ACROPOLIS
ART & ART HISTORY JOURNAL
Desire
Cover Image:
Antonio Canova, Cupid and Psyche, 1794, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, plaster, 53 x 59 ½ x 32 in.
Desire
Editors:
Sierra Manja
Giuliana Angotti
Staff:
Zoe Davis
Sierra Manja
Lauren Nash
Bridget Spector
Clare Yee
Letter from the editors,
The theme of Desire was chosen by our staff as an elaborate approach to love in art. Desire - as an emotion, as drive, as longing - has always fueled artistic creation. It is one of art’s most enduring subjects and a force that connects the artist and the viewer. In these pages, you’ll find works that span centuries and movements, all drawn together by the common thread of yearning. From the sensual mythologies of antiquity to the provocative provocations of contemporary performance, our student contributors delve into how artists channel personal, political, and aesthetic desire into their work.
With Desire, we invite both our writers and readers to explore the magnetic pull of the visual image. We are thrilled to share this collection with you, and we hope you’ll be as captivated by this exploration of desire as we were in curating it.
Sierra and Giuliana
Desire (n.)
A strong feeling of wanting someting or wishing for something to happen
Visual Art
CONTENTS
6 Pele Consumes Sam
by Andre Adams
8 ... Untitled by
Chris Schneider
Andre
Adams, Pele Consumes Sam
Untitled, Chris Schneider
Art Poetry
CONTENTS
12 ... Skeleton
by Brianna Edwards
Skeleton Brianna Edwards
From top to bottom I am tobacco you light
Rolled by a white towel you slip in between your teeth
Kissed by your tongue
Addiction is just another word for desire
You breathe me into your lungs
Filling your head with dizzy euphoria
Black tar I leave behind
Proof of our love
Memory I was there with you
Unravel me with your flame
As I disintegrate into ash
I sacrifice my lifespan for your pleasure
A sacred agreement as long as you hold me nimbly between your two fingers
You inhale and I tingle
You exhale and I blossom
Drawing my skin into funnels of clouds out into the atmosphere
Ironing the creases of the sky
Our time together is ephemeral
Our desire Is not
And as I wither under your touch
And the heat of your flame I undress you
Just as you undress me
With your body of flesh and bone
Vincent
Van Gogh, Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette, 1886
Art Writing
16 ... Grant Wood’s Arnold Comes of Age by Bridget Spector
18 ... Antonio Canova’s Cupid and Psyche by Clare Yee
22 ... Zhong Lin’s Project 365 by Zoe Davis
26 ... John William Waterhouse’s Echo and Narcissus by Lauren Nash
30 ... Jean-Honore Fragonard’s The Swing by Sierra Manja
Grant Wood’s Arnold Comes of Age (Portrait of Arnold)
by Bridget Spector
At first glance, Grant Wood’s 1930 painting Arnold Comes of Age (Portrait of Arnold Arnold) evokes the chastity one might associate with the American Regionalist movement. It is easy to draw a visual throughline between Arnold Comes of Age and Wood’s more well-known painting from the same year, American Gothic. Contrast to the dour expressions of American Gothic however, Arnold Comes of Age captures a degree of warmth. The rising (or setting) sun of the last days of Autumn casts the sky in a gradation of brilliant blues, with a warm golden glow over the hay bales and trees. The shadowed lake mirrors the richness of the sky.
While Arnolds posture appears somewhat stiff - this is clearly a posed subject rather than a candid - there is a relaxed element as well, projecting the ease and self assurance of a man on the cusp of adulthood. With a slight smile that just barely reaches Arnold’s deep brown eyes, it is easy to imagine how Wood might have fallen in love with him.
Arnold Comes of Age serves not only as a snapshot of a boy entering manhood, but a desire unfulfilled. The real Arnold was Wood’s student-turned assistant. Twenty-one to Wood’s thirty-nine and heterosexual to Wood’s repressed Quaker homosexual, the two were clearly an incompatible pair. But while the relationship never progressed beyond platonic, themes of implicit desire are coded throughout Arnold’s portrait. Easy to miss for its subtle coloring, a butterfly brushes against Arnold’s arm- a commonly understood gay symbol at the time. Behind Arnold, two skinny dippers can be seen refreshing themselves in the cool blue lake. Some interpret the figures as Adam and Eve, while others see them as two men.This coupling is a theme in the background of Arnold Comes of Age, with two hay bales, and trees in two sets of two. Despite this, Arnold stands alone. Wood is absent from the painting, the butterfly that brushes against Arnold’s arm, unacknowledged. There is one detail that links the painter to the subject, however. Wood chose to sign his name next to Arnolds monogrammed belt buckle, subtly entwining the two men. Arnold faces the light of his future in solitude, but the hidden symbols of Woods’ desire flank him, remaining both separate yet ever-present in his story.
