A Vision of the Father Simon. I jest ye not.

The Vision of Father Simon by Francisco Ribalta 1612.

Well firstly, can I say I win. I win. Blogging about the vision of Father Simon when you're called Simon and have just become a father is so delightful I could ooze like a jolly Rear Admiral. I admit that the above Jesus is not a baby (in fact he is in a bit of tight spot, if my knowledge of the Bible is up to much) but I thought I'd freshen this blog up by widening my critical eye to all images of our saviour, not just those depicting him in his infancy.

There are so many things to highlight in this cracking picture. Firstly, Father Simon was renowned for his vision (hence the picture) and his piety. I can't question his piety on the basis of one picture as that would be petty and that is not what this blog is all about. But his vision certainly looks a bit odd to the untrained eye. 

Jesus looks a little pale for my liking, and yes he has taken a bit of a beating I grant you, he is just downright odd. The fact that his index toe and middle toe are the same length and both considerably longer than his big toe makes me a sick in my mouth a little bit and the odd robe makes him like anatomically wholly unlikely. It makes me wonder whether under the robe are two disciples on each others shoulders sticking our fake arms and legs to save little Jesus as it seems so bizarre.

The whole picture is odd. Who is the apparition on the right hand side? To the uninitiated he looks a little like Blackadder, albeit it with a freakishly long right arm that seems to be assisting Jesus by carrying part of the Cross. This is the sort of kick ass miracle that would make me far keener on Christianity; if faith in God gave me a chance, no matter how infinitesimally small, to become like Stretch Armstrong I'd be in like Flynn. Feeding of the five thousand. Pants. Odd Blackadder chap with 5 foot arms. Brilliant.  [A cross which is a bit pants in all honesty. How do you expect to crucify someone on that? Far too short.] However, after some long, deep thought it occurs to me that the odd chap in the corner is in fact Paul Bearer. Obviously, for most readers this will immediately conjure up images on early nineties wrestling but for those sad souls who missed out on what the Rock was cooking or Mr. Perfect defying gravity, I've included a picture below. Cannily, the likeness is uncanny. Who'd have thunk it? WWF in the Bible story. Vince McMahon you've got my number.

But there is more. Oh yes. We've not touched on the crowds to our left. Why is one man swallowing a sword? Seems a bit unnecessary to me. Jesus you're buggered and about to die but don't worry watch me swallow this sword. That will take the edge off. Brilliant. SPQR indeed. And in the back right there appears to be a man giving the whole thing the thumbs up. What does this mean? Who is he or she? And why does he/she appear to be dressed up like a member of member of the riot squad with a white visor on. Maybe if they'd kettled our poor messiah they might have saved him from the indignity of being crucified. 

Jesus recommends JIF. Or CIF. Or just really likes Lemons.

The Virgin and Child with the Baptist and an Angel by Paolo Morando.

Two posts in one day, these are heady times indeed.

I was flicking through the repository of Ugly Jesus pictures that I've stored and came across this one, and was so flabbergasted that I felt compelled to share it with the world. Jesus is not strictly ugly. In fact he is disgustingly pretty and has more than a hint of the Fonze about him and he is the smug owner of a lemon, which is apparently used to allude to the weaning of Christ.

Okay, I gave up Religious Studies at a young age, but surely this is total bollocks. Sorry for the wartime language, but I've always been one to call a knave a knave. I googled "Jesus weaned lemon" to get to the bottom of this biblical quandary and after the inevitable torrent of jesus porn, evangelical whimsy and kindred horrors I found this which while not strictly relevant demonstrates the powerful intellects which have been given a new public voice by the internet and guide us morons into the light.

"I explain to my children as thus if you would visualize a lemon Jesus is the rind - the skin that actually was seen, the Holy Spirit is the juice that follows from the lemon and God is like the rest of the inside. A lemon is not just a rind and juice it is all parts which make up a lemon." 


The word genius is bandied around with alarming regularity these days but EasternVesper (if that is your real name) you really are a powerhouse who have been given a voice that would have remained silent without the miracle of the web. Praise be. "God is like the rest of the inside" Such dazzling concision combined with unparalleled depth of thought makes all subsequent theological study redundant. Although, I'm not sure how pleased God would be (given his small minded, blood thirsty nature) to be compared to the pips and flesh of a lemon. Frankly, if my wife compared me to a lemon I'd feel a little disappointed.

