing in for the Christ Child. This is

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Speaker 1: something that I imagine a number of our listeners out

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Speaker 1: there have picked up on of late, because there are

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Speaker 1: these articles, these sort of galleries that make the rounds

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Speaker 1: on social media, often with titles like ugly Renaissance babies

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Speaker 1: or Renaissance um babies and Renaissance paintings that can't even

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Speaker 1: I think that was a title of one that gave

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Speaker 1: me a chuckle a while back. Roll will just be

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Speaker 1: this bird, yeah, very buzzfeedy, very clicky, and it'll be

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Speaker 1: this just barrage of indeed strange looking babies. Now, babies

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Speaker 1: are strange looking anyway, but on top of that, you

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Speaker 1: do have all of these like odd poses, these odd

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Speaker 1: facial expressions, the odd just morphology of the Christ Child,

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Speaker 1: sometimes involving like what appears to be male pattern baldness

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Speaker 1: or muscles like adults, muscles like something out the Statue

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Speaker 1: of Apollo, and it's it's a little confusing, especially considering

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Speaker 1: that's you know, sometimes these are in older medieval works

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Speaker 1: where there's a certain abstraction to the to just how

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Speaker 1: that the human form itself is displayed. But other times

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Speaker 1: it's clearly a work of high craftsmanship, of high artistry.

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Speaker 1: And yet the baby the center of the picture, that

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Speaker 1: really the most important figure in in Christian traditions. There's

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Speaker 1: something off about it, and if you really begin to

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Speaker 1: think about it and try to tease it apart, it's

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Speaker 1: it's initially difficult to figure out why why would this

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Speaker 1: one thing be so off? Yeah, So we wanted to

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Speaker 1: talk today about the artistic traditions of depicting the Christ Child,

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Speaker 1: specifically the baby in the manger, but also babies in

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Speaker 1: general throughout medieval art and Renaissance art. Anybody who would

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Speaker 1: be having occasion to draw the Nativity or to draw

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Speaker 1: the Virgin Mary and the in the Christ child in

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Speaker 1: her arms. Uh, And why so often you get a

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Speaker 1: little odd aliens with wide eyes gazing up to the

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Speaker 1: mother ship, or why you get creepy old men with

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Speaker 1: like long slender limbs, or babies that seem to be

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Speaker 1: maybe growing a five o'clock shadow. Some of these even

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Speaker 1: remind me of the Island of Dr Moreau, the version

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Speaker 1: with Marlon Brando. Um, if you recall, he had what

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Speaker 1: would later become known as a mini me and some

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Speaker 1: of the christ Child that you encounter in uh in

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Speaker 1: medieval art to have that kind of appearance. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: so what we're picking up on is our instinctual ideas

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Speaker 1: about what babies are supposed to look like. And we

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Speaker 1: we've talked about this in recent episodes. Actually we talked

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Speaker 1: about it in our Cuteness and Monstrosity episode back in October. UM.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, there are these basic features that you see

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Speaker 1: as the most common morphology is associated with babies, and

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Speaker 1: it's been hypothesized that certain types of features sort of

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Speaker 1: set off our cuteness detectors, that like, we see a

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Speaker 1: creature of a certain kind of shape and it makes

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Speaker 1: us go, ah, I want to take care of that thing.

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Speaker 1: And so some of these commonly understood shapes would be

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Speaker 1: like a large head and like a large forehead, or

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Speaker 1: what's known as the predominance of the brain capsule, large

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Speaker 1: low lying eyes, so the eyes are sort of low

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Speaker 1: set on the face and their big, bulging cheeks, short, thick,

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Speaker 1: kind of stubby arms and legs, a springy or elastic consistency.

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Speaker 1: So something that looks kind of soft and maybe not

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Speaker 1: covered in really hard muscles and clumsy movements is the

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Speaker 1: final one. I guess that would come through more in

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Speaker 1: in real life movement, though you can sometimes communicate grace

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Speaker 1: or clumsiness in poses, and a lot of these Baby

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Speaker 1: jesus Is in these paintings do appear very graceful in

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Speaker 1: their movements. Yeah, you see the sort of a regal demeanor.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes they're brandishing a scepter or or a parrot. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then on top of that, many of these features

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Speaker 1: that we've already touched on, they look like miniature adult

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Speaker 1: humans in their proportioned that way, slender arms and legs,

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Speaker 1: or the baby has appeared appears to have what it

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Speaker 1: may be male pattern baldness, painfully thin or overly muscular,

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Speaker 1: and like some of these are seriously musculary. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: like like powerlifter muscular. You look at them and you

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Speaker 1: you you may immediately ask, did they ever see a baby?

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Speaker 1: Did they know what a baby look like? You mean?

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Speaker 1: The artists, yes, the artist baby in the painting. Did

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Speaker 1: they just say, well, I guess it was like a

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Speaker 1: smaller version of Michael Angelo's David. That's clearly what an

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Speaker 1: infant would consist of. So what was causing all of

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Speaker 1: these painters and sculptors and people to represent babies in

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Speaker 1: a way that so thoroughly violates our instinctual categories of

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Speaker 1: what babies look like and how they're shaped. Well, that

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Speaker 1: is the discussion for today, and it's really it's really

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Speaker 1: I think it's a surprisingly broad discussion because it's we're

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Speaker 1: gonna end up drawing in not only art history and

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Speaker 1: medieval history, but also a fair amount of Christian theology,

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Speaker 1: uh scientific attempts to understand what's happening with human reproduction.

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Speaker 1: It's one of these excellent topics where you have just

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Speaker 1: this convergence of several different disciplines and hopefully that in

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Speaker 1: the end this is going to be an episode that

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Speaker 1: alchemist and biologist alike can get into. Christians and non Christians,

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Speaker 1: art historians and precious moments figuring collectors. You're all going

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Speaker 1: to be uh united in this exploration of weird baby

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Speaker 1: Jesus is in art? All right, Well, I think maybe

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Speaker 1: we should take a quick break and when we come

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Speaker 1: back we will explore this question further. Thank Thank Alright,

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Speaker 1: we're back. So before we go into any further, let's

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Speaker 1: just talk about the time frame here. We're largely talking

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Speaker 1: about a popular style within medieval European artistic traditions that

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Speaker 1: give way a too more realistic depictions of children and

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Speaker 1: the Christ Child during the Renaissance, but not always perfectly realistic. Right,

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Speaker 1: So I would say, you can correct me if you disagree,

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Speaker 1: but the main thing we see is in the medieval

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Speaker 1: period you're going to have babies and baby Jesus is

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Speaker 1: that don't look anything like babies, look like creepy old men,

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Speaker 1: or look like aliens. And then going into the Renaissance,

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Speaker 1: you're going to get things that start to look a

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Speaker 1: little bit more realistic and less like strange aliens and

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Speaker 1: creepy old men, but more just sort of like super

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Speaker 1: muscular nude babies. Yeah, it's a it's a gradual process,

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Speaker 1: this uh, this transformation that takes hold over over the

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Speaker 1: Christ Child in art, and it's not gonna happen. There's

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Speaker 1: not like a firm timeline across all areas and all artists.

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Speaker 1: It is. It is a shift in artistic traditions and

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Speaker 1: therefore it's not going to happen, um, you know, like clockwork.

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Speaker 1: But speaking of clockwork, just to assign rough boundaries to

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Speaker 1: these time periods, the Middle Ages are generally said to

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Speaker 1: stretch from the fifth century to the fifteenth century, from

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Speaker 1: the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the dawn

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Speaker 1: of the Renaissance. And the Renaissance begins in Florence, Italy

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Speaker 1: in the fourteenth century and kind of extends out from there.

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Speaker 1: But as phil Edwards put it in a Vox article

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Speaker 1: that he wrote, well why babies and medieval paintings look

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Speaker 1: like ugly old men? He says that there there are

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Speaker 1: holes in the Renaissance. Uh. And I think this jives

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Speaker 1: with our modern experience of creative trends, right, Like, the

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Speaker 1: Renaissance is not gonna pick up everywhere at once. Uh,

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Speaker 1: It's going to pick up in certain areas, certain places

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Speaker 1: that are perhaps more progressive, and then it's going to

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Speaker 1: steadily leak into these other portions of Europe. Well, things

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Speaker 1: don't pick up everywhere at once now on Earth and

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Speaker 1: we have the Internet, I mean, they didn't have anything

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Speaker 1: like the Internet. And then so if you're if you're

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Speaker 1: talking about expansion of learning and techniques and artistic styles changing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's gonna take hundreds of years. Yeah. For instance, we

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Speaker 1: have electronic music now and we've had it for decades,

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Speaker 1: and yet I'm still hearing classical scores from motion pictures.

