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This painting of Cupid and Psyche in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery is one of
the best known and loved in the collection having hung on this state case
for a half a century.
We see the lovers a at the moment of their triumph, united after many trials and heading
to their wedding feast at Jupiter's table.
The french academic painter, Bouguereau, completed this picture towards the end
of a successful career painting beautiful men and women
posed as religious or mythological subjects.
Since these were often naked he excelled in the evocation of human flesh.
Psyche, whose name means the soul in Greek, has limbs of pale and translucent hues contrasting
with the darker tones of Cupid, known as Love, from his Greek name Eros.
In fact the whole painting is a work of elegant contrasts blending into a seamless whole,
just as their love for one another fuses the bodies
and souls of Cupid and Psyche.
She swoons in ecstasy, head thrown back, so that had long crinkly hair blows out behind
her in the wind.
Her hand is raised to her breast to indicate her smitten heart.
Love, meanwhile, sinks his beautifully depicted fingers into her soft torso as he drops honeyed
words in her ear.
His modest drapery is blue, like the sky, which is his realm.
Cupid is the active force here, drawing Psyche upward in the direction of his pointing finger.
His lithe, youthful vigour is a counterpoint to the languid, voluptuous curves of his paramour,
and indeed the work is blatantly ***.
Psyche's full-frontal nudity is carefully observed from the live models Bouguereau posed
in his studio, often in such impossible positions that they
had need of ropes hanging from the ceiling to steady them.
While eroticism is common in European art of the nineteenth century, here it is actually
called for by the subject matter.
Originating in the Graeco-Roman mythology, the story of Eros and Psyche has the boy wounding
himself by accident with one of his own golden arrows of Love,
and so we can say that they are not merely in love but the embodiment of
love itself.
In preparing the work, the painter has surely asked himself how should this concept be portrayed?
And his on site is here for us all to admire. Love is as beautiful, as perfect, as a young
male god should be.
And Psyche, the object of his love, and soon to be immortal herself,
is no less exquisite and desirable.
This painting, presented to the Tasmanian Museum by Sir Thomas Nettlefold in 1949, is
famous, and not just in Tasmania ( it's used to illustrate the Wikipedia
entry on Cupid and Psyche).
Before arriving here it'd been exhibited in the two great international showcases, the
Paris Salon (in 1889), and the Royal Academy in London (in 1909).
The work is oil on canvas, two hundred by a hundred and sixteen centimetres.