Now, if this lemon nonsense shocked you what I'm about to say might really frazzle your minds. Who is holding the lemon? I initially thought it would be the long distant founder of the house of Del Monte or some such silliness and I was also sure it was a girl. Flowing ginger locks and pure complexion, a little biblical phwoar and maybe a schwing. But no. The individual with the lemon is a rather dishy looking John the Baptist. Ding dong. Ooh la laa. With her, sorry, his head coquettishly tilted teasing us with his juicy lemon he is a paedo-dream [which I'd like to trademark as I think it has a touch of class about it]. And what lovely knees. Frankly, it is all a bit homoerotic. However, because of this it gets the most important of all tags Heroin Apparatus Mental as this picture is just bloody odd.

Little Ginger Mungo. Sorry I mean Jesus.

Once again this blog was on the brink of the digital abyss and once more it is dragged back precipice to take its place among the flotsam of the internet. This picture is entitled The Virgin and Child with a Shoot of Olive by the lesser known Italian artist Andrea Previtali. His obscure status is quite easily explained; a complete lack of talent. This hasn't stopped the National Gallery displaying this atrocious spank, the sort of mundane horror that would have had Mr. Ratcliffe, an art teacher from my dim and distant path (who gave me 100% for my mock Art GCSE in case anyone who reads this tawdry bog nonsense doubts my qualifications as an art critic), standing behind making the sort of noise that would be more usually associated with a fatally constipated mule than one appreciating fine art. Rather than rubbishing the whole picture, I should in face highlight some of its finer points, because there are some.

Mary, although she has a face that compares unfavourably to a saucepan, does at least look wholly human and not like the crack addled daughter of Andrew Lansley which normally characterise representations of the ickle Virgin. Although, Mr. Previtali appears to have taken his eye of the ball when rendering Mary's left hand which is a monstrous trident-esque appendage wrapped around the ample gut of our gloriously bouffanted messiah who looks like a dull eyed moron not the saviour of mankind. However, given that his mother has a hand that appears to have been modelled on a teenage mutant ninja turtle he seems to be going okay.

Jesus is ginger so I would be betraying the brotherhood by slating him too much, but his face is really too much to bear. A giant forehead, a ridiculous haircut, funnel like ears and thighs so chubby they defy any normal adjective and quite why he is wearing some odd see through fetish gear is beyond me...... In fact, although I'm going to sound like a NuZanuPF [copyright CIF] Londonite twat, he looks a bit like Terry Gilliam's Faust (which is rather good if you can get a ticket) but that is about as complimentary as one can get. Either that or a portly middle aged, privately schooled barrister with severe gout and a crush on his wet nurse. What is that meant to be, what is Jesus wearing? If the Daily Mail saw this Melanie Phillips would demand that this picture be burnt and then force fed to a third world nation. Previtali is clearly a pervert of the highest order. Frankly he'd have been better off focusing on how to master perspective or anatomy rather than dressing Jesus in clingfilm. 

Jesus as Middle Aged Spreader

There has been a hiatus in my posting and for a moment my little ego thought maybe one of the 242 desperate readers of this bog nonsense might have missed me. Then I realised there was blood dripping from my ear and people were screaming as if I were a plague ridden tart. Oh well. Like many other experiments that I start eagerly and then give up, many could have attributed this pause to my having lost faith in my own capacity to waste an evening conjuring these sentences and that this site would linger on the web like a digital floater serving as a reminder of my brief moment as a blogger. But no. Oh no you Kulak lizards and vegetarian rotters no no no. I'm back. With a cliched bang. After a brief holiday to Northumberland (very pretty, bloody windy, silly accents and the greatest black pudding in the world) I've returned to the Big Smoke with Ugly Jesus on my mind once more. My thanks for this delightful example to Oliver Blaiklock esq, with whom I once pedalled through Gdansk in a giant white pedalo shaped like a swan much to the amusement of all and sundry except a few local Poles who decide to launch some cans of lager at us from the deck of a passing tourist Galleon thinking that we were "nonces of the highest order",  which is entitled Madonna and Child by Duccio. Such is the brilliance of this work of art, a term I don't use lightly, I have unleashed the "heroin apparatus mental' tag for this post. Even I have forgotten what this really means and its bastard form was undoubtedly generated by my failing to use commas in appropriate places but I think with a following wind and a spot of good fortune "heroin mental apparatus" could be the catch phrase for the next decade. Although "heroin mental" without the encumbrance of "apparatus" is a cracking little aphorism. I can just imagine little mungo pundling through life going; "Papa, Papa that Kurosawa retrospective you made me sit through for the last 7 hours was proper heroin mental."