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Speaker 1: It's disgusting. What's up with that? So you just want

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Speaker 1: to Windy Carlos everything into the future, Tangerine Dream, Windy Carlos.

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Speaker 1: Um Uh, that's what I want in all of my films.

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Speaker 1: Anything less is disappointing. Okay, So we're gonna look at

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Speaker 1: a few examples of paintings. Well, it's it's gonna be

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Speaker 1: hard to look at them during the podcast, I guess.

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Speaker 1: But I'm gonna create an accompanying page it's stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com that includes many of the

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Speaker 1: paintings we're discussing here today, so you can get an

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Speaker 1: idea about what we're talking about here. Well, should we

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Speaker 1: at least try to describe a couple of them, Sure,

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Speaker 1: let's do it. So the first one we're gonna talk

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Speaker 1: about is from twelve thirty, so this is thoroughly medieval

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Speaker 1: period before the Renaissance. Yeah, and the artist is one

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Speaker 1: barone barreling here and it's titled Madonna and Child, and

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Speaker 1: it is a picture of the Madonna, the Virgin Mary,

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Speaker 1: and the Christ. I'd say they both look like aliens.

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Speaker 1: They have extremely extremely elongated faces with a very very

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Speaker 1: long noses, um like not noses as it not long

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Speaker 1: as in poking out from the face, but extending way

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Speaker 1: way down along the length of the face. Yeah. It

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Speaker 1: has uh, it has what you would probably call like

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Speaker 1: Byzantine aesthetics to it. And the child, I thought, the

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Speaker 1: child kind of looks like Peter Capaldi or perhaps Harold Ramos.

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Speaker 1: I sort of see a an art Garfunkle from Metal Luna,

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Speaker 1: you know, the planet Exeter is from. In this island

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Speaker 1: Earth And he said, why is he holding a stick

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Speaker 1: of dynamite? Is that a scepter or a skirt supposed

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Speaker 1: to be a scepter. The child does have a very

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Speaker 1: regal air to them. This is this is a child

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Speaker 1: that is probably going a christ child that is going

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Speaker 1: to speak to you as an adult, or at least

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Speaker 1: that's what you get from this this particular image, and

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Speaker 1: send you instructions for an interocitory. Now the next image

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Speaker 1: I'm still trying to track down the the the actual

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Speaker 1: time and artist on but I'll try and included on

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Speaker 1: the page and then you can refer back to it.

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Speaker 1: But in this one we see another sort of alien

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Speaker 1: looking Serene Mary, this time with kind of halo behind

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Speaker 1: her head and she is holding a christ child that

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Speaker 1: also has a halo around his head. Mary looks like

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Speaker 1: the alien for Mac and me, and the baby just

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Speaker 1: is straight up David Gergen. Can you can you describe

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Speaker 1: who David Gergen is? David Gergan. He's an American political consultant.

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Speaker 1: I think he worked for Nixon and for Bill Clinton maybe,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, he's just got a he got a kind

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Speaker 1: of distinctive face, and the baby looks like him. Yes,

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Speaker 1: a very mature face to say the least. Yeah. Now

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Speaker 1: the next image we're gonna discuss you. This is the

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Speaker 1: one that really captured me the most for a number

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Speaker 1: of reasons. It's a work by the Dutch master Martin

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Speaker 1: van Himskrek and this guy live through fifteen seventy four,

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Speaker 1: so this is this is the This is very much

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Speaker 1: an an Early Renaissance guy here with with with clear

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Speaker 1: Early Renaissance artistic skills like it is a beautiful painting

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Speaker 1: titled St. St. Luke painting the Virgin. It is a

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Speaker 1: depiction of of a sort of a legendary tale that

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Speaker 1: takes hold and is in his repeated numerous times and

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Speaker 1: artistic traditions in which the when which Luke, the biblical

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Speaker 1: Luke paints picked a painting of Mary and the Christ Child.

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Speaker 1: Is this supposed to be the author of the Gospel

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Speaker 1: of Luke? Yes, okay. One thing you will immediately notice

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Speaker 1: once you start getting into the Renaissance period paintings is

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Speaker 1: that they look not exactly realistic, but much much more

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Speaker 1: realistic than the medieval paintings. Robert I was making this

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Speaker 1: comparison earlier, and I wonder what you've been thinking about it.

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Speaker 1: When I see medieval European artwork, I often think of

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Speaker 1: it as being somewhat similar to modern political cartoons, and

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Speaker 1: that there's really no effort to achieve realism of any kind.

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Speaker 1: You're not trying to render a photo realistic person or

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Speaker 1: get the details and proportions of the human body right.

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Speaker 1: People have sort of exaggerated features that almost look as

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Speaker 1: if they are designed to indicate certain symbolic things about

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Speaker 1: the people. And that I get that feeling because like

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Speaker 1: in political cartoons, people aren't really meant to literally embody people,

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Speaker 1: but usually embody a concept. So like in a political cartoon,

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Speaker 1: you'd have like a guy in a suit with like

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Speaker 1: a you know, like a big crazy looking face, and

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Speaker 1: he's he's just got a label on him that says

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Speaker 1: like taxes. And medieval artwork seems a lot like that

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Speaker 1: to me, Like a character depicted often seems to embody

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Speaker 1: a virtue or embody a sin, or embody some of

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Speaker 1: their kind of abstract idea. Yeah, I thought about this

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Speaker 1: a lot when we were reading this. Is it relates

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Speaker 1: to monstrosity because we see so many wonderful monstrosities in

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Speaker 1: medieval artistic traditions, and sometimes they involve Christ as well.

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Speaker 1: There's this I was showing you a few of these

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Speaker 1: images before we went in here. But you have these

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Speaker 1: occasional depictions either of Christ with three faces or three heads,

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Speaker 1: or depictions of the Holy Trinity. The idea that you

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Speaker 1: have God, h and Jesus and the Holy Spirit all

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Speaker 1: is one united thing. You have it displayed as a

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Speaker 1: three headed sort of a three headed Angel or a

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Speaker 1: three headed Christ. And if you look at this is

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Speaker 1: certainly from her modern perspective, it seems a little weird,

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Speaker 1: it seems potentially blasphemous. Uh. And yet and yet you

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Speaker 1: have to put yourself in the mind of someone trying

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Speaker 1: to convey a complex theological um uh model to someone

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Speaker 1: using only visuals. How would you do that? Way? You

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Speaker 1: just draw Christ with three faces? Yeah, I think that's

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Speaker 1: a good point. There's like another way in which we

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Speaker 1: see that. Apparently realism did not seem to be a

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Speaker 1: highly prized aspect of of representation of people in medieval artworks,

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Speaker 1: in medieval European artworks, which brings us back to this

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Speaker 1: this painting by Martin von Helmskirk, which is highly detailed.

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Speaker 1: It is a it is a beautiful image. You're gonna

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Speaker 1: have to definitely look at this on the page that

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Speaker 1: I build. But at the same time, if we we're

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Speaker 1: gonna compare it to two other things like what this

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Speaker 1: makes me think about and images like this make me

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Speaker 1: think about our scenes and movies that are so well shot,

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Speaker 1: so like insanely shot, that it throws you out of

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Speaker 1: the viewing experience. Um, maybe it will be some experimental

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Speaker 1: director or some sort of shot where they had to

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Speaker 1: digitally remove the you know, the camera or the set

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Speaker 1: to make it work where you're just thrown out of

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Speaker 1: the movie because you're thinking, Wow, how did they shoot this?

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Speaker 1: This is just a technical marvel, And then you don't

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Speaker 1: you're not even paying attention to what the characters are doing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can think about that in multiple directions. I don't

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Speaker 1: love movies with a lot of c g I action

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Speaker 1: in them because I I stop, it stops feeling real

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Speaker 1: to me. But you could go in the other direction.