Antonio Canova’s Cupid and Psyche
by Clare Yee
Two figures interlock, arms grasping around each others’ heads, pulling together until their lips almost touch. One figure lies on her side, her torso stretching up, with her arms arcing over head to form a circle around her partner’s head. He kneels behind her, his right leg outstretched for support, as he curls his torso around her head in a deep embrace. His wings extend up, creating two diagonal lines pointing to their heads at the center and continuing down the rest of her body.
Fabric drapes over her legs and folds under his knee, sculpted with a thick materiality.
Antonio Canova was born in 1757 to a family of stonemasons in Possagno. He later trained as an apprentice to Giuseppe Bernardi, also known as Torretti, in Venice, exposing him to the wide historical collection of sculptural works held in the city. This sculpture of Cupid and Psyche was commissioned by John Campbell, an English colonel Canova met in Naples at the peak of his career. At this time, Canova was most well known for more monumental, historical works, and so this sculpture highlights his ability to craft a more tender, heartfelt scene. The story of Cupid and Psyche is, however, not quite as tender and heartfelt. Originally from the collection of stories The Golden Ass by Apuleius, a Roman writer and philosopher, Cupid and Psyche tells the story of a lustful but loveless couple. Cupid falls in love with Psyche and they engage in a romance, but he forbids her to ever lay eyes on him until she finally disobeys his wishes and takes a lamp to see him at night. He flies away angered and she almost drowns herself; convinced by Pan, she must complete various difficult tasks to win back Cupid’s love, and she is eventually granted immortality and reunites with him. Canova depicts a scene of Cupid saving Psyche here, a more romantic moment, but we can see Cupid’s somewhat controlling behavior in his grasping of Psyche’s body and her somewhat helpless, powerless positioning.
Desire is represented in a dual manner in this sculpture. Most immediately, we see the physical desire of the couple through their completely intertwined bodies, arms interlacing to encircle each other’s faces. Yet, with the larger understanding of the story of Psyche and Cupid, a distinct emotional desire can be seen in Psyche to be loved and to belong to someone, fully, beyond their physical relationship. Her yearning for safety, comfort, and acceptance are evident in her backwardly arched form. This sculpture ultimately conveys a desperation for a partnership, a union, and a consolidation of a relationship between two lovers, representing a universal desire for belonging and love.
Zhong Lin’s 365 Days Project
by Zoe Davis
In the first image, a woman crouches in a water-filled bag, her body and features slightly distorted by the synthetic barrier. She presses her palm against the plastic that divides her watery domain from the outside world while her hair drifts languidly around her carefully painted face. In the second photo, two figures lean towards each other with their noses, lips, and chins just barely touching. Each is contrasted with the other: where one figure has bleached fringe and minty makeup, the other’s black stubble can be seen pushing through the skin of her scalp while her cheeks are dusted in red and orange. This second image feels almost stranger than the first with its inversion emphasizing the bold lines and velvety saturated colors of the composition. Both images, however, are equally surreal, dreamlike, and stunning.
These images come from Zhong Lin’s Project 365, a photography series that continued her earlier artistic goals and challenged her to embrace change and exploration. Lin, a self-taught photographer active in the fashion industry and beyond, has worked in multiple publications including GQ China, Marie Claire, and Vogue Taiwan. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, gave the Malaysian-Chinese photographer an opportunity to begin what would become Project 365, an artistic promise to create and publish a new original photo on her Instagram every day for a year. The series ran from April 23, 2020 to April 22, 2021 and demonstrated what Chiara Bardelli-Nonino describes as Lin’s “otherworldly ability to create something like synesthetic images: her sensuous, vibrant photographs have almost a tactile quality to them” where the viewer can almost feel their texture or smell their fragrance.
Lin’s creative manifesto for Project 365 also speaks to her long-standing influences, her multiracial, multicultural background, and the worldview that sprouted from such an upbringing. In the inaugural Instagram post for Project 365, Lin stated, “I want to rediscover what it means to start from nothing. No limits, no boundaries, and no definition”: more than before, Lin embraced spontaneity, instinctive decisions, and unrelenting creativity. Growing up in Malaysia with an English-educated father and a Chinese-educated mother, talking to her family in Mandarin while watching a Hollywood movie, all with Indian music playing in the background, led Lin to grow up “unbiased like a sponge” and eager to explore her curiosity at every opportunity. Her works preceding, during, and following Project 365 thus illustrate
Lin’s multiple artistic instincts, both old and new.
