in case you have a target for his arrow of love or you want to bare your own breast to him….

 

 

Cupid’s Hunting Fields, 1880; oil and gold paint on gesso relief on mahogany panel, and detail.

  Edward Burne-Jones, British, 1833-1898.  Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

 

 

 

Cupid never misses.  He was trained from childhood and Mars, the war god, is his father. 

 

His mother, Venus, trained him to the high seriousness of his task.  The pleasure of it. 

 

It is her thigh which can be seen below in the upper right corner of this fragment of a larger work.

 

 

Eros, Cupid, 1530, oil on panel, fragment.

Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1472 – 1553, German.  Philadelphia Art Museum

 

 

 

The joy of life – for a while anyway – is just an arrow shot away. No pain.

 

 

 

The Joy of Life (Le Bonheur de Vivre), 1905-1906; oil on canvas.

Henri Matisse, 1864- 1959, French.  The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia