EROS
Antonio Canova, Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, 1787, The Louvre Museum, France, sculpture
Soyeon Park
There are a lot of museums in this world, but by far we can all agree that the Louvre Museum is one of the best museums with many famous art pieces. But the question is, what is the most beautiful piece in the Louvre museum? Mona Lisa with its popularity? The Coronation of Napoleon with its detail? Liberty Leading the People with its historical significance? With this essay, I’d like to argue that Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss sculptured by Antonio Canova is the most beautiful, delicate, and unique piece of art that the Louvre Museum has. Not only is it beautifully sculptured, but the myth it was inspired from is one of the most memorable love stories in Greek mythology.
Antonio Canova is an Italian sculptor born in 1757 who became one of the most famous examples of the Neoclassicism sculptor. Canova, unfortunately, lost his father, a sculptor, at the age of three and was sent to live with his grandfather who was also a sculptor. As he is from an artist family, he was born with a great talent for sculpting. It is famously told that when Canova was around thirteen years old, he attended a dinner party held by a senator where he sculpted a lion with a brick of butter. Amazed by young Canova’s talent, the senator decides to sponsor him and since then, Canova quickly became one of the biggest figures in sculpting history (Ferando). His passion was classical art and nude which often was inspired by Greek mythology. Examples of Greek mythology-inspired works include Daedalus and Icarus (1779), Venus Victrix (1808), The Three Graces (1817), and Psych Revived by Cupid’s Kiss (1787).
Then what is the story about Psyche and Cupid and why is so loved by everyone including the sculptor Canova? Cupid is the son of Venus, the goddess of beauty. According to Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, Venus hears about this mortal girl named Psyche who is praised to be more beautiful than the goddess herself. With anger, Venus orders her son, Cupid, to make Psyche fall in love with the vilest creature by using his power of controlling love. However, Cupid instead falls in love with Psyche, and since Psyche was loved by the divinity, none of the mortal men wanted to marry her. Consulted by Apollo, her family abandons her as a living bride of a serpent monster that lives on a mountain top. To her surprise, she was greeted with luxurious goods and palaces, and when she gets to meet her husband every night in the darkness, she also realized that he is not a monster although she was never allowed to seek his real identity. Later visit her sisters who instantly get jealous of the wealth, and they successfully convince her to hide a sharp knife and a burning lamp and to slash his throat while he is asleep. That night Psyche continues with her plan, but she finds out that her husband is actually a beautiful god, Cupid. Surprised and with admiration, she stares at him, and the oil of the burning lamp accidentally falls on his body waking him up in pain. Feeling betrayed, Cupid flies away and Psyche is left alone. Unfortunately, Venus finds out what happened to her son and captures Psyche ordering her dangerous and impossible tasks to punish her. After completing each task with luck and the support of mortals and immortals, she faces an ultimate task—Psyche has to deliver a box to Venus from Persephone, the queen of the Underworld, that supposedly contains her beauty. While she was on her way back to Venus with the box, Psyche could not resist opening the box. Shockingly, the box was not full of beauty, instead, it was filled with deathlike sleep from Underworld that immediately kills Psyche. Luckily, just like every fairytale, Cupid recovers from his burn and flies to Psyche to save her. He puts the sleep back in the box, wakes her up, and goes to Jupiter, the king of the god, to approve his marriage. With Jupiter’s approval, Psyche becomes immortal, which makes Venus satisfied and makes peace with Psyche. Their wedding was attended by many immortals and later Psyche gives birth to a daughter named Voluptas (Morford et al.).
There are many reasons why this love story is so unique and loved. First and most importantly, the story begins with “once upon a time” and ends with “happily ever after” unlike much other Greek mythology’s love stories. Oftentimes in Greek mythology, one of the lovers dies in a tragedy—especially when it's between a mortal and an immortal—or the story is one-way love that also ends with death. However in this story, they fall in love with each other, and although there were barriers they had to overcome, they end up getting married with every immortal’s blessings. Not to forget, Cupid also appears at the peak of the story and saves her life, which is the cliche of every modern love story. Psyche and Cupid’s story follows every step a good love story should take: 1. A love between two people that are not meant to be together, 2. Some secret and some jealousy, 3. Questioning the trust followed by regret, 4. A life-threatening danger which oftentimes is the peak of the story, 5. Fairy godmother figure 6. Prince Charming to save his princess’s life, and 7. A happy ending. Many modern love stories that we know of follow these steps as well, and I believe that is why the story of Psyche and Cupid is loved so much by everyone even to this day. Another thing that makes this story unique is the connection to other mythological stories. For instance, Persephone makes an appearance here as the queen of the Underworld. Persephone was abducted by the king of the Underworld Hades and was forcefully sat on the throne. Nonetheless, in many other stories, she seems to appear as a proud queen of the underworld just like this one. I think those little appearances made by Persephone as the queen of the underworld allow every story including hers to connect fluently as whole Greek mythology. In a short word, “the cameo” made by other immortals made this story more interesting and exciting. Lastly, I wanted to focus on the box that Psyche had to deliver. Psyche opened the box out of curiosity and interestingly, the curse and the blessing that the first-ever mortal woman, Pandora, received was “curiosity”. With curiosity, Pandora opens a box that she was told not to open and release curses locked in the box to the whole mortal world. Similarly, Psyche opened the box she was not supposed to out of curiosity that could have taken her life. I thought this was an interesting connection to Pandora’s stories whether it was made intentionally or not.
The sculpture Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss captures the moment when Cupid saves her life by putting the deathlike sleep back to the box. It is immediately after the two lovers’ kiss and it is beautiful how both of them have such passionate locked eye contact with each other. Cupid is gently holding Psyche’s body and we can see the weight of her body through a sculpture which is very impressive. It perfectly shows how Psyche’s body was dead a few seconds ago as we can see that she barely has the energy to fully get up. While Psyche is struggling to get up, she uses all of her energy to passionately reach out to her loving husband Cupid. I think this is the most beautiful part of the sculpture because we know that she has not seen her husband for a long time, and the last time she saw him was when she betrayed him and accidentally injured him. Through the sculpture, we can feel how Psyche is feeling—love, gratitude, guilt, joy, shame, and most importantly, that she missed him a lot. In response, Cupid has a gentle smile on his face and we can understand that he forgives and still loves her. This sculpture has amazing details as well. For instance, when we look at Cupid’s shoulder, we can see the feathers from his wings are smoothly connected to his body and it almost seems like real feathers. Psyche’s toes also show how exceptionally well sculptured this piece is as it looks realistic in every possible way: the shape, the direction, the size, even the small joints of every toe. Canova has successfully created a masterpiece that shows the complicated emotions of two lovers and allowed the audience to feel what the sculptures are supposed to feel. The more you stare at this masterpiece, you’ll find more details and feel more emotions. The sculpture not only is beautifully extinguished, but it also makes you feel the aliveness of it and the complicated feeling of love. That is why I believe this sculpture is the most beautiful piece of art held in the Louvre Museum if not the whole world.
Kytlan Morgan
William-Adolphe Bouguereau, The Abduction of Psyche, 1895, private collection, oil painting
Cornelis de Vos, Apollo and the Python, 1636-9, Museo Nacional del Prado, oil sketch
Eros, the god of love (La Fond, 0:30-1:30), anthropomorphizes the passion and sexual tendencies felt by the Greeks and Romans, primal feelings that were powerful forces in directing many of their motives and myths. During the Greco-Roman era, depictions of Eros/Cupid evolved remarkably. Scholars found Eros’s physical portrayal reverse aged, moving from the handsome, wistful young man who falls for the princess of a Grecian kingdom, to the mischievous, cunning child with golden wings who shoots his arrows of love at passersby (Morford et al., 216-218, 257). Using two art pieces that show Eros/Cupid and supplementary myths, these contrasting portrayals of the god helps to reveal the evolved ideas of personified love in Greek society compared to Roman society.
