Nine Times the Greatest Artists in History Made Bad Artwork

How the masterful hands behind the Sistine Chapel ceiling or “The Starry Night” (1889) could create something atrocious and confusing, but even art history virtuosos have made some terrible mistakes.

Overloaded images, shaky perspective, and amusing anatomical misinterpretations are often attributed to anomalies, redeemed by other tour-de-force accomplishments. But it’s comforting to remember that even geniuses can perform some amazing feats of ugliness. Below, we show you nine surprising mistakes from some of the world’s most beloved artists.

“Night” (c. 1520-32), by Michelangelo

Forged to crown the tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici, “Night” is a magnificent allegorical sculpture of a sleeping woman. Like many of Michelangelo’s women, “Night” has a muscular stature similar to that of her male counterpart, “Day”.

The revered Renaissance master was known for employing male models for his female likenesses – a common practice at the time, as a woman posing nude was considered shameful. Despite Michelangelo’s tremendous dexterity, he was shockingly inept, or perhaps careless, when it came to breasts.

In fact, Night’s chest is so disfigured that in 2000, oncologist Dr. James J. Stark published an article hypothesizing that cancer was to blame for his deformity. In Michelangelo’s defense, art historians have attributed these unconvincing appendages to choice: his alleged homosexuality has led some to believe that the artist was uninterested — or entirely uninterested — in the female form.

“Operation with Stone (Allegory of Touch)” (c. 1624-25), by Rembrandt

A grotesque trio involved in what appears to be a dubious medical procedure is illuminated by a wrinkled old woman holding a candle. She casts a dim light on the patient’s temple as a barber-surgeon dives in with a scalpel, causing him to grimace and clench his fists in pain.

This unsavory image belongs to the “Five Senses Series”, a set of five allegorical paintings made by Rembrandt when he was just 18 years old. The strange subject alludes to the archaic phrase “to remove a stone from the head”, a fictitious operation to cure foolishness or stupidity. “Stone Operation” sounds crude, but it presages the technical skills Rembrandt would cultivate as a mature artist.

“The Overturned Bouquet” (1660-79) by Abraham Mign

Bursting with luminous, silky flora, “The Overturned Bouquet”, or “O Biqueê Virado”, in Portuguese, is an upturned scene in which an overturned urn wreaks havoc on what would normally be a tranquil still life. Water cascades over the table as ragged insects fly from broken stems, all rendered with exceptional subtlety.

Closer inspection reveals the image’s twisted antagonist: a hissing cat whose game with a mousetrap has gone awry. In contrast to the realism of the flowers and insects, the cat more closely resembles a bestial hybrid animal with bat ears, a human nose and a screaming monkey mouth.

In a single image, Abraham Mignon achieved superb pictorial verisimilitude and feline sloppy work for the ages.

“El tío Paquete” (c. 1819-20), by Francisco de Goya

He may be considered the greatest Spanish painter of the Romantic period, but Francisco de Goya does the apparently bulbous-headed and sparse-toothed Tío Paquete no favors in this crudely executed portrait.

On the back of the canvas, Goya announced his theme “el celebrated ciego fijo” (“the famous local blind man”). A well-known blind singer and guitarist in Madrid, Tío Paquete posted daily outside the church of San Felipe el Real.

But according to Goya’s portrait, Tio Paquete, with his maniacal, laughing face emerging in quick strokes of opaque darkness, was more sinister than gregarious. The disturbing resemblance is linked to the late “Black Paintings” by Goya (1819-23), characterized by their somber color palettes and macabre imagery, which indicate the artist’s imminent fear of death.

“Fishing” (c. 1862-63), by Édouard Manet

This surprisingly unkempt landscape depicts the illustrious painter Édouard Manet with his future bride, Suzanne Leenhoff, in the lower right corner of the canvas. His 17th-century costumes nod to the Park of the Château de Steen by Peter Paul Rubens (c. 1632-35), in which the influential Flemish painter is similarly posed alongside his wife.

In Manet’s canvas, fishermen work in a small boat on the river, while a boy lazily casts a line across the river. In the background, a curiously opaque rainbow spills over a distant village marked by a tall belfry. While the peripheral vegetation and trees in this arcade scene were crafted with care and detail, the disproportionate scale and incredibly smooth terrain of the central composition render “Fishing” so weak that it feels unfinished.

“The Potato Eaters” (1885) by Vincent van Gogh

Although considered Vincent van Gogh’s first significant painting, “The Potato Eaters” is far from the expressive and revolutionary works of art he would produce later in life. The self-taught artist still needed to master texture, color or portraiture at this stage of his career, and the ugly faces in these peasants’ misshapen heads foster a monotonous and unbalanced composition.

That said, Van Gogh effectively illustrates a humble domestic scene, and his formal clumsiness still manages to achieve a captivating familiarity. What “The Potato Eaters” lacks in technical skill it makes up for in the evocation that would eventually make Van Gogh a star of art.

“Marcelle Aron (Madame Tristan Bernard)” (1914), by Édouard Vuillard

Édouard Vuillard was a key member of the Nabis (Hebrew for “prophets”), a unique group of Post-Impressionists who sought to elevate the decorative function of painting. Vuillard’s style is largely characterized by intimate interior scenes, in which heavily ornate fabrics (wallpaper, dresses, bedding) are harmoniously juxtaposed against flat, simplified human figures.

“Marcelle Aron (Madame Tristan Bernard)” from 1914 is a comparatively overloaded painting devoid of the magic and vision of her 19th-century paintings and prints. While Vuillard’s later work has been rejected by critics for its lack of ambition, this portrait of society is arguably too ambitious: the confusion of colors and conflicting patterns distracts from an otherwise pleasing (albeit supremely bourgeois) painting.

“Angry Dog” (c. 1938-43) by Edvard Munch

For an artist who has so exquisitely captured the harrowing depths of human despair, “Angry Dog” is a surprising component of Edvard Munch’s oeuvre. Munch forged a contentious relationship with his neighbor’s dog, Rolle, whose boundless and ferocious disposition led the mercurial artist to scrawl several unflattering—if not downright childish—drawings and lithographs.

According to Rolle’s owner, Mr. Gunnerud, his previous caretaker’s long-term neglect turned Rolle into a misanthrope with aggressive tendencies, and Munch was the regular subject of his ire. Suffice it to say that this caustic watercolor makes poor Rolle a completely unseemly creature.

This article was published in partnership with Artsy, the global platform for discovering and collecting art. The original article can be seen here.