The Art Of Love
- Theartist Henley
- Feb 18, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 22, 2023
February is finally here, and the season of love is upon us. Not all of us will celebrate Valentine's Day per se, but it's as good a time as any to think about things that we love.
Love, particularly romantic love, has long been the subject of writers, poets, and artists for centuries. I don't know when the earliest love-related artwork began to appear. Much of what we in Western society think we know about love comes from the early Greeks. They gave us Storge, for love of family. Philia ,which is friendly or platonic; also called brotherly love. Of course, there's romantic love, Eros, and divine love, Agape. Myself, I subscribe to the Japanese terms for love. Japanese culture is very different from our own, more reserved in many ways, and they tend not to take the 'L' word lightly. Here in western society, we throw it around so easily; we say 'I love my cat', 'I love my parents,' or 'I love pizza!' However, the phrase Aishiteru (愛してる) or 'I love you' is rarely spoken in Japan; to them the words holds a reverence that should never be used flippantly. Even among married couples it is rarely used. The term Daisuki (大好き) meaning loosely, 'I really like you' is much more common.
Back to the art side of love, we see how strongly the Greeks have influenced our view of love. Take the image above, for instance. The cherubic image of Eros, the child of Ares and Aphrodite (Venus), also known as Cupid, persists in our culture closely associated with love down to this day. We see this childish, winged angel-like figure all over kids Valentines cards today.
The painting above, L'Amour et Psyché, enfants (Cupid and Psyche as Children) shows these children of the love goddess herself. And speaking of which, we all know how prominently Aphrodite. also known as Venus by the ancient Romans, has been featured in art. The painting below, The Birth of Venus, by Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, shows her just after the sea has given birth to her.
It's said that Botticelli intended that the nude Venus would represent the Neoplatonic idea of divine love, a love the binds all things together, whether physical or spiritual.
Of course, since February is also Black History Month, we need to talk about some black art and black love. And the black artist I'm most familiar with is ...me.
The Death Of Eros, as you can probably tell technique-wise, is an older painting of mine, but it is truly representative of our discussion about love. Specifically, it represents unrequited love. Unrequited love is one-sided love or love that is unreturned or unreciprocated. Like many of my paintings this one is accompanied by a poem:
Romance is gone;
The crude ones have killed it away.
Ignorance and rudeness Now hold sway.
Gone is true passion From the human soul.
The love of many, Has now waxed cold.
Chivalry is gone;
Replaced by bigotry and hate.
An open mind,
Shares romance's fate.
How I long for the gentle pastimes of yore,
Cruelty and tyranny, before they were.
Now I sing only this dirge,
This sad, sad, song.
Chivalry is dead,
And romance is gone.
On the surface the poem is still all about unrequited love, but it also speaks to the appalling lack of Phila, brotherly, neighborly love in the world today.
All of my paintings in the Thing Of Beauty series deal with the theme of love and beauty. My personal favorite and the final painting of the series is A Thing Of Beauty Forever.
Like all the paintings in the 'Beauty' series, this painting is accompanied by a poem. I won't post it here, but to summarize, it speaks about how no one can possess a thing beauty unless they become a thing of beauty themselves.
So I guess that's about all I have for this one, guys. Remember to stay lovely.
See you in the next one.
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