Giovanni Baglione
Baglione’s Eros, created for Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani, was a response to the Eros that Caravaggio had painted for Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, the Cardinal’s brother (yes, it sounds like some family issues here).
Caravaggio had drawn a pretty, provocatively naked boy as a youthful god of earthly love to be a victor over the Liberal Arts, power, and fame. In addition, Caravaggio gave him the features of a boy who had also been a model for religious figures. This was a challenge to his contemporaries’ moral values. Here everything looks different—Baglione has Earthly Love thrown to the ground by a divine Eros in armor. A devil with faun’s ears and a trident is crouching bottom left. Antiquity was well aware of the competition for the soul of man between Eros and Anteros,the god of requited love, literally love returned or counter-love. Anteros is also the punisher of those who scorn love and the advances of others, or the avenger of unrequited love. If the two are reconciled, then perfect love is achieved. In contrast with this, Baglione’s picture, according to the official church teaching of his time, aims at the subjugation of earthly love. The divine Eros, reminiscent of the falling St. Michael, is drawing back his arms for the final thrust.