Okay, apparently a lot of people really get creeped out by this lady:

She’s in the new Palm Pre commercials. Most of you know her because when she comes on the TV you recoil.

For once, I was NOT creeped out by something airing on TV! In fact, the first time I saw her I found her face to be oddly soothing. It took me about ten seconds to figure out why.

Also, this one time I was an art history nerd.

It’s because everything about her – the background, the lighting, even the arrangement of her hair – reminds me of my favorite Madonna and Child painting, by Fra Filippo Lippi:

I have no real reason to like this Madonna more than any other. There’s just something wonderfully serene about her expression. Plus, the costuming is amazing (what? I am a nerd, what can I do?):

I will continue to smile at the Palm Pre commercials, because one time someone used the Madonna and Child as an excuse to paint a pretty lady.* The end.

* This is one of my favorite through-lines of art history, this ostensible “worship” of the Madonna in art pre-Renaissance, when really all the painters were just like, “FINALLY, an excuse to paint pretty women in opulent clothes and work on vanishing-point perspective! Somebody bring me a rich dame and some black-and-white tiles, IMMEDIATELY.”