Cupid and Psyche

Cupid and Psyche, completed in Brussels in 1817, depicts the mythological lovers at the moment of Cupid's dawn departure, drawn from Apuleius's Golden Ass. The subject represented a radical departure for the painter of the Oath of the Horatii and the Death of Marat, and the smirking, almost contemptuous expression David gave to the god of love shocked contemporary critics expecting either Neoclassical dignity or Romantic sentiment. David's exile following Napoleon's defeat had given him unexpected freedom from public commissions, and Cupid and Psyche reflects a genuine creative liberation — his late mythological subjects are among his most personal works, unconstrained by the demands of state ideology. The smooth, porcelain-like flesh painting and precisely drawn forms demonstrated his undiminished technical mastery even in his late sixties. The painting is now held at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where the disturbing smirk of Cupid continues to unsettle viewers accustomed to more conventionally idealized treatments of the subject.

The smooth, porcelain-like flesh painting and precisely drawn forms demonstrate David's technical mastery even in his late sixties. The controversial smirking Cupid and the idealized Psyche are rendered with an almost clinical detachment that contemporary critics found unsettling.