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Speaker 1: You don't even have to use a lot of c

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Speaker 1: g I. You might think about like Terrence Malick films

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Speaker 1: or something where uh, there's just gonna be a whole

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Speaker 1: lot of extremely beautiful, kind of perfect photography in them,

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Speaker 1: and that can sometimes tend to take you out of

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Speaker 1: the narrative because you just sort of like zone out

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Speaker 1: looking at it and then sometimes thinking critically about it,

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Speaker 1: like wow that you know what, what were the what

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Speaker 1: were they doing with this shot? I have the same

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Speaker 1: experience with with super long shots in a film, like

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Speaker 1: there seems to be a cut off where where a

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Speaker 1: long shot ceases to be just like a seamless experience

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Speaker 1: of the movie, and you start freaking out and realize,

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Speaker 1: oh my goodness, we're still in the same shot. How

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Speaker 1: did they do this? Stop it, stop shooting, shooting, because

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Speaker 1: you're this is must be costing a fortune. Now there's

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Speaker 1: been hyms Kirk painting here. It is beautiful and it

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Speaker 1: does seem realistic in a lot of ways, but the

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Speaker 1: baby Jesus in it is messed up. He is a

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Speaker 1: beefy grimlin power lift and not just so. He's super

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Speaker 1: ripped with muscles all over and has adult human man proportions.

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Speaker 1: Does not have that you know, large baby head and

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Speaker 1: stubby legs. He's got ripped muscle the arms and legs.

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Speaker 1: And he's also doing this pose that's like this Donkey

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Speaker 1: Kong pose, you know, where he's like stomping with one

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Speaker 1: leg up and down. He looks like he is like

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Speaker 1: in a roid rage against Mary. And it's it's notable

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Speaker 1: too that there is an angel standing in the background

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Speaker 1: lighting the painting, like a winged humanoid, and we're not

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Speaker 1: even talking about that. We're talking about the baby as

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Speaker 1: being the most unrealistic portion of of the of the painting.

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Speaker 1: But to come back to the theme in a different

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Speaker 1: way than the medieval artwork, this just seems like if

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Speaker 1: somebody painted this now it would come off as a

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Speaker 1: deliberate act of blasphemy. You know, it would look like

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Speaker 1: somebody was trying to make fun of the baby Jesus

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Speaker 1: in some way. But no, I mean this, this appears

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Speaker 1: to be genuine wine Reverend artwork. Uh. And so why

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Speaker 1: why would they do that with all the muscles? I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's especially noteworthy in the work of Holmes, correct, because

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Speaker 1: you see some other paintings that he did. He did

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Speaker 1: a subsequent painting of of St. Luke painting the Virgin

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Speaker 1: Mary and the Baby, and it's it's notable for a

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Speaker 1: number of reasons. For starters, the baby is less ridiculous,

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Speaker 1: but also still fairly muscular and has a parent on

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Speaker 1: one hand. Also, you see in the in the foreground

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Speaker 1: there is a book that is apparently supposed to be uh,

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Speaker 1: a notable anatomy textbook. In the background there is somebody

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Speaker 1: dissecting a corpse so that they can better create sculptures

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Speaker 1: of the human body. So the painting itself is kind

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Speaker 1: of about the insane level of detail that goes into

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Speaker 1: depicting the human form and paintings, and about how you

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Speaker 1: rely upon the work of Galen and and uh another

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Speaker 1: anatomia us how you're you're looking at the classical sculpture

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Speaker 1: as the model and the ideal human form, and yet

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Speaker 1: the child is still this thing that is in a

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Speaker 1: state of flux, that is somehow outside of this new

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Speaker 1: artistic tradition. Yeah, the child doesn't look as as crazy

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Speaker 1: as he did in the other painting, but he's still

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Speaker 1: got monstrously muscled legs. It looks like he he reminds

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Speaker 1: me his legs look like those um uh, those Belgian

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Speaker 1: blue cattle, you know, the ones where they have all

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Speaker 1: that like the double muscles that they've been bred for.

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Speaker 1: And it looks like somebody stuffed a bunch of bean

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Speaker 1: bags under their skin. Yeah, I think I think that's apt.

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Speaker 1: It's still a very very muscular baby. And and the

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Speaker 1: thing is, you can look at other paintings that that

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Speaker 1: him's correct did. For instance, he did a fifteen thirty

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Speaker 1: two painting of a family, a family portrait, and it's

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Speaker 1: just uh, you know, a mom and dad, uh, two

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Speaker 1: young children and then an infant. And the infant's still

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Speaker 1: a little on the muscular side. But but would not

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Speaker 1: instantly throw you off if you just solve this on

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Speaker 1: a on a wall in a museum. You wouldn't freak

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Speaker 1: out and say, ah, muscle baby, what's going on? You

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Speaker 1: would just say, oh, well, there's another portrait of a family.

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Speaker 1: Looks a little bit like Louie Anderson. But okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but but in the in the appropriate way that all

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Speaker 1: babies should look kind of like Louis Anderson. Yeah, alright,

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Speaker 1: so let's start taking this apart and figuring out what's

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Speaker 1: going on here. So for starters, this obviously wasn't simply

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Speaker 1: a case of artists didn't learn how to draw babies

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Speaker 1: till later. Right, People all over the world, in different

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Speaker 1: cultures have learned different ways of representing the human body

428
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:42,120
Speaker 1: throughout history, and there have been methods before the medieval

429
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:46,160
Speaker 1: European art traditions that were much more photo realistic. Yeah,

430
00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:48,720
Speaker 1: so you know, we have to think about style, the

431
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 1: artistic intention, but also about the subject matter itself. Uh

432
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 1: So we have to to ground artistic depictions of infants

433
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 1: within the framework of the time. How did denizens of

434
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:01,919
Speaker 1: the Middle Age a his view babies. Well, that's a

435
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:04,439
Speaker 1: good question, and it turns out that is something that

436
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 1: has undergone a decent amount of controversy over the years. Yeah,

437
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:13,000
Speaker 1: for starters, I mentioned that Vox article earlier by Phil Edwards,

438
00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:16,720
Speaker 1: and in it he speaks with Matthew Averett, an art

439
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:20,719
Speaker 1: history professor at Crichton University an editor of the anthology

440
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:24,000
Speaker 1: The Early Modern Child in Art in History and Uh.

441
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:27,440
Speaker 1: He points out that medieval paintings were typically commissioned by churches,

442
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: which meant that any painting of a baby was most

443
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 1: likely going to be the Baby Jesus, with some prominent

444
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: exceptions here and there, like it might be Moses or

445
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 1: John the Baptists, but generally you're if you're painting a

446
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: baby during this time, you're probably painting the Christ Child.

447
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 1: So when you see babies in medieval European artwork, you're

448
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: probably not getting so much a sense of what they

449
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:51,439
Speaker 1: thought of babies, but what they thought of the baby

450
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:54,640
Speaker 1: Jesus in particular, right, which is a much more We'll

451
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 1: get more into the theology of this question later, but

452
00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 1: but yeah, this is instantly more complicated than just see

453
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:02,679
Speaker 1: that that drooping infant over there, draw that infant as

454
00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 1: it looks now. Now, we did mention the idea that

455
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: medieval artists were less interested in realistic depictions than artists

456
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:13,680
Speaker 1: of many other times and places right, right, Yeah, it's

457
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: only later that it's particularly the Renaissance, that people became

458
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 1: interested in naturalism and idealized forms and looking back to

459
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:24,439
Speaker 1: these classical statues as a model. Everett sort of refers

460
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: to medieval artwork as a kind of expressionism. Right. It

461
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,280
Speaker 1: doesn't usually get put that way in the literature, but

462
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: thinks about it as the forms are expressing ideas and

463
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 1: feelings more than they are like physical morphology. So it's

464
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:42,160
Speaker 1: less it's less about what did Christ look like as

465
00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:44,640
Speaker 1: a baby, and more like how should how should I

466
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 1: feel about the Christ? Job? How should I feel about

467
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 1: the birth of Christ in this story? Now up to

468
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 1: this point, if that's all you know, you still might

469
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 1: be a little bit confused, because you'd be like, okay,

470
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 1: so why am I seeing a little Alan Arkin with

471
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:01,520
Speaker 1: muscles or something. We'll get back to that in a minute.

