Funny moments in Art History

Madonna (with a long neck), Parmigianino, 1540.

This painting is creepy on so many levels. First off, look at Mary's fingers! They are ridiculously long! And her neck is really long too (obviously, from the title of the piece). She must be trying to get a kink out of it or something. The Christ child looks more like a toddler, and this pose echoes the pieta, which is definitely not a happy subject. Then we notice some really weird things with the space. Why is it that, on the left side, there are room for 5 heads but only one body? Where are the rest of those bodies? And why don't they move to the right side of the painting where there is an incredibly deep view? But the right side is creepy as well. There is a tiny bald prophet way back there, which is really weird because all the depictions of prophets in these days showed them with hair! The only bald prophet I can think of is Dallin H. Oaks. And then there is the column - at the bottom there are about 10 bases, but at the top it looks like just one column. And what is it doing there, anyway? Isn't there a building it belongs to? This picture looks like the inspiration for Salvador Dali, if you ask me.

I hope you found that as funny as I did. Mark Magelby is a wonderful teacher and really makes this subject entertaining!