Beyond being a painting by the famous Leonardo da Vinci, the Benois Madonna has a lot going for it.

For one, it is an incredibly treasured work. In 1912 the Russian people launched a drive to purchase the painting, and even though the British outbid them by nearly 350k francs, it was sold to the Russians anyway because of the people’s sheer love for the work. It currently resides in St. Petersburg, in more or less the same place it had been hanging for the past one hundred years. It leaves only briefly for tours and has returned to its home in Italy only once in that time. Additionally, it is one of the “newest” Da Vinci paintings to have been rediscovered, second to the Salvator Mundi, its formal debut being made in 1909. However none of this distracts from the fact that The Benois Madonna is freaking hideous.

I mean, just look at it. The virgin mary is a balding crackhead that simultaneously looks sixteen and sixty, and this fat baby Jesus has a head so big he looks like he has psychic powers. And it's not just me; there is a general consensus on how ugly this painting is. One critic describes the experience of looking upon it as simply, “hard.” You might think to argue that an image so off-putting might not actually be made by one of the greatest artists of the western world, but you would be wrong. For not only do critics widely (if reluctantly) agree that this was done by the hand of Leonardo, but the British also happen to have early sketches of the painting, further cementing its origin. This fact is doubly depressing, as it also means that this wretchedness was planned.

Critics try to excuse away the picture’s unsettling nature by claiming that it was produced during Leonardo’s Florentine period, or the early part of his career. However, its hard to let him off the hook, especially when you look at some of the other paintings he made during that period such as his portrait of Ginevra de' Benci, and his other depictions of the Madonna such as Virgin of the Rocks. I guess they can't all be winners.