Zwei Amoretten, sitzend und stehend 

Gian Lorenzo Bernini made this red chalk drawing, Two Cupids, Seated and Standing, at an unknown date. Bernini was the leading sculptor in seventeenth-century Rome, during the height of the Baroque era, and his workshop trained many artists. These cupids are heirs to a long tradition in European art, going all the way back to ancient Greece and Rome. But we can also understand them in the context of the Catholic Church’s renewed emphasis on art as propaganda in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. The Church insisted that art should move the faithful to piety. Bernini’s cupids, with their sensuous forms, were intended to inspire spiritual love and devotion. The art historian turns to many kinds of sources to understand the ways art is shaped by historical circumstance: letters, diaries, financial records, political pamphlets, and more. By consulting such records, we can better understand the vital role of art in past societies.