Returning to the images that began this analysis, we can see how each photo is at once carefully constructed and instinctively executed, each in itself an exploration as well as singular parts forming the series’s larger whole. As components of the broader project, these images also exhibit a sense of approximation and semiperfection: the woman in water can almost reach the outside; the figures are nearly kissing; and we are just at the decisive moment where one reality breaks through to the other. Lin’s photos thus present the broader desire of the series, each a step towards and a crystallization of the vision and verve driving Project 365: the point of contact with the new and the strange, and the pursuit of creativity.
John William Waterhouse’s Echo and Narcissus
by Lauren Nash
The woman in John William Waterhouse’s Echo and Narcissus, Echo, sits upright and looks over her shoulder, longingly gazing at the man stooped over, Narcissus. A light purple toga is draped over most of Echo’s body, only leaving some of her torso exposed. Her hair is tied up with a red flower sticking out. Narcissus wears a red toga that barely drapes over his body and a laurel wreath sits atop his head. He appears to have cast aside a quiver full of arrows on one side and a wide brimmed hat to his other side. The two figures are surrounded by a verdant forest, full of different shades of green. Many different types of flora coexist in the natural setting, including different types of trees, mushrooms, lily pads, grasses, and flowers. A stream also meanders through the forest and Narcissus gazes into the water, mesmerized by his reflection.
Echo’s body language demonstrates a longing for attention and interaction. She faces the viewer, with her bare chest exposed to the elements. Echo leaves her chest and heart vulnerable, showing a willingness to open her heart and risk rejection for love. However, she does not turn her body entirely towards Narcissus and she clings to the tree in the corner, which might indicate that she has some hesitancy towards trusting him completely. In contrast, Narcissus bends over, completely turned away from Echo. His body faces the ground, closed off and not open to her love or desire for him. Narcissus gazes with longing at his reflection. The stream runs through the two figures, demonstrating that while they may sit near each other, there is an insurmountable divide between them. No matter how much Echo desires Narcissus, she will never be able to cross the stream to gain his attention.
For those unfamiliar with the myth of Echo and Narcissus, it is a story about unrequited love and vanity. In the story, Echo is a nymph who was cursed by the goddess Hera so that she could only repeat others’ words. Narcissus is a handsome youth, prophesized to live a long and fruitful life as long as he never learned to know himself. His beauty rivaled all other mortals and attracted many admirers, both male and female. Echo was one of these admirers, who fell in love with Narcissus at first sight, but she could not talk to him because of her curse. As time went on, Narcissus noticed that someone was watching him, prompting him to ask “if anybody was here.” Echo responded that she was “here” and ran to him, professing her love for him. Narcissus brutally rejected her in response. Dejected, Echo slowly faded away, only leaving her voice behind to hide
in the caves and hills. Afterward, Narcissus saw and fell in love with his reflection in a pool of water. Soon after, Narcissus died from sorrow because he was unable to be with himself. Left in his stead were white and yellow flowers, similar to the ones included throughout Waterhouse’s painting (Cambridge School Classics Project).
Waterhouse’s oil painting shows how people experience desire in different ways. In Echo’s case, she desires to be loved by another, while for Narcissus he desires self-love. Neither of their desires are necessarily bad, in the right dose. However, both can become destructive in the wrong amount. Desiring another person too much may lead to an unhealthy obsession and desiring oneself too much may lead to vanity and a lack of humility. If there is anything to be learned from Echo and Narcissus, it is that desire is a completely normal feeling, but must be kept in moderation.
Jean-Honore Fragonard’s The Swing
by Sierra Manja
A flirtatious motion and the view of desire characterize
Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing. The private scene manifests in an abundant and curated garden, with light streaming in from the top left through the greenery to illuminate the figure in action. A young woman in a pink gown soars above the lush landscape that is representative of the sensual abundance. The painting captures the moment in which the woman is at the peak of her flight atop a gilded and red velvet swing. In the shadows, beyond a statue of observing cupids, an older gentleman pushes the lady, in a role of servitude and admiration. A foregrounded gentleman sprawls
The Swing, a work in oil on canvas, allows for exaggerated details of delicacy and extravagance. The glimmer of the pink silk gown is complemented by the collective frills of bordering white lace, which indicate the artist’s quick hand. The oil paint allows for the vibrant blues and greens of the garden to come together. The soft light blended through the trees creates a romantic environment.
