Cupid Chastised (Mars Chastising Cupid)
by Bartolomeo Manfredi
click image for a larger version

FROM - THE STAUROS NOTEBOOK
http://www.stauros.org/notebooks/v20n4a04.html

Reflections on the Mystery of Suffering
Volume 20
Number 4
Winter, 2001

Images of Suffering

Bartolomeo Manfredi
Italian, c.1580 c.1620
Cupid Chastised
1605/1610, oil on canvas, 175.3 x 130.6 cm
Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection, 1947.58 © The Art Institute of Chicago. All Rights Reserved.

This disturbing and complex painting depicts the eternal human struggle over sexuality. Cupid, who lights fires of love in people's hearts, is the son of Venus, the goddess of love. Here, Venus tries in vain to stop Mars, the god of war, from beating Cupid's naked and blindfolded body with such rage that even the doves flee.

Open to many interpretations, the most obvious is the repression of sexual love by the forces of power, war, and might. This scene connects deeply with the ambivalence and uncertainty that accompany matters of sexuality in modern society.

FROM - THe Art Institute Of Chicago Museum Website
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/eurptg/17mac_manfredi.html

Bartolomeo Manfredi chose not to interpret the stories of the Bible and classical mythology as idealized subjects enacted by heroic protagonists but rather as events that happened, or could have happened, to ordinary people. In Cupid Chastised,Mars, the god of war, beats Cupid for having caused his affair with Venus, which exposed him to the derision of the other gods. Using dramatic light effects and depicting the action as close to the viewer as possible, Manfredi conveyed with great immediacy and power this tale of domestic discord, which also symbolizes the eternal conflict between love and war.