We cannot doubt that since ancient times, love has been present in art. Although for our retrospective we could go back to the very emergence of humanity, let us for a moment turn to Classical Ancient Greece and allow ourselves to stand before the goddess Aphrodite, who emerges naked and eternal from the sea foam. Her pale body, full of beautiful curves, is a classic ode to beauty and the most human desire, to the love of flesh and passion. Sculpted in marble or painted on ceramics, her beauty went beyond the human: it was the love of cosmic perfection and human creation itself.

Group of Aphrodite in the Parthenon. Source

As time passes, we reach the Middle Ages, where we can ardently hear prayers and religious chants that flood our heads. It is there that love escapes from the beautiful sea waves and solidifies in the translucent crystal of the stained glass windows of imposing Gothic cathedrals. In the silhouette and figure of saints, the light filters, tinting the floor and walls with mysticism and love. Because although it may not seem so, in this sobriety and imposition there is love: love as dedication and spiritual ascent, on a path to God as love itself. Dante speaks of this in the Divine Comedy, where Beatrice guides the poet through the heavens as an act of love not for the poet, but for God himself. Medieval art did not reflect bodies that invited pleasure, but flashes of fear, hands joined in infinite prayer for salvation, and virgins whose pale faces showed their pure devoted love for their creator.

Cologne Cathedral Window Detail Source

In the Late Gothic and through the hand of Jan van Eyck, Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife (1434) are portrayed with almost astonishing precision. Here love ceased to be celestial, divine, and infused with fear to become an earthly pact between humans, humans with bare feet, wooden floors, and the spectator as an invisible witness through mirrors. The hands timidly touch, or rather, brush one over the other with hidden fears. And it is here where among so many details in fabrics and fruits we discover something sacred and intimate, yet everyday, almost mundane and simple.

Van Eyck - Arnolfini Portrait Source

And as time flows in all directions, we reach the Renaissance, and the skin is once again bared and shown as love without shame. It would be Botticelli in his Birth of Venus (1485) who would once again unveil idealized love. The pagan goddess, more beautiful than in previous centuries, is rescued and saved, navigating on her shell and surfing love itself, perhaps reborn from the ruins left by the Middle Ages.

The Birth of Venus Source

Ironic and austere entered the 20th century, with the name of neoclassicism, a rigid puritan scene is depicted, like the love of the era: love for the convenience of the established, of the framework that enclosed the feeling, and we speak of American Gothic (1930), which Grant Wood delivered to us. The cold and rigid couple in front of the farm, pitchfork and rake in hand, spoke to us of love forged in the bonds of the silence of fields with few crops, hunger, and duty, and perhaps in their eyes the yearning for a lost classical eroticism.

American Gothic Source

It seemed incredible that centuries earlier Caravaggio with chiaroscuro had flooded us in the baroqueness of his Cupid (1602), defiant and carnal, a love between mortals and gods, deep shadows that played with love, faith, and risk. This would be replicated in The Oath of the Horatii (1784), through a conflict that could only have come from the hand of Jacques-Louis David. Men swear their lives in loyalty while women are submerged in the tears of future lost love; we have the power of the kiss, but not the kiss of commitment, instead the kiss of farewell and disconsolation, the sacrifice of a duty that drowned the heart.

Amor Vincit Omnia Oath of the Horatii Source Source

And again, we jump through time, perhaps to one of my favorites because at the beginning of the 20th century Klimt made a gift to humanity by enveloping us in the mantle of lovers in The Kiss (1908), gold and spirals adorn love, fusing eroticism and transformation. A mosaic fused between Byzantine, Greek, human, and divine. In my opinion, the pinnacle work of love as total art, the Apollo and Daphne of Bernini more alive than ever, love that transforms bodies but can be fleeting and solid at the same time, fingers into leaves, feet into roots. An ecstasy that transformed, even in loss.

The Kiss Source

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I’m Ernesto, a Cuban passionate about art and writing. Always learning, always growing. Excited to share and learn more every day! I write about art, drawing, video games, nature, and review the things I like. My goal is to inspire and connect with others through my creative journey.

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