“The Abduction of Psyche” is an oil painting made by William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1895 (Bouguereau). In the painting, Eros holds an unconscious, visibly content Psyche in his arms as he carries them both into the skies. Both figures are covered with a simple purple cloth that fans around them in the air, the semi-nudity meant to supplement the lustful feelings radiating off the painted couple. Eros and Psyche’s myth comes from the Metamorphoses, also known as The Golden Ass. In the tale, Psyche, the daughter of a Greek king, is considered the most beautiful woman across the land, her beauty highly contested with Aphrodite’s magnificence. Out of jealousy, Aphrodite asks her son, Eros, to shoot Psyche with one of his arrows and make the princess fall in love with a revolting beast. Instead, Eros falls in love with Psyche himself and chooses to make her his wife (Morford et al., 216-218).
The painting may be Bouguereau’s interpretation of a scene from the myth where Psyche is swept up by Zephyrus’s breezes after she falls into a deep sleep and is brought to Eros’s palace (Morford et al., 216-218). In the painting, as the name entails, Eros “abducts” Psyche and carries her to his palace himself. As the young man who falls in love with a mortal—and chose to disobey the wishes of his mother and goddess, Aphrodite—Eros’s actions are self-directed and motivated by his love and infatuation with Psyche. Eros’s vulnerability to love gives him a sense of tenderhearted compassion not as easily found in his opposing depiction as a winged child. In Greek society, Eros was more typically represented as an adult. This depiction was reflective of the homosexuality found in many city-states (Morford et al., 22), as well as male nudity seen in art at the time (Jenner). Later in the myth, Psyche breaks her vow to Eros—her promise to not try and learn his identity—and looks upon his face while he sleeps (Morford et al., 216-218). Eros leaves Psyche, grave and solemn by the betrayal, which again contrasts with Eros’s characterization as a witty and unsympathetic child who plays with the feelings of other Greek figures as if they are play toys.
Cornelis de Vos’s “Apollo and the Python”, an oil sketch made in 1636-9 (Boehm), shows the beginning of Apollo and Daphne’s myth, which is also derived from the Metamorphoses. Apollo, the god of archery, has just taken down the monstrous Python and comes across Eros, more commonly known as Cupid or Amor in his Roman form (Morford et al., 71). Apollo mocks the winged child for wielding a bow and arrow given his small stature (“Eros”). Out of rage, Cupid shoots Apollo with an arrow of love, and a “dull and leaden” arrow at Daphne, a nymph, which causes her to resist love. The power of Cupid’s arrows overwhelms Apollo, and the god goes after Daphne, with the chase ending in unrequited love (Morford et al., 257).
Compared to Greek society, Roman art and literature had more emphasis on the female body and heterosexuality (Jenner). This shift allowed adolescent Cupid to emerge easily. Additionally, Cupid as a child symbolizes the initial sparks of amorous feelings from a young age (“Eros”). As a child, Cupid possesses a sporadic nature, and his decisions are driven by greed and fury, traits known to characterize adolescents. After Apollo mocks Cupid, the child is easily angered, showing more mischief than his adult counterpart by driving Apollo mad with love. The mercilessness of his decision represents the ruthlessness of passion.
Works Cited
"Eros." UXL Encyclopedia of World Mythology, vol. 2, UXL, 2009, pp. 356-359. Gale In Context: World History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3230900113/WHIC?u=wash_main&sid=bookmark-WHIC&xid=71777e3e. Accessed 14 Feb. 2022.
Boehm, Barbara Drake. “Relics and Reliquaries in Medieval Christianity.” Metmuseum.org, Oct. 2001, www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/relc/hd_relc.htm.
Bouguereau, William-Adolphe. “The Abduction of Psyche.” Obelisk Art History, 2022, arthistoryproject.com/artists/william-adolphe-bouguereau/the-abduction-of-psyche/.
Ferando, Christina. “Antonio Canova (1757-1822).” Metmuseum.org, July 2016,
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nova/hd_nova.htm.
Jenner, Edward. “The Metamorphosis of Eros: the God of Love in Early Greek Poetry.” Journal of Humanities, vol. 20, no. 1, 2006, https://www.ajol.info/index.php/jh/article/view/153373.
La Fond, Marie. “Immortal Beloved: Aphrodite.” Greek and Roman Myth. University of Washington, June 2021, https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/1514816/pages/lesson-4-video-lectures?module_item_id=14661588. Accessed 14 February 2022.
Morford, Mark, et al. “Cupid And Psyche.” Classical Mythology, 11th ed., Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2018, pp. 22, 71, 216–218, 257