Defending Against Eros

This painting by the French painter Bouguereau is called “A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros.”

It shows the young girl pushing the mischievous Eros (known as Cupid in Roman) away while he is about to pierce her with his arrow.

You can see in her face that she is smiling coquettishly while retaining eye contact with the personification of desire. Her arms are also locked but she is pushing without intensity. Eros takes one of her arm and pulls it towards him.

Maybe what the painter wants to convey is that even if we struggle to push away desire, we know deep inside that we want to be pierced by the arrow of Cupid? And that seduction is realized by maintaining a playful tension of push and pull?

Just a random Valentine’s day thought.