Extremely fine oil on curved board painting of a woman and cherub in play. "Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros/1880" (original exhibited in the Getty Museum) After William-Adolphe Bouguereau (November 30, 1825 - August 19, 1905) William was a French academic painter and traditionalist. In his realistic genre paintings he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body.[During his life he enjoyed significant popularity in France and the United States, was given numerous official honors, and received top prices for his work. As the quintessential salon painter of his generation, he was reviled by the Impressionist avant-garde. By the early twentieth century, Bouguereau and his art fell out of favor with the public, due in part to changing tastes. In the 1980s, a revival of interest in figure painting led to a rediscovery of Bouguereau and his work. Throughout the course of his life, Bouguereau executed 822 known finished paintings, although the whereabouts of many are still unknown. Background: A young nude woman sits with her arms outstretched, pushing away a winged boy. He is Cupid, the god of love, holding up an arrow to pierce her. The title suggests that the young woman is trying to defend herself, yet she smiles and struggles unconvincingly against the mischievous little god. Visitors to the Paris exhibitions of the 1870s and 1880s loved Adolphe Bougereau's paintings. The Getty Museum's painting repeats a larger composition that Bougereau made for the Paris Salon in 1880; a viewer probably saw the larger version there and requested a smaller one for private viewing. Bougereau placed his mythological fantasy in an idyllic, Arcadia-like landscape. In fact, he made this composition in his studio, copying the landscape from the neighboring French countryside and using one of his favorite models. In Greek mythology, Eros was the Greek god of love. His Roman counterpart was Cupid("desire"). Some myths make him a primordial god, while in other myths, he is the son of Aphrodite. He was one of the winged love gods, Erotes. God of sexual desire and attraction. EROS (Erôs), in Latin, AMOR or CUPI'DO, the god of love. In the sense in which he is usually conceived, Eros is the creature of the later Greek poets; and in order to understand the ancients properly we must distinguish three Erotes: viz. the Eros of the ancient cosmogonies, the Eros of the philosophers and mysteries, who bears great resemblance to the first, and the Eros whom we meet with in the epigrammatic and erotic poets, whose witty and playful descriptions of the god, however, can scarcely be considered as a part of the ancient religious belief. less