Drawing a line between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is a useful tool when considering ugly babies and significantly more lovable ones.

He looks like he was just accused of violating insider trading laws. This ugly baby by Jacopo Bellini is actually from the 15th century, but he's an example of the medieval baby style. Were medieval artists just bad at drawing? So why were there so many ugly babies? The reasons turned out to say a lot about art, medieval culture, and even the way we think of children today. You can use the slider below to see just how much our idea of a 'baby face' has changed: These scary man-babies make one wonder how we went from ugly medieval depictions to the recognizably cherubic babies of the Renaissance and today. Paolo Veneziano/Mondadori Portfolio/ Getty Images Painted in 1333 in Italy, Paolo Veneziano's 'Madonna With Child' makes this baby look slightly too creepy for a David Lynch movie. This 1350 baby in 'Madonna of Veveri' by the Master of the Vyssi Brod Altar looks like he's about to be fired for sexual harassment. These babies look like horrifying tiny men with high cholesterol and strong opinions about housing association rules. But really, just how ugly are these babies? Ugly might be too weak a word for medieval babies To find the answer, I spoke to Matthew Averett, an art history professor at Creighton University who edited the anthology The Early Modern Child in Art and History. Why are the babies in medieval art so ugly? Like this video? Subscribe to Vox on YouTube.

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