Stupid Cupid often gets it wrong, or worse, is malicious. His arrows are weapons and he uses them cruelly. The very first time Cupid appears in the ancient Roman epic of mythology, Ovid's Metamorphoses, he does mischief. The god Apollo insults him, calling a him a silly boy with no business to be shooting arrows. Cupid gets his revenge by shooting one gold arrow at Apollo to make him fall in love, and another (lead-tipped this time) at the beautiful Daphne to make her fear and hate love. So Apollo chases Daphne until she turns into a laurel tree to get away – all because of those cruel arrows.
In Antonio del Pollaiuolo's painting of Apollo and Daphne, her arms are already leafy branches – all through the cruelty of Cupid! What terrible god is this? In Parmigianino's Cupid Carving His Bow, the love god turns to look at us as he hews his wicked weapon. In Caravaggio's Love Conquers All, he has dark wings, his penis is showing, and he bestrides a world of learning and culture that yields to his attack.
Cupid's arrows go so wrong in art that he sometimes seems to have changed his job – he might be working for the Christian God. Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa features an angel with a spear, piercing the heart of a Catholic mystic. But wait. A beautiful adolescent boy with wings? Piercing someone with a pointed shaft? This is surely Cupid in disguise. And he has truly created some confusion here: Saint Teresa, right there in a church in Rome, swoons with what looks like carnal passion.
This same confusion afflicts paintings of Saint Sebastian. Technically, this Roman soldier was shot by a firing squad with arrows for being a Christian. But in many paintings, including a powerful one by Guido Reni, it seems more like he has been pierced by Cupid's darts. Oscar Wilde loved Guido Reni's Saint Sebastian as a homoerotic image. Under the guise of religious art, Cupid has shot his arrows where they were forbidden to go.
In Titian's painting The Death of Actaeon it is the goddess Diana who aims her bow at the hunter Actaeon. Her magic has already turned Actaeon into a stag, and he is about to be torn apart by his own hounds. This all happened because Cupid caused confusion, yet again, when Actaeon, out with his dogs, gazed on the goddess naked. Big mistake.
Happy hunting.
