By Rebecca Hill, Third Year English and History
Amid the shades of pink and red that line the shelves this February, one figure feels impossible to miss – Cupid, the mascot of love itself. Whether fluttering across a window display or perched atop a bouquet of roses, this winged cherub is synonymous with Valentine’s Day romance.
But how did this mischievous matchmaker become the face of modern romantic greeting cards? The answer lies in a long evolution of Western art history and culture.
Before the Roman coining of ‘Cupid’, there was Eros, the Greek god of love. Unlike the cherubic figure we are so familiar with, classical depiction of Eros understood him as a slender, mature and primordial deity born from chaos itself.
He possessed arrows that could inflame intense desire with the power to affect both gods and mortals alike, making love as erratic as it was irresistible.
By the Hellenistic period (beginning 323 BCE), Eros underwent an artistic transformation into the chubby, cherubic figure we recognise today.
This is because acute characterisation of age began to be recognised in fine art - essentially meaning infants were no longer depicted as miniature adults as was common in the Classical period.
Take this Bronze Statue of Eros Sleeping (pictured below) which conveys him in this sort of naturalism. Vulnerable and sleeping, this statue marks a departure from the previously capricious, teenage Eros.
The infant is instead disarmed, and in his nudity, we behold his doughy flesh folding to one side as he reclines.
We are reminded that love can be something gentle, dormant, and subconscious in contrast to our modern idea that intimacy is immediate and playfully facilitated by today’s commercial Cupid.
This shift also gave rise to such godlings as the Erotes; winged deities whose function was to attend Aphrodite, the mother of Eros and the goddess of love.
They represent the different forms that love may take. Among them, impatient desire, as Himeros, longing or yearning, Pothos, and Anteros who embodies mutual love, often pitched against his brother, Eros, to ensure that unrequited love is avenged.
Where the Greeks gave us Eros, the Romans made Cupid – just as mischievous and divine in his powers of love and chaos. As such, his name derived from the Latin verb ‘cupere’ meaning ‘to desire’.
Born from the Roman deities of love and war, Venus and Mars (although his paternity is contested), Cupid embodies the same paradox of desire versus conflict in the ‘odd combination of a baby’s body with lethal weapons.’
It is in the Early Modern period, however, Cupid largely disappeared from visual art, but it was in literature that he became a figure of complex courtly romance.
Take Philip Sidney’s sonnet of Astrophil and Stella, or Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene: Canto III (hear the English students shudder) which depict the deity in a pastoral setting, representing love and virtue but one that caused pain and torment in equal measure.
This literary revival set the stage for the Renaissance, the artistic revival of antiquity and classical traditions in 14th - 17th century Europe, where artists favoured the adoption of Cupid as their subject of love. It was a blending classical mythology with the refined sensibilities of Renaissance culture.
It gets no more iconic than Sandro Botticelli’s La Primavera. Symbolising sensuality and fertility as an allegory of spring, La Primavera depicts nine mythological figures amongst an orange orchard, the central of which is Venus and her son Cupid.
To the left are Three Graces who each represent ‘feminine virtues of Chastity, Beauty, and Love’. They dance oblivious to the poised arrow of Cupid, suggesting an inbound transition from spiritual love to a passionate and earthly kind. Love is quite literally in the air.
Note too that Cupid is blindfolded to denote that love is blind, indiscriminate and sometimes irrational.
The light and airy pastels of the Rococo period (mid to late 18th century) solidify the sumptuous and indulgent themes of Valentines.
Francois Boucher’s The Target of Love shows us the now familiar winged cherubs who – like the Erotes or the Chrisian equivalent, “putti” – signify the care-free and playful sweetness of love. It speaks to a whimsical, more diluted symbol where the idea of the cherub or the Cupid as a broader representation of romance and affection.
This enhancement of the ornate translated to the commercialisation of the Victorian Valentines where the tradition of sending or receiving cards began to solidify as cultural tradition.
With the availability of cheap paper and printing techniques, greeting card circulation ‘greatly increased with the advent of the Penny Post in 1840,’ says Sarah Beattie from the V&A Museum.
Cards also invited anonymity, using none other than Cupid (or indeed cherubs) to convey the feeling of being unexpectedly struck by amorous intentions. Many however, were embellished with lace, illustrated with flowers, love hearts or doves, not entirely dissimilar from ours today.
So, whether a symbol of passionate romance, or playful flirtation, Cupid remains timeless. His arrows have struck hearts across centuries, evolving from the ancient myths of Greece and Rome to the cards we give and receive today. They serve as a reminder, however abstracted, that love – like art – is unpredictable but always worth celebrating.
