Accidentally funny art

Pippa Passes is Robert Browning’s great verse drama that gave us the immortal line, “God’s in His heaven—All’s right with the world!” It also contains a monumental howler:

Then, owls and bats,
Cowls and twats,
Monks and nuns, in a cloister’s moods,
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry!

Browning mistakenly thought the vulgarity twat (British slang for a woman’s genitals) meant a nun’s wimple.

I was reminded of this by a story in the Boston Globe, which says that the new Maine license plates may be flipping us off. I have those plates on my truck. It’s accidentally funny art, one of those things you don’t unsee.

Thank goodness the world is full of accidentally funny art. Sometimes, over time the artist’s intent is misunderstood or we viewers bring modern associations to the work. Or, what was common symbolism of the time is considered rude in our culture. For example, breast milk represented charity, motherhood, and sacrifice in Renaissance art, but the Caritas Romanas (a woman breastfeeding an ancient man) looks downright pervy to modern viewers.

Then there’s pomposity. Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze is heroic, iconic, and beautifully painted. It’s also impossible. Nobody could stand up in a tiny boat being buffeted by ice. Modern viewers can’t help but see it as over-the-top.

The Ambassadors” by Hans Holbein the Younger (1533) is an early example of an optical projection called anamorphosis. There are scientific and cultural objects on the shelves between the two subjects, but then there’s a weird, distorted skull floating near the floor. It makes sense in its setting in London’s National Gallery, but is inscrutable on the internet.

For many works, shifting cultural perspectives change what we see in the painting. Giulio Romano’s panoramic mural Fall of the Giants, based on Ovid‘s Metamorphoses, is an example. To Renaissance viewers, it was a Mannerist masterpiece that illustrated one of the most influential works of western literature. To modern viewers, it reads like bad comic book art.

Before books were mass-produced, they were mostly devotional. The artisans who made them also illustrated them, often with small drawings now called marginalia. These were often devout, but they were also scatological or sexually explicit.

Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights is another example of a painting that can’t be understood by modern audiences. It’s not just its strange and fantastical world; its interpretation of lust that leaves us scratching our heads.

Then there’s the vast arena of what we moderns read as kitsch or schmaltz. To me, one of the most egregious examples of accidentally funny art is Sir Frederic Leighton’s Flaming June, although almost all of his paintings crack me up. The Pre-Raphaelites were terrifically kitschy, as was Sir Edwin Henry Landseer.

Note that I haven’t written a word about ugly Renaissance babies. That has been memed to death.

There are modern examples, of course, including the infamous botched Ecce Homo restoration by Cecilia Giménez in Borja, Spain. Ironically, subsequent interest has been so high that the painting has made significant money for the church, the community, and for the terrible artist herself.

The late American artist Thomas Kinkade has to be included in any list of accidentally funny art. His idealized villages of sugary perfection always appear to be on fire. He crossed over the line to self-parody long before he died of acute alcohol and Valium intoxication. I can laugh about his paintings, but his death was pure tragedy.

If you’re ready to start painting, I’ve just released Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters. You’ll learn seven essential protocols that every successful oil painter needs to follow. Each course focuses on one protocol, and you can take them in any order that suits you.

Reserve your spot ASAP for a workshop in 2025:

• Sea and Sky at Acadia National Park, August 3-8, 2025.
• Find Your Authentic Voice in Plein Air, Berkshires, MA, August 11-15, 2025.
• Immersive In-Person Fall Workshop, Rockport, ME, October 6-10, 2025.