I'm spurting digressions like a muppet. Let us all get back to the point of this ruddy blog. Ugly Jesus'. This chap is a new breed, a middle aged spreader of a Jesus who has come out of his mum with an absurd tufty baldness and a paunch that immediately suggests that Jesus could be natural at darts. Oddly, he reminds of a cross between media behemmoth Adrian Chiles and Working Lunch fop Adam Shaw. Or that bloke from In Bruge who isn't Colin Farrell and always plays Irish people as he is Irish. But why render Jesus as a podgy middle age fart? OKay the other pictures were ugly but at least they portray him as a baby not as middle manager for Barclays. There is something slightly sleazy about his presence groping at Mary's ear like he is having a private dance at some ancient Spearmint Rhino. For God's sake leave her alone your freakish noblet. On the plus side, his odd physical maturity means that this little Jesus is about as attractive to your passing paedo as a one night with Andrew Lansley.

Mary's face betrays all this, here eyes staring blankly out at you with that resigned look that comes when you realise you've given birth to a middle aged pervert. Her face also has an odd penumbra of Jam around her hood, which frankly defies comment as it is just odd (or "heroin mental" if you want to be on trend). I almost feel sorry for her, imagine her disappointment at having been knocked up without any of the fun stuff and then give birth to that. Bummer.

This blog is a floater no longer; we are back in the game.

Suckling Pig

This little beauty is from Renaissance Italy, when those lovely chaps apparently rediscovered all the  skills lost in the dark ages , when western Europe was too busy getting drunk and dying of horrid diseases, to worry about stuff like anatomy or perspective. And this is the pay off, a delightful majolica (check my web skillz out, I'm dropping linkz like it is hot; Snoop Dogg would be proud) plate showing our little saviour about to tuck into what can only be described as a seriously malformed, brussel sprout of a breast. No wonder Jesus looks less than excited, dead eyed like a Great White Shark about to devour Michael Caine, and Mary's expression is one of grim acceptance. In fact her breast reminds one of that three breasted woman out of Total Recall, on which Brian Sewell has written so eloquently.  

There is something of the Theresa May about her too; the pallor of her skin and abject dress sense [why is she wearing a giant chintzie teatowel, I mean that is not on trend at all] both combine to create the undeniable insouciance of a Tory with her skirt about her ankles about to rod the nearest working class whippet with a Michael Heseltine- shaped strap on.  Poor old Mary, why are you so maligned by almost all artists ever? Probably because they all listened to Radio 5 and are secretly misogynist. You really shouldn't blog after listening to Radio 5 Live phone in shows as it makes you realise that most of the UK is populated with total oiks whose views make you want to cry. 

Oddly, along with the dulled eyes of a mass murderer, Jesus has the ears of a vulcan. Why the artist in question (this can be found at the Wallace Collection in dan taaaaaan London for those aroused by sprouting breasts. It also has an excellent arsenal for those interested in giant guns and ancient swords so large they took three swiss men to wield) has designed this plate to make Jesus malformed and into a distant relation of Mr. Spock god alone knows, but I think it pays a handsome dividend. Similarly, it appears that Jesus also lacks any real shoulders and instead has a neck like Mike Tyson, which like the spock ears goes strangely unreported in the Bible. Oddly, in Jesus' right hand he has a flower which is an entirely new development in our trek through history. I imagine it has a cryptic theological meaning  fundamental to Christian dogma but  deep down we all know that it means that little Jesus was a giant flouncing pansy as a child and given that in this depiction he appears to be quite old and is still breast feeding, which must be a bit odd given the odd nature of his conception, had some serious issues to deal with in later life and probably explains the whole messiah complex far more convincingly than the old "he is the son of God" bollocks that has so ruined Earth for the last 2011 years. Oh well, why let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

Sadly though, I don't want to be too harsh on this particular toddler Jesus as he and I share a common bond that must have been suppressed, along with his flower collecting foppery, by sinister types that make Dan Brown positively priapic. He is ginger. Ginger Jesus. Brilliant. This makes him the most famous ginger ever, rapidly surpassing Neil Kinnock and David Hopkin (and unless you supported Chelsea or Crystal Palace in the mid-1990s the second name is likely to mean bugger all). This probably explains why he had such a tough innings because as we all know everyone is always jealous of ginger haired people (that is what my Mum said to me and it must be true. Mustn't it?). So I can forgive his misshapen ears, odd neck and general crappery because me and him is kindred like brethren. Like brethren you see on the 341. Amazing stuff. I might even become a Christian. Or I might just stop writing this infernal cack and go and stroke my mungo. 

