Sculpture of Cupid with a Dolphin

Love can take on many forms and guises. However, the mythological character of Cupid perhaps best personifies all that we know love to be: youthful and innocent, conniving and mischievous, swift and fleeting. True to our emotions, with the gentle prick of his arrows, Cupid can cause us to love, hate, or lust all the same. Love and reason are incompatible. The myth of Cupid reveals that our own amorous tendencies are beyond any rational control or explanation. Love conquers all. Hard to believe a winged infant could be so powerful. Here we see Cupid, frisky and vibrant. Who can guess what malicious ideas he has in his head? Why the dolphin? Perhaps this aquatic creature represents the god of the sea Poseidon, or maybe it relates to Venus, Cupid’s mother, who was washed ashore on an oyster shell followed by dolphins. This relationship between the God and the mammal is ambiguous, like love. It might not be practical, but we do not need it to be. For love, like this sculpture, is a thing of beauty. So let us sit back and immerse ourselves in the splendor that radiates about.

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