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Cupids Cupids Cupids

6 artworks from 6 artists across 6 galleries
The tour is ordered to begin from the Michigan Avenue entrance. If you are starting in the Modern Wing, simply do your tour in reverse order.

Follow this tour of artworks exploring the many fates and feelings of people struck by Cupid's arrow.

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  • Mars, Venus and Cupid

    Marcantonio Raimondi

    This engraving was one of Raimondi’s most sought-after works. Here, we see Mars, the Roman god of war, sitting with his elbow on his knee as he twists his muscular body to grab Venus, the goddess of love, by the shoulder. Venus looks down and away, toward Cupid, who pushes a flaming torch, a symbol of passionate love, at her. Mars and Venus had an affair while she was married to Vulcan, the god of fire.

    "The son of the winged messenger god Mercury, and the love goddess Venus, Cupid is a clear combination of his parents. He is often portrayed as a winged infant carrying a bow and arrows—his tools for inflicting the irrepressible power of love over anyone."

  • The Temptation of Saint Jerome

    Giorgio Vasari

    Best known for his Lives of the Artists, a monumental compendium of biographies, Vasari was a successful architect and a prolific painter for the Medici dukes of Florence. This painting is a frequently depicted episode from the life of Saint Jerome. The saint—a scholar, translator of the Bible, and advocate of monasticism—vividly described the tempting visions that assailed him when he retreated to the desert to meditate.

    "Here, Jerome's temptations are personified by Venus, accompanied by not one, but multiple cupids. Although Venus seems to flee, one troublesome cupid still aims his arrow at the saint desperately trying to focus his attention away from such enticements."

  • Venus and Cupid

    Luca Cambiaso

    The most important and inventive painter in 16th-century Genoa, Luca Cambiaso developed a highly personal style characterized by a geometric simplification of anatomy and dramatic, often silvery light. Here, the canopied bed and profile view lend an unusual intimacy to the representation of the goddess of love and her son.

    "How do we know this delightful babe in his mother's arms is Cupid? Note the quiver and arrows by the bed. Those are no ordinary arrows, of course, but ones that cause whomever they strike to fall in love with the next person they see."

  • Venus, Cupid and Ceres

    Cornelis Cornelisz.

    A newly discovered work by Cornelisz van Haarlem, this colorful painting interprets the ancient witticism, “Without food and drink, love grows cold.” The supple, translucent flesh demonstrates the interest in naturalism that blossomed in Northern Europe in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, which led artists to work increasingly “from life,” that is, from observation of models.

    "Here Cupid, the personification of love, joins Ceres, the goddess of grain (and food), and Bacchus, god of wine. When portrayed together, they illustrate that without food and drink, love is impossible!"

  • Armida Encounters the Sleeping Rinaldo

    Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

    Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s work epitomizes the brilliant exuberance of the Late Baroque style. Internationally renowned, Tiepolo was often commissioned to transform palaces and monasteries in Venice and elsewhere in Italy, as well as in Germany and Spain. This painting and three others at the Art Institute once graced the cabinet of mirrors, a richly decorated room in the Venetian palace of the powerful Cornaro family.

    "Cupid plays a central role in Tasso's poem of love and duty. Here, the matchmaker has already made Armida fall in love with her once foe Rinaldo, and she gazes on him adoringly. Cupid next makes Rinaldo fall for Armida and forgo his knightly duties."

  • Panel from a Sarcophagus Depicting the Abduction of Persephone

    Ancient Roman

    This panel—once the long side of a sarcophagus, or coffin––depicts the abduction of Persephone by Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. On the left, Persephone's mother, Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest, drives a chariot in search of her daughter. Persephone kneels in the center of the panel, looking upward in the moment before her abduction. On the right, Hades flees with the girl thrown over his shoulder.

    "Can you spot Eros (the Greek Cupid) at the bottom left? His interference often sets off a whole chain of events. In this case, his arrow made Hades fall in love with and then abduct Persephone—the start of a story thought to explain the seasons!"


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