WTF.

You'll have to take my word that this is actually Jesus and Mary as if it weren't for the apparatus, which despite hitting the heights last time round have disappeared this time round as this picture was taken whilst deep undercover, it would be far from easy to describe these two as human let alone as the son of God and his mum. The previous images have at least had the decency to make Mary look human and not like a giant anthropomorphic ping pong ball crossed with Dr. Manhattan (although without the flaccid  translucent penis which so damaged my enjoyment of that film) while Jesus, albeit ugly fat and generally degenerate, was an ickle child not a phrenological wet dream. Although, I'd still prefer to look like this than the Michael Gove lookalike Jesus.

I appreciate that the middle ages were bleak and that we lost some key skills somehow but if any child did this while addled on e-numbers at school I'd imagine he get referred to a child psychologist faster than you can say Baby P rather than have it put in a museum for posterity. It is so mental that it is really hard to add anything of value. Just look at Mary. Really look at her. She hasn't got any ears. Or hair. She has multiple metal nipples and solid white eye balls.  In fact she looks like an extra from Dalek porn. All very odd. I'd imagine Joseph must have been thanking his lucky stars that Jesus was immaculately conceived in the face of this all encompassing horror.

What on earth was the artist thinking, one would hope his aristocratic patron gave him a damn fine thrashing on receiving this piece of art.  Frankly, if this was designed to curry favour with our Lord God, you'd be utterly fucked. Why not just smear a canvas with faeces had it over to God and prepare for a long stint in the seventh circle of hell along with Noel Edmonds and Monty Don.  In fact you might even win the faarckin' turner prize, you farckin' conceptual cant. Sorry, I accidentally morphed into the Daily Telegraph for a moment.

Strangely, I find Jesus endearing. Doing his best to focus on his little book and ignoring the fact that his mother is a monster and getting on with his lot in life. Little does he know that he'll end up starring in a Mel Gibson movie, flayed and then crucified. At least it gets worse before it gets better. And as for the slightly odd metal crown. I have no idea. The mind boggles. It really does.

I was told that by choosing such a narrow topic for my blog I'd soon run out of subject matter but as I furrow a lonely path through these myriad ecclesiastical horrors I look to the future with ever more confidence knowing that where there is faith there is mind numbing, bowel fillingly awful artists paedoing up Jesus. This is just the start. Oh yes.

Jesus as a flouncing girl

Artist - Jacob Jordaens

Title - The Holy Family and Saint John the Baptist

The Christ Child stands in front of the Virgin holding rosary beads, while Saint Joseph looks on from behind, and the infant Baptist on the left holds a cross. Probably painted between 1620 and 1625, perhaps under the influence of Caravaggio's "Madonna of the Rosary" (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) which was at that time was in the Dominican church in Antwerp.

Check my apparatus out. You'd be lying to me if you said you aren't just a little aroused. I am. 

It is also worth mentioning that this delight can be seen in person at the National Gallery, in London for those poor lost souls from foreign shores who have stumbled across this site, for those who want to paedo baby Jesus up close and personal. 

This is the first of all the images in which Jesus can't be described as a Tory MP looking more like a youthful Dutch sprout instead. Perhaps the most interesting part of this painting is the young chap in the back ground who appears to be fixating on little Jesus' bum, the sick little bugger thinking of how to make best use of his young friend. Hot crumpet anyone?

And why is Jesus wearing what looks like an alice band? As with all the other little Jesus' we've studied thus far, Jesus is always conceived of as a giant bloater and this chap is no exception with the a delightfully fully formed front bottom (which must have all those Catholic types frothing in excitement) which I always thought was a product of Broken Britain not ye olden times.  Combine his front bottom with arms of sausage and a tummy of chuddiness, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Jesus was a fat little bugger. 

Mary, at least, has been made to look human which is nice change of tempo compared to her haggard appearance in the other pictures. However, she does look a little bit lost and a bit like she is on smack. But that is  hardly surprising given that if an angel had visited me and to tell me he'd God was going slide a baby into my body via my ear I'd probably get on heroin, and if not heroin definitely I'd get the gin out. 

As for the hirsute chap in the background, stroking his beard he is probably wondering how they are going to manage the food bills when that fat bastard gets off the tit and needs solids instead as well as scoring the drugs for Mary. Poor sod.