oohhh so the reason medieval depictions of baby jesus (and by extension most paintings of babies from the era) are just gross looking homunculus man babies is bc the church said so
basically the church viewed children as just. little dudes. the concept of childhood didn’t really exist yet like we now know it. the church viewed children as grown men that had to be taught to stop being little gremlins and be Good Christian Dudes. and so this translated in depicting jesus, the ultimate Good Christian Dude, as an adult, even though he was a baby. And bc the church basically had control of the art world at the time and were one of the only entities that could afford to commission artists, this changed the way all art was made of babies. and they were depicted as ugly little dudes
