CANVASES, CARATS AND CURIOSITIES

Cupid's story begins not as Cupid at all, but as Eros, who emerged in ancient Greek culture around the 5th century BCE. Far from a harmless infant, Eros represented a force of attraction and desire that could bring absolute chaos. According to Hesiod's Theogony, Eros was among the first beings to emerge from Chaos, the primordial void that existed before anything else, predating even Zeus and the Olympian pantheon.

Early Greek artists depicted Eros as a beautiful adolescent with wings—slender, athletic and decidedly adult in his proportions. Red-figure pottery from the Classical period shows him as a youth of perhaps sixteen or seventeen, often nude and carrying torches or wreaths rather than the bow and arrows that would later define him. The emphasis was on his beauty and unpredictability rather than innocence.

In Sappho’s poetry, Eros is described as a violent, destabilizing presence who “shakes the soul” and overwhelms the body with uncontrollable desire. Likewise, in Euripides’ Hippolytus, Eros is invoked as an inescapable god whose power drives Phaedra to forbidden passion and ultimately to destruction. Even the gods themselves are not immune: in Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica, Eros strikes Medea with his arrow at Hera’s command, igniting a love so consuming that it leads her to betray her family and homeland for Jason. Eros was never meant to be gentle; he was a force that stirred desire, unsettled reason and altered lives—for better or worse.

Rome’s Reinvention: From Eros to Cupid

When Roman culture absorbed Greek mythology, Eros underwent a transformation to become Cupido—from which we derive our modern "Cupid." Roman artists also began depicting Cupid as progressively younger, eventually settling on the chubby infant form that would dominate Western art for centuries.

Cupid’s bow and arrow, which had been occasional attributes in Greek art, became his defining accessory under Roman influence, subsequently becoming playful props that emphasized love's mischievous nature rather than brutal weaponry. Roman wall paintings from Pompeii show multiple cupids engaged in various light-hearted activities like making perfume, selling flowers and racing chariots.

Cupid's association with Venus (the Roman Aphrodite) further domesticated his image. Rather than an independent force of chaos, he became the goddess's son and companion, often depicted at her side in sculptures and frescoes. Along with this familiar softening, Roman artists established other iconographic conventions—the blindfold suggesting love's irrationality and golden arrows for love—that would persist through centuries of European art.

The Middle Ages and Renaissance: Cupid Meets Christianity

The survival and transformation of Cupid through Christianity's rise represents one of art history's more remarkable adaptations. Medieval and Renaissance artists found ways to incorporate this pagan deity into Christian visual culture, though his meaning and context shifted dramatically. The childlike form proved particularly adaptable, allowing Cupid to merge with Christian concepts of divine love and innocent joy.

The Renaissance witnessed an explosion of winged infant figures known as putti (singular: putto), which populated both religious and mythological scenes. While not all putti represented Cupid specifically, they shared his visual characteristics—plump, naked, winged infants frolicking through compositions. In sacred contexts, these figures might represent angels or souls.

Baroque and Rococo: Playfulness, Excess, and Mischief

The Baroque and Rococo periods marked Cupid's most exuberant phase. In many ways, the little cherub was Rococo's biggest star. No longer confined to mythological narratives or religious allegory, cupids proliferated across every surface of aristocratic interiors—ceiling frescoes, furniture, porcelain, tapestries and garden sculptures. These rosy-cheeked infants embodied the period's celebration of sensuality, pleasure and theatrical emotion.

From artists like Boucher to porcelain manufacturers at Sèvres and Meissen, artists across Europe created figurines and decorative objects that brought mythological romance into daily aristocratic life.

Neoclassicism: A Return to Classical Restraint

The Neoclassical movement's reaction against Rococo excess brought renewed attention to Cupid's original Greek form. Artists sought to recover the dignity and proportion of ancient art, moving away from the multiplication of chubby infants toward more focused compositions featuring single figures with clearer symbolic purpose.

Jean-Baptiste Greuze and later William-Adolphe Bouguereau created paintings that emphasized Cupid's psychological and emotional dimensions rather than purely decorative appeal. Bouguereau's A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Love presents Cupid not as harmless decoration but as a force to be resisted, returning some danger to his character while maintaining the cherubic form established over centuries.

The Modern Era: Cupid Reinterpreted

The 19th and 20th centuries saw artists approaching Cupid through increasingly personal and experimental lenses. Paul Cézanne's Still Life with Plaster Cupid uses a studio plaster cast to explore relationships between classical tradition, artistic practice and modern painting techniques. The Cupid becomes both subject and object, simultaneously maintaining mythological associations while serving as a formal element in Cézanne's revolutionary compositional experiments.

Even Pablo Picasso engaged with Cupid's imagery, abstracting the figure until only the arrows remained as identifying attributes. These modern interpretations suggest that while Cupid's specific form might be endlessly malleable, certain core elements—wings, arrows, youth—maintain sufficient symbolic power to ensure recognition across stylistic boundaries.

Today's Cupid may appear on Valentine's cards rather than temple walls, but he continues performing his ancient function—providing cultures with a shared visual language for discussing love's mysteries, dangers and delights. His persistence across centuries, styles and media suggests that as long as humans experience romantic desire, they will need images to help articulate what remains essentially ineffable.