CUPID/EROS

Italian, Michelangelo Buonarroti. “Michelangelo Buonarroti: Cupid: Italian, Florence.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/236774. The sculpture of Cupid with broken limbs is wingless and has a quiver.

James Doan

Michelangelo Buonarroti’s Michelangelo Buonarroti: Cupid: Italian, Florence, depicts a sculpture of Cupid without the limbs of his arms, holding a quiver with arrows within it, and is surprisingly wingless. The statue also encapsulates cupid as an idolized youthful and young god. This sculpture was first recognized in the 1550s in Rome at the house of Jacopo Galli but was misidentified as the Greek god Apollo. In the next 100 years, the figure found itself in the garden niche in Villa Borghese, also in Rome, but was reconsidered to be Cupid himself (Michelangelo). More recently within the past century, this statue was purchased by Standford White an architect that installed it onto a fountain within the 5th Avenue mansion but is now in the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York. The sculpture now presumes the identity of Cupid.

Within lesson 4: Video Lectures #1: Immortal Beloved: Aphrodite conveys the birth of Eros and the depiction of Eros. Eros was a primordial entity that encaptured the ideas of physical and sexual love. He was thought to be born from Chaos or a being that came after Chaos. Within the literature, Eros is pictured with Aphrodite as a young man with wings. (La Fond 0:46-01:59).

The myth of Cupid and Psyche by Brendan Pelsue captures the story of another side of Cupid. The myth entails the love story between the mere mortal Psyche and Cupid in relation to their adversities within their forbidden love for each other. The video introduces Psyche as a mortal, but had a comparable beauty to the goddess of love, Aphrodite, that being Cupid’s own mother (TEDEducation, 2017). This blessing has its caveats, Psyche’s father abandoned her after he received a prophecy from Apollo. Now lonely, she dealt with a disconnection from humans being too afraid to approach her beautiful self. During this phase of tragedy, Cupid slowly found his place in the story. Cupid was tasked to embarrass Psyche by falling in love with a mortal by pricking her with an arrow. The plan soon came to a failure when he used it on himself to fall for her. Through this action, he presumed the role of her secret husband and lover, but she soon sought out to find out his true identity. Through finding his identity, there was soon a tragedy that formed between the two of them, Cupid considered that Gods and humans could not love each other as equals. Although Cupid began to take flight and leave, Psyche endured many troubles through Aphrodite’s task to find peach in their relationship. As Cupid began to venture back for his wife, he found her sleeping and recognized the value of their relationship. Psyche was given the ambrosia, the nectar of gods by Cupid and became an immortal being. Throughout this video, it portrayed their relationship and a new perspective of Cupid in terms of his relationship with his family and how they were able to birth their first child, Pleasure.

What the mythical Cupid can teach us about the meaning of love and desire by Professor Joel Christensen portrays the culture and the meaning of Cupid within history. Cupid remains a common depiction as a winged god that was a symbol of love. The Roman version of Cupid is Eros, which was the son of Ares and Aphrodite. Eros is seen as the god of Sex and Desire (Christensen, 2022). Throughout the Roman Empire, there was a depicture of little Cupid being more common; thus taking more of a younger/youthful depiction when thinking of the god. Eros was considered a necessity for nature's force, being someone who troubles the mind of both mortals and gods.

Work Cited

Christensen Joel. “What the Mythical Cupid Can Teach Us about the Meaning of Love and Desire.” BrandeisNOW, 11 Feb. 2022, https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2022/february/joel-christensen-cupid.html.

Italian, Michelangelo Buonarroti. “Michelangelo Buonarroti: Cupid: Italian, Florence.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/236774.

La Fond, Marie. “Video #1: Immortal Beloved: Aphrodite” Greek and Roman Myth. The University of Washington, Accessed Feb. 2023,

TEDEducation, director. YouTube, YouTube, 3 Aug. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjj_-CPxjCM. Accessed 16 Feb. 2023.