ut the South Kensington Cupid
is certainly a production of the master's early manhood. It was
discovered some forty years ago, hidden away in the cellars of the
Gualfonda (Rucellai) Gardens at Florence, by Professor Miliarini and
the famous Florentine sculptor Santarelli. On a cursory inspection
they both declared it to be a genuine Michelangelo. The left arm was
broken, the right hand damaged, and the hair had never received the
sculptor's final touches. Santarelli restored the arm, and the Cupid
passed by purchase into the possession of the English nation. This
fine piece of sculpture is executed in Michelangelo's proudest, most
dramatic manner. The muscular young man of eighteen, a model of superb
adolescence, kneels upon his right knee, while the right hand is
lowered to lift an arrow from the ground. The left hand is raised
above the head, and holds the bow, while the left leg is so placed,
with the foot firmly pressed upon the ground, as to indicate that in a
moment the youth will rise, fit the shaft to the string, and send it
whistling at his adversary. This choice of a momentary attitude is
eminently characteristic of Michelangelo's style; and, if we are
really to believe that he intended to portray the god of love, it
offers another instance of his independence of classical tradition. No
Greek would have thus represented Eros. The lyric poets, indeed,
Ibycus and Anacreon, imaged him as a fierce invasive deity, descending
like the whirlwind on an oak, or striking at his victim with an axe.
But these romantic ideas did not find expression, so far as I am
aware, in antique plastic art. Michelangelo's Cupid is therefore as
original as his Bacchus. Much as critics have written, and with
justice, upon the classical tendencies of the Italian Renaissance,
they have failed to point out that the Paganism of the Cinque Cento
rarely involved a servile imitation of the antique or a sympathetic
intelligence of its spirit. Least of all do we find either of these
qualities in Michelangelo. He drew inspiration from his own soul, and
he went straight to Nature for the means of expressing the conception
he had formed. Unlike the Greeks, he invariably preferred the
particular to the universal, the critical moment of an action to
suggestions of the possibilities of action. He carved an individual
being, not an abstraction or a generalisation of personality. The
Cupid supplies us with a splendid illustration of this criticism.
Being