472
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:03,159
Speaker 1: So I followed up and went to this book that

473
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: was edited by Matthew Averite, the called The Early Modern

474
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 1: Child in Art and History, published by Rutledge in and

475
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 1: Everitt wrote the intro chapter on this book, and I thought, hey,

476
00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 1: he had some interesting things to say about the artistic

477
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 1: traditions of representing children and babies. His intro chapter focuses

478
00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:24,919
Speaker 1: a lot on updating and critiquing this foundational work in

479
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:30,640
Speaker 1: the field of of medieval ideas about children and artistic

480
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 1: representations of children. And that was a nineteen sixty book

481
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:37,880
Speaker 1: about children in history by the historian Philippe Aries. Now,

482
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: Renaissance Europe was a place and a time at which

483
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,439
Speaker 1: children were a huge portion of the population. It's been

484
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: estimated that in Italian cities during the Renaissance up to

485
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:52,560
Speaker 1: half of the population was under fifteen years old. I mean,

486
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: think about that. But Aries believed that in the Middle

487
00:27:56,119 --> 00:28:02,000
Speaker 1: Ages in Europe, childhood did not really exist as a concept. So,

488
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:06,879
Speaker 1: for Aries, his idea is that in medieval thought, childhood

489
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: did not exist as a meaningful stage of life, but

490
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:13,880
Speaker 1: was basically a mere transition period which was quickly passed

491
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 1: through and then forgotten. So for Aries, before the age

492
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:22,159
Speaker 1: of seven children were considered sort of miniature adults, and

493
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 1: then after the age of seven they were simply adults,

494
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: because at about the age of seven they would assume

495
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: adult roles in terms of labor and production. He also

496
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:33,439
Speaker 1: believed this was due to high mortality of infants and

497
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:37,320
Speaker 1: children in medieval Europe. Apparently they were just incredibly high

498
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 1: rates of exposure and abandonment of babies at the time,

499
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 1: And in summarizing areas work, Favorite writes that quote, children

500
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 1: appeared in medieval art, but as with the homunculous images

501
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 1: of Jesus, and we'll get to more about that in

502
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: a bit, children were portrayed as miniature adults because artists

503
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 1: and audiences had no conception of childhood and therefore would

504
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: not have been able to understand a child like Jesus. Now,

505
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: according to Arias, this began to change in the Renaissance,

506
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: when parents began to value childhood and childhood education as

507
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 1: distinct from adult education. A lot of this had to

508
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 1: do with changes in families, increases in marriages based on

509
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 1: love and the idea that you would you would nurture

510
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 1: a child and treat them specifically as a child, and

511
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 1: how you instructed them. Yeah, just really this more modern

512
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,280
Speaker 1: concept that the childhood is this bubble that should be

513
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 1: protected and maintained. You know that the world that you

514
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 1: present to your child is you know, maybe not completely

515
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 1: at odds with reality, but there are going to be

516
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 1: certain elements of reality that are that are more finely

517
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 1: edited than others. Yeah, Now, there might be some grains

518
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 1: of truth in what Area says, But beginning in about

519
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, scholars began to seriously diverge from Area's

520
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: view of childhood is essentially non existent or meaningless in

521
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: medieval European thought. Favorite disagrees with it too. He though

522
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 1: there are a lot of ways in which medieval and

523
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 1: early modern depictions of children and babies are substantially different

524
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: from one another, uh and from modern depictions. Of course,

525
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 1: a lot of this had to do with the purpose

526
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 1: of the art and what it was used for. Just

527
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 1: one example, Everitt says that strangely adult looking children in

528
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:22,280
Speaker 1: some early modern paintings might be indicative of the fact

529
00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: that sometimes these paintings were considered for children, sort of

530
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: showing them good examples. Quote. Parents and Renaissance Italy were

531
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: encouraged to have images of saintly children and virgins because

532
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: they set positive examples for children. So by analogy, you

533
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 1: might look at some of these muscly adult shaped children

534
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 1: and babies that might have been for the benefit of

535
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:48,719
Speaker 1: young kids who would look at them and say, I

536
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:52,320
Speaker 1: want to be that muscle baby. And likewise you could

537
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: see this being an expression of what the adults want

538
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 1: the child to be. I want you to be this strong,

539
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 1: regal and and and resilient individual. Yeah, but then also

540
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 1: it's informed by theological concepts, remembering that a lot of

541
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 1: these pictures of babies were supposed to be the baby

542
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 1: Jesus that might have been depicted just differently than other

543
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 1: babies would be. And you've got to think about, like, um,

544
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 1: who art was generally made for in both the Medieval

545
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 1: and the Renaissance periods. Yeah, you didn't see much in

546
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: the way of art, especially uh portraiture for the common

547
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 1: people or certainly for the poor. These were images for

548
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 1: the wealthy ruling classes that were These were pieces of

549
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 1: art for the church and again often displayed biblical scenes

550
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 1: or scenes of of of of importance within Christian tradition.

551
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: And then everyone was working within these artistic conventions. Like

552
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 1: you can imagine yourself as an artist at this time.

553
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 1: The church comes to you, they have a specific request,

554
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 1: they want a particular biblical scene recreated as a painting

555
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:58,360
Speaker 1: or some other medium, and then you have to follow

556
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 1: through on it. And they're like any client it they

557
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:04,720
Speaker 1: have certain uh ideas in mind, they have certain existing

558
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:07,480
Speaker 1: works in mind, so you're kind of forced, probably shoehorn

559
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: into creating something within that artistic tradition. There's not really

560
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 1: a lot of room to try exciting new things. And

561
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 1: and again you have to represent these various theological ideas

562
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 1: as well, or you're you're having to pick up on

563
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 1: existing connections that are made in the literature. For example,

564
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 1: I was reading from this book by Mary Design titled

565
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: The Quest for the Christ Child in the Later Middle Ages,

566
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 1: and she points out that you'll often encounter these encounter

567
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: these swaddled babies in medieval art that look very similar

568
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: to dead infants that are wrapped up in grave shrouds.

569
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 1: And this, she says, helps us appreciate why Christ frequently

570
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 1: appears in nativity scenes tightly swaddled and lying on a

571
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 1: quote block like almost tomblike manger. And I'll include an

572
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:57,719
Speaker 1: example of this on the the accompanying page for this episode,

573
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 1: because there's a wonderful piece for around a fourteen fifty four,

574
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: a German painting that displays this really dead looking Christ

575
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 1: child just wrapped up like a mommy with this very

576
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: vacant but believably infantile head. Yeah, it does have the

577
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:20,640
Speaker 1: baby proportions, right, Like, it's got the it's got the

578
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 1: chubby cheeks, and it's got the low set eyes, but

579
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: it also looks miserable and somewhat lifeless. Yeah, this is

580
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 1: the piece by Andrea Mantania. And indeed you look at

581
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 1: this and you say, oh, that poor baby, that poor

582
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 1: Christ child. He looks a bit out of it. He

583
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: looks miserable and and part of this is because you

584
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 1: had it was it was common in the in the

585
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 1: artistic traditions and in the literary traditions, to make this

586
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 1: connection between the death of Christ, between between Christ as

587
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: a corpse in the tomb prior to resurrection and the

588
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:55,640
Speaker 1: initial birth of the Christ child. It's almost like the

589
00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:59,200
Speaker 1: person of Christ in these medieval art works is not

590
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:03,320
Speaker 1: to be represented as Jesus would have been in that

591
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: scene in his life. What is sort of like loaded

592
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:09,839
Speaker 1: with all the significance of every story about him all

593
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: at once. Yeah. And this comes back to the again,

594
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: to that medieval idea, especially that that a painting is

595
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: not just an illustration, it is conveying some very important

596
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:26,840
Speaker 1: data about the subject. It is conveying theology to the viewer. Now, Dison,

597
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 1: she argues that just as God was a mystery to

598
00:34:29,200 --> 00:34:31,800
Speaker 1: medieval people, so too was the child. She touches on

599
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:35,760
Speaker 1: a lot of these discussions that we've alluded to already.

600
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 1: She points out that medieval historian David Herleigh he argued

601
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 1: that the emergence of a new urban economy in the

602
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:45,840
Speaker 1: later Middle Ages led to greater awareness and concern for children.

603
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 1: Not only this, but we came to idolize them as

604
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:51,840
Speaker 1: a coping mechanism for the stress of day to day life.

605
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:54,720
Speaker 1: So when times got tough, you thought like, oh, well,

606
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:57,280
Speaker 1: how great it is to be a child at play

607
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 1: despite all the plague. Yeah. And on top of this, though,

608
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 1: there's another another thing going on here, and that's that

609
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,439
Speaker 1: lay in. Religious people of the day all came to

610
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:12,439
Speaker 1: admire the childlike aspects of the Christ child. So it's

611
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 1: not just uh, you know, the theological dimensions that are

612
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:18,279
Speaker 1: important here to the Christ, but but but just the

613
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 1: idea that there's an innocence to the figure as well.

