Venus with Mercury and Cupid ('The School of Love')

Correggio's Venus with Mercury and Cupid (The School of Love, c. 1527) at the National Gallery, London, depicts Mercury instructing the young Cupid while Venus presides — a subject combining mythological narrative with a meditation on the education of love. The painting was produced for Federico Gonzaga of Mantua and demonstrates Correggio's mastery of the mythological nude, the three figures arranged in a woodland setting of luminous warmth. Mercury's role as Cupid's teacher in the arts of eloquence and desire gave the composition its moralizing framework while allowing Correggio to display his unmatched ability to render the sensuous warmth of flesh in soft, directed light.

The luminous rendering of the three nude figures against a dark landscape background demonstrates Correggio's supreme mastery of flesh painting, with warm, glowing tones and extraordinarily soft modeling.