Venus Clipping Cupid's Wings, first plate 1869 - 1870

Camille Corot made this print, Venus Clipping Cupid's Wings, using etching, sometime in the mid-19th century. Here, we see the goddess Venus in the act of clipping the wings of her son Cupid, an allegory for the constraints placed on love by social norms. Made in France, this was a period when the institutions of art, like the Académie des Beaux-Arts, promoted conservative styles and subject matter. But there was also a growing avant-garde interested in depicting modern life and challenging those academic traditions. Corot himself occupied a middle ground. He achieved success within the established Salon system while also experimenting with new approaches to landscape and the figure. The print medium itself was becoming more accessible and democratic, allowing artists to reach a wider audience beyond the traditional patrons of painting. To fully understand this image, we might research the changing social attitudes toward love and marriage in 19th-century France, as well as the evolving role of women in society. Art always exists within a specific social and institutional context, and it is the historian's role to uncover those connections.