614
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:25,840
Speaker 1: So Design points out that some medieval commentators noted the

615
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:29,239
Speaker 1: childlike virtues of Jesus. And then you had the Cistercians

616
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 1: and the Franciscans both promoting devotion to the child Jesus,

617
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 1: though both aimed for a more more complex understanding of Christ,

618
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,760
Speaker 1: with sentimental childlike qualities kind of emerging as a byproduct.

619
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 1: So you have certainly had this older tradition where the

620
00:35:45,840 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 1: Christ child is depicted as an all knowing, all powerful

621
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: super baby. But then this new approach is uh is

622
00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:58,640
Speaker 1: leaning more into a realistically sentimental depiction of a young Jesus.

623
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:01,840
Speaker 1: Still designs stresses that there there are many categories for

624
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 1: late medieval depictions of the baby Jesus, and it's kind

625
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 1: of it would be disingenuous to say that you just

626
00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 1: had two types of infants. You didn't have just ugly

627
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:17,760
Speaker 1: babies and realistic babies, or just super babies and real babies.

628
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting to note all of the like, uh,

629
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 1: the sort of fractious theological potential in the idea of

630
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 1: the Christ child here, because the idea of the infant

631
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:32,240
Speaker 1: Christ gives rise to these contradictions where whether you believe

632
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:34,720
Speaker 1: in him as like an all knowing, all powerful super

633
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 1: baby or a normal baby, either one. I could see

634
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:41,760
Speaker 1: people adhering to either one of those positions and finding

635
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:44,799
Speaker 1: the other one blasphemous. Yeah, I mean, it's it's easy

636
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:47,359
Speaker 1: to take take this for granted, I guess growing up

637
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:51,400
Speaker 1: and within Christian traditions and just being bombarded with images

638
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:54,960
Speaker 1: of the Christ Child. But just imagine like all the

639
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:57,880
Speaker 1: potential questions you have, like, Okay, this is the this

640
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 1: is the Son of God, this is God in carnate

641
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:05,319
Speaker 1: come to earth to redeem humanity. So what is it

642
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 1: like as a baby? Is it? Is it smart and

643
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 1: man like and its behavior or is it pooping itself?

644
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 1: Is it? Is it puking? Is it doing all of these, um,

645
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 1: you know, at times of disturbing and gross things that

646
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:21,759
Speaker 1: an actual larvel humanoid would do. I'm sure. I mean

647
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:24,839
Speaker 1: this has been subject to theological debate. Yeah, but once

648
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 1: we're we're into the Renaissance. Here we have the middle

649
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:31,560
Speaker 1: class growing in power and wealth, and there's an increased

650
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:35,080
Speaker 1: demand for portraits. Plus there's an increased emphasis on recording

651
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 1: the world as it is rather than the expressionism of

652
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 1: the past. I think one of the great examples of this,

653
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 1: when we've discussed on the show before, is Peter Brugal

654
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:46,400
Speaker 1: the Elder, the sixteenth century Flemish artist whose paintings just

655
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 1: positively boil with depictions of contemporary and peasant life, even

656
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:54,279
Speaker 1: in religious works so busy. Yeah, but you can you

657
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: can look at them and it gives you some insight

658
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:59,720
Speaker 1: into what what was actually going on in the broader

659
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 1: world old and the world outside of the church and

660
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 1: its books and it's uh, it's artistic traditions. Now, I

661
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:08,080
Speaker 1: want to have throw in one more note about nudity

662
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:11,160
Speaker 1: here that I think is revealing the nudity of the

663
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 1: Christ child, because if you look at a lot of

664
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 1: these images of late medieval and Renaissance baby Jesus is

665
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 1: you'll often find that the baby is naked, and sometimes

666
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 1: the baby is like extremely naked with just like exposed

667
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: genitalia to the point where it seems like a lot

668
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:31,719
Speaker 1: of there was a lot of intent on making the

669
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: child as naked as possible, and indeed it does become

670
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: common and Renaissance art to see the infant Jesus depicted

671
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:42,799
Speaker 1: nude with visible genitalia. The late art historian Leo Steinberg

672
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:46,360
Speaker 1: theorized that it had to do with ongoing theological debates

673
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:50,799
Speaker 1: about the humanity or the transcendent divinity of Jesus, So

674
00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:54,040
Speaker 1: the nudity of the child and perhaps it's more realistic

675
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:57,359
Speaker 1: depiction in general in general is presented as proof of

676
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:00,120
Speaker 1: his humanity. So this is yet again an answer or

677
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 1: to a theological question. The idea is like, you know,

678
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:05,319
Speaker 1: was Jesus fully human or was he some sort of

679
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:08,759
Speaker 1: spirit being? And so they want to put their foot

680
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:11,759
Speaker 1: down and say, like, no, he had a human body. Yeah, yeah,

681
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: I mean Jesus Christ is largely held in Christian traditions

682
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 1: as God incarnate and therefore the product of a immortal woman,

683
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:22,880
Speaker 1: no matter how virginal and esteemed, and be the creator

684
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:25,759
Speaker 1: of the universe God. So he is the is at

685
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:29,640
Speaker 1: the very least a hybrid entity with attitudes leaning in

686
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:33,280
Speaker 1: mortal or divine directions, depending on you know, your particular

687
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 1: theology or in some cases, your particular heresy. So how

688
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 1: you know, you end up asking how do you choose

689
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:43,440
Speaker 1: to think of and portray the newborn Christ as more

690
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 1: human or as more divine, as natural or as preternatural.

691
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,799
Speaker 1: And this whole discussion occurs as humans are still working

692
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 1: out exactly what's happening during reproduction itself. Yeah, we didn't

693
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:56,839
Speaker 1: even get into that yet. I mean, how are these

694
00:39:56,880 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 1: infant bodies formed in the first place? Yeah, does Mary

695
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 1: contr tribute to the christ child's humanity merely by being

696
00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: its vessel? Does she contribute to his flesh? Is there

697
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 1: is there a resemblance between mother and child here? Uh So,

698
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:13,359
Speaker 1: keep all of this in mind as we take one

699
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 1: more break and come back to continue to tackle this

700
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 1: question and indeed summon the homunculous. Than all right, we're back, Robert,

701
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 1: Let's summon the homunculous. Yes, the homunculus. Now, when we

702
00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:31,759
Speaker 1: when we talk about homunculi, I imagine a number of

703
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:38,359
Speaker 1: people think rather understandably of the the alchemical homunculous, the

704
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 1: idea of an artificial diminutive humanoid that is cooked up,

705
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 1: you know, wizards the laboratory. Right, So you might have

706
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 1: a an alchemist like Paracelsus who says that I can

707
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:52,879
Speaker 1: create a chemical human one that is out, yeah, out

708
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:56,239
Speaker 1: of synthetic ingredients, I will make a human homunculous, a

709
00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 1: small man. And that's the funky chemical spelling to with

710
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:02,240
Speaker 1: the why the y in it. Here's a quick quote

711
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:07,720
Speaker 1: from Mary Bane Campbell from artificial Men, alchemy, trans substantiation,

712
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 1: and the homunculous. Quote Mary even to the Protestants who

713
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 1: worked to reduce her importance in the dramatists, persona of

714
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:19,000
Speaker 1: the divine was and had to be a partner in

715
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: this procreation, where Jesus could not be an incarnate god,

716
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: half human, half divine. Nonetheless, the trans substantiation of the

717
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 1: sacramental feast of the Eucharist was a process that became

718
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:34,399
Speaker 1: at least potentially susceptible to chemical again with the y

719
00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 1: explanation in the intellectual world of the Reformation, a world

720
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 1: that included the increasingly philosophical and spiritualized discipline of chemistry,

721
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:49,879
Speaker 1: the art of transmutation, and an increasingly naturalized theology. Oh,

722
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 1: I've never made that connection before, but that's amazing. So

723
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:55,920
Speaker 1: believing in the transubstantiation of the eucharis meaning that when

724
00:41:55,960 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 1: you take communion, the bread physically truly is transformed into

725
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 1: the body of Christ, and that the wine physically truly

726
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:09,239
Speaker 1: is transformed into the Blood of Christ. These are theological dogmas,

727
00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:11,880
Speaker 1: but that if you take them literally, you start to

728
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 1: believe that there may be other ways in which substances

729
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 1: can be transformed into living tissue. Right, it introduces a

730
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:23,719
Speaker 1: a magical concept that that you've taken as a as

731
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 1: a literal fact turns a number of different things on

732
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: its head. Yeah. Now, like all sexually reproducing species, humans

733
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: engage insects to perform sexual recombination. We generally don't follow

734
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:39,240
Speaker 1: the idea of spontaneous generation anymore. We think that generally

735
00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 1: life most of the time comes from life, and so

736
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:46,400
Speaker 1: when sexual recombination happens in sexually reproducing species, you have

737
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: a random mixing of genes from the mother and the father.

