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.

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.

Jesus as corpulent frog

Immaculate conception my arse.

Sadly, I know very little of the provenance of this little prized bloater as I was too busy taking flash photographs whilst not getting caught by a decrepit curator to note down the artist or year. But let us not dwell on the lack of scholarly apparatus and focus instead on the sheer terror Jesus has unleashed on his audience. 

The chap in the foreground on our left, his right hand pointing at the Whitstable Fairy of God, has that tell tell "fuck me, Mary has given birth to 19th Century Tory politician face" his eyes black with fear. If this is Joseph, he must be cursing the day that the floozy archangel Gabriel sent Baby Jesus down a coil into Mary's ear [fact Daddy!!]  and lumbered him with a balloon faced muppet to raise. 

To our right, the shepherds and wisemen have just arrived from the local "Pirates of the Carribean" party and are clearly all concerned by Jesus' lack of arms and preternatural jowl. Again, we can see a hand pointing, albeit this time anonymously, to little Jesus and we can only assume that if the painter had a larger canvas the other hand would over his mouth holding back the sick. Indeed, such is the disgusting hold of Jesus on his audience, they have totally failed to notice the giant fireball emerging from the top left corner of the picture coming to engulf them all. In the words of Daphne and Celeste "U - G - L - Y, you ain't got no alibi, you UGLY." 

Mary, too, looks slightly odd. Not unlike a slightly deflated condom akin to Steve Bell's delightful rendering of David "We're in this together" Cameron. Clearly, this must be down to the shock. The fact that Jesus appears to embedded in a pillow, entombed in swaddling and with a double chin so big it makes Winston Churchill look human her appearance is not surprising. Jesus, given he is but a few minutes old, has a remarkable barnet too and has been to look a little bit too much like that kid, Bobby methinks, from King of the Hill. 

Frankly, if I where the son of an omnipotent creator I'd get Carter Fucks on the phone and sue the shit out of the painter for such  an outrageous portrayal.