Le Reveil de l’Amour (The Awakening of Love) by Leon-Jean-Bazile Perrault
Oil on canvas
32 1/4 x 44 3/8 inches
Framed dimensions:
40 1/2 x 53 1/4 inches
Signed and dated ’91
The French academic painter Léon-Jean-Bazille Perrault’s work Le réveil de l’Amour, or The Awakening of Love, is an example of the artist’s fixation on classical mythology. The sleeping Cupid, a subject popular since antiquity, typically represents dormant love. Since the Renaissance, it has been most famously depicted as a subject in a 1608 painting by Caravaggio, as well as in a now-lost 1496 sculpture by Michelangelo. While the Caravaggio painting shows the cherubic figure lying asleep in complete darkness, Perrault’s depiction is notably brighter.
In Le réveil de l’Amour, Cupid faintly starts to open his eyes towards the viewer. He raises his left arm and arches his back, stretching out his body and shaking off his slumber. One contemporary description remarks how Perrault seemed to have captured “the idea of childhood’s innocent loveliness”. He lies against a layer of sheer cloth in what seems like a forest clearing. He is surrounded by roses, with a chorus of birds perched on a branch to bear witness to the love god waking up. Perrault places the cherub in this environment, possibly as a way of conveying to the viewer that love is part of nature itself. It’s a base impulse that many people experience, revel in, and struggle with. The work is sensual and almost decadent, which is appropriate for Perrault’s clientele. Many of his collectors were wealthy bourgeois or aristocrats seeking out well-executed academic-style paintings to serve as decorative art, similar to the Rococo paintings from over a century prior.
Le réveil de l’Amour was exhibited at two of the great cultural events of the early 1890s. First was the 1891 Salon, which also included The Shepherd’s Friends by Daniel Ridgway Knight, The Lion on Watch by Jean-Léon Gérôme, and The Catechism by Jules-Alexis Muenier (which was purchased by the French state). After the Salon, the Boston-based Doliber-Goodale Company purchased the painting to display it at their stall at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Since the Doliber-Goodale Company manufactured Mellin’s Food, an early form of baby food, the work’s subject seemed appropriate. Doliber-Goodale used the work’s image on packaging materials and even ordered lithographs of the painting as advertising. This made Perrault’s Le réveil de l’Amour one of the most recognized marketing images in the United States.