738
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:52,960
Speaker 1: So our our sexual cells are known as gamm eats

739
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 1: the male sperm and the female egg, and each of

740
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:58,840
Speaker 1: these contained twenty three chromosomes, which is half the normal

741
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: number of chromosomes in a cell. And then they fuse

742
00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 1: together to form a new zy goe with forty six

743
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 1: chromosomes of randomly jumbled genes from the mother and from

744
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:11,360
Speaker 1: the father, and these cells then begin to divide until

745
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:13,879
Speaker 1: they start to take the shape of an embryo within

746
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 1: the mother's uterus. Those are the known basics of actual

747
00:43:17,719 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 1: sexual reproduction, but it hasn't always been taken for granted

748
00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 1: that this is how it happens. And in fact, I

749
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 1: think a great idea for a future episode or series

750
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,920
Speaker 1: of episodes would be the question of why sexual recombination?

751
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: Why don't we just all do a sexual reproduction like

752
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:37,239
Speaker 1: bacteria miight or something like that, Why don't we just

753
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:41,160
Speaker 1: split in half and make clones of ourselves? In biology,

754
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 1: this question is often framed as what compensates for the

755
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:49,280
Speaker 1: cost of males? But yeah, that's a good question to explore.

756
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 1: We should come back to it in the future. But

757
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:53,959
Speaker 1: but yeah, so to continue, we know that sexual recombination

758
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:57,440
Speaker 1: takes information from the mother and from the father and

759
00:43:57,520 --> 00:44:00,120
Speaker 1: fuses it to create a new cell, a new being

760
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 1: by jumbling together bits of the blueprints that make up

761
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 1: both of the parents. Yeah, and and you know is

762
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 1: is early as three fifty BC, Aristotle proposed a theory

763
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: of epigenesis which was essentially correct. Yeah. This was basically

764
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 1: the idea that the sperm and egg joined to create

765
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:23,760
Speaker 1: undifferentiated cells like stem cells, which then matured over time

766
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:26,839
Speaker 1: into bodies. Maybe not correct in all the details as

767
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 1: he imagined it, but it basically gets the gist of

768
00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:32,080
Speaker 1: reproduction right. And yet, just a few centuries ago you

769
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:34,439
Speaker 1: had many people who believed in what was known as

770
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 1: preformation is m yeah, or pre formation theory. So and

771
00:44:38,160 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 1: like the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many very learned or

772
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:47,919
Speaker 1: supposedly learned scholars and natural philosophers had this idea that

773
00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:54,319
Speaker 1: the embryonic human being was already fully formed in its

774
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:57,719
Speaker 1: in its entirety, except being like smaller or maybe in

775
00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 1: a in a smaller or sort of less less defined

776
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 1: shape within the sex cells of the mother or the father.

777
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 1: They were like fully formed versions of themselves which would

778
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:12,280
Speaker 1: simply grow in size or possibly change in shape within

779
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:16,440
Speaker 1: the uterus during pregnancy. Essentially, the sex cells were each

780
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 1: a homunculus. Yeah, and you see some wonderful artistic depictions

781
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:24,720
Speaker 1: of this, illustrations of how this might go down, because

782
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:27,440
Speaker 1: imagine a number of this have seen these of a

783
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:31,000
Speaker 1: sperm and there's a tiny human in the sperm. The

784
00:45:31,080 --> 00:45:34,359
Speaker 1: idea here is that the male of the species just

785
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 1: shoots a tiny human into the female, and the female

786
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:42,160
Speaker 1: is just where that tiny human grows. Yeah. So one

787
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 1: interesting side note I think I would like to point

788
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 1: out that the transition from preformation theory to modern reproductive

789
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 1: theory is mainly a shift in emphasis about what exactly

790
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:57,560
Speaker 1: gets transmitted during sex and during birth. Under preformation theory,

791
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 1: what gets transmitted is material or the means to make

792
00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:05,839
Speaker 1: material grow. You know, it's either you either if you

793
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,920
Speaker 1: believe that the sperm cell is a pre fully formed human,

794
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 1: it's being transmitted into the uterus, or if you believe

795
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:15,879
Speaker 1: that the egg is a pre fully formed human. Uh,

796
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:20,120
Speaker 1: the sexual reproduction puts some chemical in place that allows

797
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,360
Speaker 1: it to grow. But under modern theory, what gets transmitted

798
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 1: is not material so much as information. It's not getting

799
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 1: the rebels a tiny death star, it's getting them the

800
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 1: plans for the death star. But by focusing on material

801
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 1: like this, preformation theory leads to a problem. The sperm

802
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 1: and the egg can't both be a homunculus, or in

803
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:43,879
Speaker 1: what in that case, what's the point of the homunculus?

804
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:46,839
Speaker 1: So which one is it? Here you get the controversy

805
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 1: between the spermists and the ovists. Yes, now we've touched

806
00:46:51,160 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 1: a little bit on the spurmose, but but ovis they

807
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:56,640
Speaker 1: believe that the egg contained all that was needed, and

808
00:46:56,680 --> 00:46:59,160
Speaker 1: it mean merely required. Male seed is a kind of

809
00:46:59,239 --> 00:47:02,719
Speaker 1: chemical trip. Yeah, it would be some kind of vapor

810
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:05,120
Speaker 1: that would cause the growth. Yeah, just a sort of

811
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:07,359
Speaker 1: a firing of the starter pistol that says, all right,

812
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 1: grow the homunculous. Okay. Now my favorite, uh, the later

813
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:18,280
Speaker 1: day ovist is an Italian physiologist and priest Lazarro spalon Zani,

814
00:47:18,640 --> 00:47:23,480
Speaker 1: who lives sevente through seventeen. Spalon Zanni is great. So

815
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 1: he believed, as did Charles Bonnet in the Ovist version

816
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:30,320
Speaker 1: of preformation theory, and the specifics of their idea is

817
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 1: that God created the first female specimen of every species,

818
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 1: and when he created that first female, he implanted within

819
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:42,640
Speaker 1: her the tiny forms of all future descendants, fully shaped

820
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:45,760
Speaker 1: from the beginning, needing only to grow, and the semen

821
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: only somehow stimulated this growth. But his beliefs about the

822
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 1: constituents of semen are pretty amazing. Yeah so so again,

823
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:57,120
Speaker 1: as Balonzani, he believed this was just like a chemical trigger,

824
00:47:57,480 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: that that was all that the semen was actually a

825
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:02,759
Speaker 1: contributing and yet he was able to take a look

826
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:05,520
Speaker 1: at it and he identified that there was something kind

827
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:07,759
Speaker 1: of wormy going on in there. There there was some

828
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 1: sort of of wormy substance in the semen. But how

829
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:14,319
Speaker 1: did he make sense of these uh, these wormy things

830
00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:17,200
Speaker 1: in the semen? Well, based on popular theories of the

831
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:21,960
Speaker 1: day concerning in the idea of inheritable intestinal worms, the

832
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:23,759
Speaker 1: idea that you would have intestinal worms and you would

833
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:27,320
Speaker 1: pass them on to children and there in the grandchildren, etcetera.

