Cupid and Psyche 1817

Psyche was a princess of such great beauty that Cupid himself wished to marry her. Psyche's parents, consulting the oracle of Apollo about the marriage of their daughter, received the order to expose her atop a high mountain at the edge of a cliff. The oracle added that she could not expect to marry a mortal, but rather would receive a husband more malicious than a viper, feared even by the gods and hell.

Psyche was placed atop a cliff, but Zephyr carried her off to a delectable place, a magnificent palace where she was served by invisible nymphs. At night, her husband visited her in the dark, then left without being seen so that she never knew his identity.

One might be surprised that the masculine genius of Mr. David was drawn to this subject and that the austere author of Brutus, the Horatii, and Léonidas could have found on his palette the cheerful colors with which he embellished Cupid and Psyche, if one did not know that Raphael also excelled at both serious scenes and at the most happy paintings of mythological subjects. A genius as inexhaustible and varied as nature encompasses all, can adapt to all—it is a fertile ground that gives rise to both oaks and roses.

The merit of this commendable painting by the leader of the arts is to use his talent to hide his talent—the "manner" of this great artist is to have no manner. Looking at this delightful scene he has portrayed, the beautiful group of figures that makes up the composition, one cannot at first examine the noble and elevated style of the drawing and the true-to-life colors that distinguish this masterpiece; one cannot even think of beginning to examine the forms, the expressions, the colors in detail; the subject is so well handled, the figures so natural, that they hide the mechanism of the execution. The viewer, seduced by the pictorial illusion, believes he is seeing nature itself.

Cupid is indeed the husband foreseen by the oracle—he is the crudelis amor spoken of by the ancient poets. A lewd smile and a malicious joy animate his features. This character that Mr. David has captured, this expression he has rendered so well, are in keeping not only with the action of the painting but also with the allegorical conventions of the subject. Through fables, the imagination of the three graces has presented moral lessons as phenomena of nature. Mythologists wanted to paint the evils and pains that love, in the person of Cupid, inflicts on the soul, in the person of Psyche.

Louis Frémiet in le Vrai Libéral, August 1817