クピドとプシュケ

David made this in 1817, in his Brussels exile, for an Italian collector named Sommariva. The subject is Cupid and Psyche, the god of love and the mortal girl he visits only in the dark, and painters had always made it tender and idealized. David did the opposite. His Cupid is a scrawny, clean-shaven teenager slipping out of bed at dawn with a smirk, plainly pleased with himself, more like a real boy caught sneaking off than a god. Viewers in Brussels were startled by how ordinary and even unlovely he looked. David seems to have meant exactly that, reaching for the awkward truth of the story instead of its usual sweetness. The painting is now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.