834
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:29,880
Speaker 1: He thought that the sperm, what we know now as

835
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:33,240
Speaker 1: the sperm, might be parasites, and that the seminal fluid

836
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 1: alone served as this chemical trigger for the red for

837
00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 1: the egg and he he famously this famously led to

838
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:43,319
Speaker 1: the use of pants on frogs and other amphibians as

839
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:46,759
Speaker 1: an attempt to uh separate these two entities to to

840
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:49,319
Speaker 1: and to really figure out exactly what was going on

841
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:53,279
Speaker 1: during the deposit of fluid in the sexual reproduction. So

842
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:58,239
Speaker 1: testing the hypothesis that male sex cells are actually just

843
00:48:58,360 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 1: parasites and this lad we could do a whole episode,

844
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: I think on the various experiments that followed putting tiny

845
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 1: pants on frogs, eventually working his way up to more

846
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:13,920
Speaker 1: advanced organisms such as a dog um. But it it,

847
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: and it becomes. It becomes unintentionally hilarious at times, but

848
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:21,959
Speaker 1: also ultimately illuminating for later later readers to look back

849
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:25,520
Speaker 1: on his experiments and watch this progression towards an understanding

850
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:28,439
Speaker 1: of the truth of sexual reproduction. Right, So that guy

851
00:49:28,600 --> 00:49:31,319
Speaker 1: was an ovist, but there were all these spermists as

852
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:34,399
Speaker 1: well who believed that the sperm cells were the individually

853
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 1: fully formed humans shrunk down to tiny size. Yeah, and

854
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:40,719
Speaker 1: I feel like these are more Um, these tended to

855
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 1: be more sort of scandalous and and and ridiculous to

856
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:48,279
Speaker 1: modern viewers for a number of reasons, but in part

857
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:54,080
Speaker 1: because there is such an inherent, uh like chauvinistic ideology here,

858
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:56,319
Speaker 1: the idea that will clearly it's all them, it's just

859
00:49:56,360 --> 00:49:58,880
Speaker 1: the man doing it. Yeah, it really feels like trying

860
00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 1: to write the woman's a gency out of the generation

861
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:05,920
Speaker 1: of new generations. Yeah, in the seventeen and eighteen centuries

862
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:10,280
Speaker 1: you had Dutch physicist Nicholas heart Seeker who who definitely

863
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:13,800
Speaker 1: took a hardline sperm most approach, postulating that each sperm

864
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:19,560
Speaker 1: contained a completely preformed humanoid or homunculous And this came

865
00:50:19,640 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 1: with with with illustrations, those illustrations I alluded to earlier. Yeah,

866
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:27,279
Speaker 1: they're fantastic where the slightly more grown up versions of

867
00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:30,080
Speaker 1: the cells as the homunculus gets bigger, look kind of

868
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:33,600
Speaker 1: like creepy Christmas ornaments, where they're like kind of a wavy,

869
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:36,600
Speaker 1: wobbly human form hanging from like a thread on the

870
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:39,640
Speaker 1: top of his head. Yeah, it is, Uh, they're they're

871
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:41,480
Speaker 1: they're kind of creepy to look at, but also kind

872
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:44,080
Speaker 1: of yeah, kind of holy too. Now, either way you

873
00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 1: cut it, preformation theory posits something that sounds kind of absurd,

874
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:51,480
Speaker 1: because let's think about the implications for a second. Take

875
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:54,919
Speaker 1: the sperm most position. Say you're Nicholas heart seeker. If

876
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:58,360
Speaker 1: the spermus were correct, then a man has within his

877
00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 1: sex organs tiny versions of the men and women that

878
00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:06,200
Speaker 1: will become his descendants. And those tiny men inside that

879
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:09,319
Speaker 1: man must also have within them the tiny men and

880
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:13,879
Speaker 1: women that will become that first man's grandchildren and so

881
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:16,200
Speaker 1: on and so forth. But of course, since they, you know,

882
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:19,359
Speaker 1: they're tiny men within a tiny man, they must be

883
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:23,239
Speaker 1: proportionally smaller to start with, right, so you get this

884
00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:28,080
Speaker 1: ongoing regress of shrinking funeral future generations to fit inside

885
00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:33,279
Speaker 1: perpetually smaller generations. It's homunculi all the way down. And

886
00:51:33,600 --> 00:51:36,000
Speaker 1: somebody out there I need to stop using that math

887
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:39,919
Speaker 1: war and listening to Sturgill Simpson too much. I think, Uh,

888
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:42,920
Speaker 1: somebody out there who's really Matt savvy should take this

889
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:46,919
Speaker 1: thought experiment. Given this assumption of a sperm sized man

890
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:51,040
Speaker 1: within every man, and then a proportionally sperm sized man

891
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 1: within the original tiny man. How many generations would you

892
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:58,359
Speaker 1: need to go down before your homunculous was smaller than

893
00:51:58,400 --> 00:52:02,719
Speaker 1: one plank length? Uh? I like this, Yeah, because it

894
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 1: would it would ultimately give you, like, like a hard

895
00:52:05,719 --> 00:52:08,600
Speaker 1: limit to the generations of man. Yeah, at some point

896
00:52:08,600 --> 00:52:11,080
Speaker 1: your physics isn't gonna work anymore. How are you gonna

897
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:14,359
Speaker 1: make that homunculous? Not out of particles, that's for sure.

898
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:17,560
Speaker 1: So in all of this, we we've ultimately come back

899
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:22,080
Speaker 1: around to this idea of homunculous theory. Uh. And uh Again,

900
00:52:22,120 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 1: we've talked about the homuncula a little bit in terms

901
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:26,960
Speaker 1: of alchemy, where the creature is not quite a human

902
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:30,600
Speaker 1: but is a rational animal. And uh and ultimately another

903
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:33,680
Speaker 1: fictional page of humanity's dream of mastering life and death.

904
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:36,440
Speaker 1: But Robert, how does this come back to our our

905
00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 1: medieval and Renaissance art theme we were talking? Okay, So

906
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:41,400
Speaker 1: first of all, it's important to note that there was

907
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:43,800
Speaker 1: this wasn't a case of just clerics on one side,

908
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:47,879
Speaker 1: alchemist on the other, and homuncula in between. I guess. Uh,

909
00:52:47,920 --> 00:52:50,280
Speaker 1: here's a here's a quick quote from William R. Newman

910
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:54,040
Speaker 1: in Western Society and Alchemy from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred,

911
00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 1: publishing the Journal of Medieval History in nineteen eighty. This

912
00:52:57,800 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 1: quote the fact that alchemists made analogies between the alchemistic

913
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:05,160
Speaker 1: process and the Christian mysteries, it is not so strange

914
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:08,280
Speaker 1: when we remember that in the Middle Ages most alchemists

915
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 1: were clerics. Although it's true that a number of clerics

916
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:14,239
Speaker 1: were offended by Henry the sixth of England's appeal, in

917
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 1: which the transmutation of metal was likened to the consecration

918
00:53:17,920 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 1: during Holy Mass, many others did not object. So the

919
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:24,799
Speaker 1: idea here is that, yeah, don't don't think of the

920
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:27,719
Speaker 1: homunculous as being just this thing that has talked about

921
00:53:27,760 --> 00:53:31,319
Speaker 1: and written about by individuals outside of the Church. No,

922
00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:37,040
Speaker 1: the the the authors of homunculous theory were members of

923
00:53:37,040 --> 00:53:40,400
Speaker 1: the clergy in many cases, and therefore it makes sense

924
00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:43,600
Speaker 1: that in terms of trying to figure out the Christ child,

925
00:53:43,760 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what uh an infant Jesus would be,

926
00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:50,839
Speaker 1: what God as a baby would look like, they would

927
00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:54,480
Speaker 1: end up drawing in some of these ideas about homunculi theory,

928
00:53:54,880 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 1: like making a sort of perfect chemical miniature copy of

929
00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:03,239
Speaker 1: an adult human, right, a creature that is a preformed

930
00:54:03,320 --> 00:54:07,080
Speaker 1: not only in body, but in spirit and mind. Uh.

931
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:10,239
Speaker 1: And thus we have so many of these depictions of

932
00:54:10,239 --> 00:54:14,399
Speaker 1: the Christ Child as being this tiny, perfect humanoid who

933
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:18,040
Speaker 1: is already regal and uh and holy in its uh

934
00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: just bodily positioning and its mannerisms and its appearance. Or

935
00:54:22,719 --> 00:54:24,400
Speaker 1: you can think of it as just God without the

936
00:54:24,440 --> 00:54:28,600
Speaker 1: limitations of actual human infancy. And I guess whether an

937
00:54:28,600 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 1: individual Christian finds that ideal that idea appealing or not appealing,

938
00:54:32,719 --> 00:54:35,640
Speaker 1: I guess just has to do with their theology, right right. Yeah.

939
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:38,120
Speaker 1: You know we were talking earlier about whether one of

940
00:54:38,160 --> 00:54:42,359
Speaker 1: the the man like baby Jesus is would speak or not. Well,

941
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:46,239
Speaker 1: apparently it was. It was in many cases the baby

942
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:50,320
Speaker 1: Jesus is not meant to speak, but is communicating via gestures.

