Amor Vincit Omnia

UNDERSTANDING ART For analysis of mythological works by Baroque artists like Caravaggio, see our educational articles: Art Evaluation and How to Appreciate Paintings . Interpretation of Amor Vincit Omnia (Victorious Cupid) Born in Milan, Caravaggio was an apprentice to Simone Peterzano, a former pupil of Rubens, before working in Caravaggio a town near Bergamo. About 1592 he moved to Rome where his early genre painting The Cardsharps (1594, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth) caught the eye of Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte (1549-1627), one of the leading connoisseurs in Rome, who became his principal patron. Caravaggio painted a number of intimate, small-scale works for Del Monte and his circle, including: Boy with a Basket of Fruit (1593, Galleria Borghese); Young Sick Bacchus (1593-4, Galleria Borghese); Basket of Fruit (1594, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan); Boy Bitten by a Lizard (1594-6, Fondazione Roberto Longhi, Florence); The Lute Player (1595 Hermitage, St Petersburg); Bacchus (1595, Uffizi Gallery, Florence); and Narcissus (1597-99, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica). This small-scale portrait art and still life painting soon gave way to larger scale Biblical art , like The Calling of St Matthew (1599-1600) and The Martyrdom of St Matthew (1599-1600) for the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi. It was these large-format religious paintings that established Caravaggio as one of the boldest and best history painters in Rome, and allowed him to concentrate his efforts on serious religious art for public consumption, rather than private paintings for the cognoscenti . One exception to this was Amor Vincit Omnia , or "Victorious Cupid", which he completed in 1602. Allegory and mythology often seem to distance the subject from the viewer. A Renaissance Cupid, for instance, is primarily plump and mischievous, and, even if one has no trouble in identifying him as the god of Love with his wings and weapons, it is difficult to imagine him partaking in its emotions or lusts with, say, a beautiful and mature Venus. But in the hands of the firebrand Caravaggio, all reticence evaporates. A tempestuous character, the repeat offender and perennial exile, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is known to the history of art for his ground-breaking and varied compositions that inspired a whole new vein in European early Baroque painting : violent, narrative, dark-hued, and locally lit, filled with real and not idealized physical types. Dating from Caravaggio's second, Roman, period, Amor Vincit Omnia was commissioned by the the Italian banker and art collector Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani (1564-1637). Unlike the artist's other small-scale cupids, this one is more than 5-feet in height. (NOTE: In classical mythology, Cupid - whose Latin name 'Cupido', means 'desire' - is the god of erotic love, desire and attraction. He is often presented as the son of Venus, goddess of love, and Mars, god of war.) Called in one inventory "laughing Love in the act of disparaging the World," it was hung behind a curtain that Vincenzo would draw aside to dazzle his guests. Giustiniani had also bought the first version of Caravaggio's St. Matthew and the Angel , originally intended for the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. The clerics had rejected it as having neither the decorum nor the appearance of a saint, with his feet ignobly exposed to the populace! This naked Cupid, various parts of whose body seem to be at different ages, was a boy named Cecco, a favourite model who was also the painter's servant and pupil and - some said - his lover. Identified only as Cecco del Caravaggio – Caravaggio's Cecco - he was an artist active in Rome about 1610-1625, who painted very much in a Caravaggist style. The most arresting feature of Amor Vincit Omnia is the young model's obvious delight in posing for the painting. As a result, the picture is really a portrait of Cecco rather than a depiction of a Roman demi-god. The painter,