The artist received the work as a private commission from a member of the French royal court. The patron requested his female lover be pushed by a bishop, as he hid in the painted bushes and gazed up at the flowing dress. While Fragonard did not paint a bishop, The Swing retained its erotic theme. The patronage and private nature signal the high-class artistic movement The Swing characterizes. The Rococo movement retained the energy, movement, and use of diagonal lines seen in the preceding Baroque period. Rococo art is defined by themes of courtship, love, and leisure, with the tasteful incorporation of landscape, pastel colors, and ornamentation.
I believe the theatrical arrangement of The Swing demonstrates fleeting beauty, hidden passions, and the art of seduction. Upon further examination, I saw the theme of desire beyond the playful composition and symbolic gestures. The lightness of brushwork mirrors the lightness of the scene’s moral weight, emphasizing indulgence and ephemerality.
Bibliography
Grant Wood’s Arnold Comes of Age, by Bridget Spector
Arnold Comes of Age (Portrait of Arnold Arnold), 1930, 26.75 cm × 23 cm (10.53 in × 9.1 in)
Darnaude, Ignacio. “Grant Wood Left Tipoffs All Over.” The Gay & Lesbian Review, The Gay & Lesbian Review, 1 Nov. 2021, glreview.org/article/grantwood-left-tipoffs-all-over/.
Ventura, Anya. “Sultry Night: Grant Wood’s Queer Midwest.” Sultry Night: Grant Wood’s Queer Midwest | Grant Wood Colony, The Grant Wood Art Colony, 10 June 2018, grantwood.uiowa.edu/news/sultry-night-grant-woods-queermidwest.
Antonio Canova’s Cupid and Psyche, by Clare Yee
Antonio Canova, Cupid and Psyche, 1794, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, plaster, 53 x 59 ½ x 32 in.
https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.2052.html
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/188954
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1342938
https://www.rct.uk/collection/exhibitions/the-art-of-italy-in-the-royalcollection/the-queens-gallery-palace-of/the-story-of-cupid-and-psyche-c1695-7
Zhong Lin’s Project 365, by Zoe Davis
Zhong Lin, from Project 365, 2020, photography.
Zhong Lin, “PUZZLE” from Project 365, 2020, photography.
Bardelli-Nonino, Chiara. “Zhong Lin - Project 365.” Vogue, April 21, 2021. https://www.vogue.com/article/zhong-lin-project-365.
Dinsdale, Emily. “Photographer Zhong Lin Is Creating a New Image Every Day for One Whole Year.” Dazed, July 27, 2020. https://www.dazeddigital.com/artphotography/article/49922/1/photographer-zhong-lin-project-365-new-imageevery-day-for-a-year.
Gasior, Zuzanna. “Project 365 by Zhong Lin.” Thisispaper, March 20, 2024. https://www.thisispaper.com/mag/project-365-by-zhong-lin..
Warner, Marigold. “Dreamy, Vibrant, and at Times Unsettling, Zhong Lin’s Striking Images Are Inspired by Her Diverse Upbringing.” British Journal of Photography, June 23, 2022. https://www.1854.photography/2022/06/zhong-linones-to-watch/.
Zonneveld, Rolien. “Zhong Lin Challenged Herself to Take One Portrait a Day for an Entire Year.” i-D, July 16, 2020. https://i-d.co/article/zhong-linphotography-interview/.
John William Waterhouse’s Echo and Narcissus, by Lauren Nash
John William Waterhouse, Echo and Narcissus, 1903, The Walker Art Gallery, oil on canvas, 42 9/10 by 74.
Echo and Narcissus.” n.d.-b. National Museums Liverpool. Accessed April 8, 2025. https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/echo-and-narcissus.
Jean-Honore Fragonard’s The Swing, by Sierra Manja
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, 1767, The Wallace Collection, London, United Kingdom, Oil on Canvas
Smarthistory. “Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing.” https://smarthistory.org/ jean-honore-fragonard-the-swing/.
William and Mary Studio Art Major
Minimum Required Credit Hours: 37
Core Requirements
ART 211 - Drawing and Color, and ART 212 - 3D Design: Form and Space
ART 461 - Capstone I
ART 462 - Capstone II
ART 463 - Capstone III
(2) 200-level Art History courses at, or above ARTH 230
(1) 300-level Art History course at, or above ARTH 330
*17 Additional Credits in Two or Three Dimensional Focus Studies
William and Mary Art History Major
Minimum Required Credit Hours: 33
Foundational Courses
(3) 200 level courses at or above ARTH 230 to ARTH 299
ART 211 - Drawing and Color, or ART 212 - 3D Design: Form and Space
Core Requirements
ARTH 331 - The Curatorial Project
ARTH 333 - Theories and Methods of Art History
ARTH 493 - Capstone Seminar
*9 Additional Credits at or above ARTH 330 and 1 Elective Course