943
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:51,640
Speaker 1: So you do see this in a lot of the

944
00:54:51,760 --> 00:54:54,360
Speaker 1: artistic depictions. There's kind of a like he's he's pointing

945
00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 1: out to one side as if to say, oh, you've

946
00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 1: come to see me. Great, we have some chairs and

947
00:54:58,200 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 1: some modervas over here. Uh. If you would just be

948
00:55:01,239 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 1: seated next to the cows, Mary deign says, quote as

949
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:09,280
Speaker 1: a homunculous Jesus simply grew in size within Mary's womb

950
00:55:09,520 --> 00:55:13,080
Speaker 1: instead of gradually acquiring a more complex body as did

951
00:55:13,160 --> 00:55:17,240
Speaker 1: other unborn children. Sort of perfect from the beginning. Yeah,

952
00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:19,200
Speaker 1: so I think this is this is a very important

953
00:55:19,239 --> 00:55:22,160
Speaker 1: argument to keep in mind when looking at late medieval

954
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:26,560
Speaker 1: and medieval artistic depictions of the Christ Child, that there

955
00:55:26,640 --> 00:55:30,719
Speaker 1: is this, uh, this attempt to understand theologically what that

956
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:33,920
Speaker 1: child would consist of. And we have this this idea

957
00:55:34,080 --> 00:55:37,840
Speaker 1: of the homunculized Jesus, the idea of a preformed and perfect,

958
00:55:38,280 --> 00:55:41,319
Speaker 1: tiny human Jesus that would have emerged from Mary and

959
00:55:41,360 --> 00:55:44,759
Speaker 1: then grown proportionally there was very much in sync with

960
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:48,360
Speaker 1: many of the alchemical ideas. Yeah the day, Okay, Robert,

961
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:50,799
Speaker 1: Let's say I want to make a homunculous not not

962
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:55,120
Speaker 1: a not a homunculous theory version of Jesus, but just

963
00:55:55,160 --> 00:55:59,120
Speaker 1: a regular an old fashioned homunculous. Yeah, I'm getting interested

964
00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:01,920
Speaker 1: in alchemy. Want to bake a cake? Uh, and that

965
00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:05,439
Speaker 1: cake is a homunculus. What should I do? Well, first

966
00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:07,880
Speaker 1: of all, get yourself a copy of a medieval text

967
00:56:08,080 --> 00:56:10,919
Speaker 1: known as the Book of the Cow, because it lays

968
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:14,560
Speaker 1: out some rather grotesque and confusing instructions in the art

969
00:56:14,640 --> 00:56:17,360
Speaker 1: of do it yourself a monkeyli brewing. So let me

970
00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:18,960
Speaker 1: tell you what you'll need for this. Okay, this is

971
00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:21,399
Speaker 1: straight from the Book of the cow. Uh. First of all,

972
00:56:21,440 --> 00:56:24,880
Speaker 1: you'll need wizard semen. And this makes sense from a

973
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:28,279
Speaker 1: from a sperm most point of view. Right, If you

974
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:30,960
Speaker 1: have the sperm of the wizard, you have probably everything

975
00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:34,799
Speaker 1: you need to build a human or humanoid creature. Why

976
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:38,719
Speaker 1: does it need to be a wizard? Well, um, I'm

977
00:56:38,760 --> 00:56:40,680
Speaker 1: not sure if it means that you if you're engaging

978
00:56:40,719 --> 00:56:44,880
Speaker 1: in the homunculi creation, you're probably yourself a wizard or

979
00:56:44,920 --> 00:56:49,280
Speaker 1: magician and therefore engaged in a very solitary practice. Yeah,

980
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:51,400
Speaker 1: that that could be it, or maybe there's something innately

981
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:54,479
Speaker 1: magical about the magician semen. I'm not sure you're gonna

982
00:56:54,520 --> 00:56:58,560
Speaker 1: need animal blood. You're gonna need an actual cow or

983
00:56:59,120 --> 00:57:02,480
Speaker 1: or are you You're gonna need sulfur, a magnet. You're

984
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:06,279
Speaker 1: gonna need green tutia or a sulfate of iron, and

985
00:57:06,440 --> 00:57:09,879
Speaker 1: a large glass or lead vessel. Oh, and you'll need

986
00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:15,440
Speaker 1: one more thing. You'll need the sunstone. What's the sunstone? Robert? Well,

987
00:57:15,480 --> 00:57:18,800
Speaker 1: the sunstone is a mystical phosphorescent elisir so that this

988
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:22,040
Speaker 1: is the point I know that you engage in mixology

989
00:57:22,080 --> 00:57:24,840
Speaker 1: as well. This is the point in the cocktail recipe

990
00:57:24,840 --> 00:57:27,760
Speaker 1: where you realize that that you absolutely cannot make the

991
00:57:27,840 --> 00:57:32,120
Speaker 1: drink because you're missing a vital, rare or expensive ingredient

992
00:57:32,120 --> 00:57:34,120
Speaker 1: in this case, an ingredient that of course does not

993
00:57:34,240 --> 00:57:38,160
Speaker 1: actually exist. It is it is a mystical ingredient. And

994
00:57:38,200 --> 00:57:40,120
Speaker 1: if you have that, then yeah, you've got to light

995
00:57:40,160 --> 00:57:42,760
Speaker 1: up on making a homunculi. But if not, you're just

996
00:57:43,320 --> 00:57:46,360
Speaker 1: left with a you know, a vessel full of wizard

997
00:57:46,480 --> 00:57:51,200
Speaker 1: semen in cow blood. Very disappointing. Now, I'll spare everyone

998
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:54,960
Speaker 1: the additional instructions here, but I'll link to a blog

999
00:57:55,040 --> 00:57:57,520
Speaker 1: post on the Landing page for this episode is stuff

1000
00:57:57,520 --> 00:57:59,800
Speaker 1: to blow your mind that rolls through. All you have

1001
00:57:59,840 --> 00:58:02,480
Speaker 1: to do there to to grow the homunculi within the

1002
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:05,760
Speaker 1: cow and then allow it to develop to the point

1003
00:58:05,840 --> 00:58:08,600
Speaker 1: where you can then harvest the homunculi and use it

1004
00:58:08,720 --> 00:58:12,280
Speaker 1: as an ingredient in spells to say, turn yourself invisible

1005
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 1: or give you the gift of flight. Yeah. Uh, but

1006
00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:21,600
Speaker 1: in all things um alchemical, it's it's all rather confusing

1007
00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:26,800
Speaker 1: and full of symbolism and hidden messages, just like medieval art. Yeah, exactly.

1008
00:58:26,880 --> 00:58:28,360
Speaker 1: All right, Well, that's gonna wrap it up for our

1009
00:58:28,360 --> 00:58:31,360
Speaker 1: discussion today, But remember to go to stuff to Blow

1010
00:58:31,400 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com and check out the image gallery

1011
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:36,720
Speaker 1: that Robert is putting together of some of these fantastic

1012
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:40,160
Speaker 1: works of medieval and Renaissance art showing the various stages

1013
00:58:40,160 --> 00:58:43,640
Speaker 1: of creepy baby development in art history. That's right, you're

1014
00:58:43,640 --> 00:58:45,480
Speaker 1: just gonna have to see some of these for yourself

1015
00:58:45,520 --> 00:58:48,040
Speaker 1: to to to really get to grasp what we're talking

1016
00:58:48,080 --> 00:58:51,320
Speaker 1: about here. Uh. And hey, while you're there at stuff

1017
00:58:51,360 --> 00:58:53,000
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com, you can check out

1018
00:58:53,040 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 1: all the other podcast episodes we've done. You can check

1019
00:58:56,680 --> 00:58:59,840
Speaker 1: out blog posts and videos, as well as links out

1020
00:58:59,840 --> 00:59:04,200
Speaker 1: to various social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram,

1021
00:59:04,240 --> 00:59:07,720
Speaker 1: and so forth. As always, thanks to our audio producers

1022
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:11,160
Speaker 1: Alex Williams and Tory Harrison for doing a killer job.

1023
00:59:11,480 --> 00:59:13,480
Speaker 1: And if you want to get in touch with us directly,

1024
00:59:13,600 --> 00:59:16,320
Speaker 1: as always, you can email us at blow the Mind

1025
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:28,640
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this

1026
00:59:28,840 --> 00:59:31,360
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works

1027
00:59:31,360 --> 00:59:40,440
Speaker 1: dot com? Love Love bl