Getty Museum

A Young Girl Defending Herself against Love

Creator

French Artist · 1825–1905

Along with Alexandre Cabanel, William-Adolphe Bouguereau was the most influential upholder of the conservative values of French academic art in his day. His paintings stress those values: precise drawing, contour, and finish, along with strict adherence to the rules of anatomy, perspective, academic modeling, and physiognomic expression in which internal character is revealed by outward appearance

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Date: about 1880
Medium: Oil on canvas
Culture: French
Department: Paintings
Institution: Getty Museum

A young nude woman sits with her arms outstretched, pushing away a winged boy. He is Cupid, the god of love, holding up an arrow to pierce her. The title suggests that the young woman is trying to defend herself, yet she smiles and struggles unconvincingly against the mischievous little god. Visitors to the Paris exhibitions of the 1870s and 1880s loved William-Adolphe Bouguereau's paintings. The Getty Museum's painting repeats a larger composition that Bouguereau made for the Paris Salon in 1880; a viewer probably saw the larger version there and requested a smaller one for private viewing. Bouguereau placed his mythological fantasy in an idyllic, Arcadian landscape. In fact, he made this composition in his studio, copying the landscape from the neighboring French countryside and using one of his favorite models.

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