Cupid and Psyche, 1867. Oil on canvas, 46 x 555/8 inches (116.8 × 141.4 cm). London: Tate Britain, reference no. N03274.
he "Story of Cupid and Psyche" derives from the tale told in the fourth, fifth, and sixth book of the Metamorphoses of Lucius Apuleius, a Roman writer of the 2nd century A.D. Psyche was a young princess considered so beautiful by her people that she was favoured over Venus. Venus was incensed about this mortal and was prepared to tolerate no rivals. She therefore sent her son Cupid to shoot Psyche with his arrows and cause her to love the most low, unattractive, and unworthy of mortals, and thus repent of possessing such an unlawful beauty. Cupid filled two amber vases from the two fountains in Venus' garden, one of which contained bitter water and the other sweet. He hastened to Psyche whom he found asleep by a marble fountain set within a hedge of woodbine and red roses. He placed a few drops of water from the bitter fountain over her lips, and then touched her side with his arrow's point. At the touch she awoke, and so startled Cupid that he accidently wounded himself with his own arrow. He fell in love with her at once. This is the part of the tale shown in Legros’s painting.
Legros showed Cupid and Psyche at the Royal Academy of 1867, no. 264. It portrays Psyche asleep in a wooded glade being discovered by Cupid who has removed one of his arrows from its quiver. This work is unusual in Legros’s oeuvre having been influenced by the early Aesthetic Movement in England. It shows the influence of Venetian High Renaissance painting by artists like Giorgione and Titian, similar to that seen in the work of many artists within the Pre-Raphaelite circle at this time period. Its subject was likely inspired by his friendship with Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris.
In the mid-1860 Burne-Jones made a series of illustrations with the intention that they be published as wood engravings for Morris’s The Earthly Paradise. Morris began work on the book in 1865 and his poems covered a wide range, telling not only medieval tales, but also ancient Greek legends and Celtic and Norse myths. Morris worked on the book for six years. Burne-Jones completed almost one hundred drawings, seventy of which were for the story of Cupid and Psyche, the poem of which Morris had completed in 1865. Forty-five of the drawings were transferred to woodblocks to be cut. In the end, however, Morris was unhappy with the typography chosen by the Chiswick Press for his book because the typeface was not suitable to complement the prints.
The idea of an illustrated edition was therefore abandoned. The Earthly Paradise was published between 1868 and 1870 with only a single Burne-Jones image on the title page. Burne-Jones made good use of his designs for the book, however, turning a number of them into finished paintings. At the Old Water Colour Society exhibition of 1867 he showed two of these compositions Cupid Finding Psyche and Cupid Delivering Psyche. As Liz Prettejohn points out there was a difference between Legros’s painting when compared to the usual work of the Aesthetic painters: ”There is a realist tangibility about Legros's painting of both flesh and foliage that contrasts with the more ethereal watercolours of Burne-Jones, and appeared French to London critics. Legros's Cupid also resembles contemporary male figures by Solomon, although again solider in flesh and blood. Legros's painting condenses these British and French points of reference into an experimental work, unusual in his oeuvre” (90-91).
Prettejohn has also pointed out that “Legros's nude vies for primacy with the work traditionally credited as reintroducing the large-scale female nude at the Royal Academy after a period in abeyance, Frederic Leighton's Venus Disrobing for the Bath also of 1867 (89). Alison Smith, commenting on Legros choosing to exhibit a semi-nude subject at the Royal Academy in 1867, felt it was related to the classical revival occurring in England at the time and a combination of both French and English influences: ”Legros’s experimental Cupid and Psyche reflects his engagement with classicism in the late 1860s as he moved away from realism to embrace a more eclectic style based on Old Master influences and study of the nude…The finished composition reflects Legros’s diverse aesthetic allegiances of the time, acknowledging Rembrandt’s etching Juniper and Antiope of 1659, Ingres’ Odalisque and Slave of 1839 and Manet’s Olympia of 1865, as well as Moore and Whistler in the details of the azalea branch in the lower left corner” (143).
When this painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy some contemporary reviewers found the nude figure of Psyche somewhat disturbing and less than the expected classical idealized appearance. F. G. Stephens writing in The Athenaeum commented on her “commonplace” mien: “His Cupid and Psyche (264) shows the latter sleeping, the former approaching her with the arrows and on Venus’s errand. The sleeper lacks much to make her Psyche, and is rather a commonplace naked young woman. The picture is strong and sober in color, very grateful to artistic eyes” (667). The critic for The Art Journal didn’t like this work and contrasted it to Legros’s other submission The Communion: “A diverse theme, the opposite to sacred, ‘Cupid and Psyche’ (264) is in a style no less than anomaly in an English gallery. Power is here gained by opacity and crudity, and the result is anything but commendable. The figures show some knowledge in the drawing of the nude; but the flesh colour wholly lacks transparency or brilliancy” (137-38). The Illustrated London News also compared this work unfavourably to The Communion: “Mr. Legros gives a heavy, lifeless, and formal reflex of the style of the great Venetians in his Cupid and Psyche (264). Far preferable is ‘The Communion’ (612), with its sombre gravity and earnest expressions” (519).
Bibliography
“The Royal Academy.” The Art Journal New Series VI (June 1, 1867): 137-46.
“Fine Arts. Exhibition of the Royal Academy.” The Illustrated London News L (May 25, 1867): 519.
Prettejohn, Elizabeth. “The Scandal of M. Alphonse Legros.” Art History XLIV (January 16, 2021): 78-107.
Smith, Alison. Exposed The Victorian Nude. London: Tate Gallery Publications Cat. 67, 143.
Stephens, Frederic George. “Fine Arts. Royal Academy.” The Athenaeum No. 2064 (May 18, 1867): 666-67.
Last modified 11 November 2022