Joseph Kelly Designs
Brief Considerations
Mr. Quivers, The Blind Archer
by Joseph Kelly
Joseph Kelly's "Mr. Quivers, The Blind Archer" presents a striking reinterpretation of one of mythology's most enduring figures, transforming the ancient deity of desire into a contemporary meditation on the nature of love itself. By placing modern sunglasses upon Cupid's classical form, Kelly makes literal the age-old saying that "love is blind," while simultaneously opening a rich dialogue about vision, vulnerability, and the profound ways that love reshapes our perception of reality.
Classical Tradition Meets Modern Iconography
The composition draws from the neoclassical tradition, echoing the idealized forms and dramatic atmospheres of painters like François Gérard and Jacques-Louis David, yet the anachronistic sunglasses create an intentional rupture in time. This collision between classical beauty and modern iconography forces us to reconsider how ancient wisdom speaks to contemporary experience. The blindness of Cupid, whether understood as Eros in his Greek incarnation or Cupid in Roman tradition, has always carried multiple meanings: the arbitrary nature of attraction, the way passion obscures judgment, and paradoxically, the deeper sight that comes when we surrender to love's transformations.
Between Action and Repose
Kelly's Cupid sits poised between action and repose, his body turned in contrapposto, bow and cane held with equal confidence. This classical stance, traceable to ancient Greek sculpture, signifies a dynamic balance, a naturalistic representation of the human form at rest but with inherent potential for movement. In Kelly's interpretation, this contrapposto imbues Cupid with an understated grace while subtly hinting at the latent power within him, a moment caught between stillness and imminent action. The white cane, a poignant symbol of blindness in our modern world, becomes both support and secondary weapon in the god's arsenal. The equality with which he holds both the ancient bow—symbol of divine, irresistible power—and the contemporary cane—emblem of human vulnerability and guidance—speaks volumes. It suggests a profound integration of divine authority with perceived human limitation, implying that these are not opposing forces but rather complementary aspects of love's true nature. Here we encounter the duality that defines this deity: he is simultaneously disabled and supremely powerful, vulnerable and dangerous, in need of assistance yet capable of bringing the mightiest to their knees.
The quiver of arrows on his back reminds us that his blindness does not prevent him from finding his mark. Indeed, his lack of sight paradoxically enhances his unerring aim, transcending the limitations of rational choice or conscious targeting. Love strikes where it will, regardless of logic, social boundary, or personal intention. This visual tension between action and repose, where Cupid is both waiting and ever-ready, reflects the very essence of love itself: at times, it is a quiet, contemplative presence, and at others, an explosive, decisive force. The constant presence of the arrows, always prepared, signifies the universality and inevitability of love's impact, a force that operates beyond human foresight and understanding, guided by instinct or destiny.
The Masculine Principle
The masculine principle that Cupid embodies is not the aggressive, conquering masculinity of Mars or the authoritative sovereignty of Jupiter. Instead, Cupid represents desire as generative force, the masculine as that which reaches out, initiates, pierces through. His arrows do not destroy but transform, creating connection where there was separation. In Jungian psychology, Eros functions as the principle of relatedness, the force that draws the psyche toward integration and wholeness. Kelly's rendering emphasizes this integration by presenting a figure who bridges multiple states: divine and modern, powerful and vulnerable, sighted and blind.
Unlike the dominant patriarchal archetypes, Cupid's masculinity operates through influence and transformation rather than brute force or overt dominion. This subtler, yet immensely potent, form of masculine energy is about forging bonds and facilitating growth, often through unexpected and disruptive means. It's a masculinity rooted in connection, which allows for a different kind of power—one that is relational and deeply creative, rather than hierarchical.
Expanding on the Jungian perspective, Eros is not merely sexual love but a fundamental psychic energy that seeks union and completeness. It represents the drive for psychological growth, compelling individuals to integrate opposing aspects of themselves. This includes reconciling the anima (the unconscious feminine aspect in a man) and the animus (the unconscious masculine aspect in a woman) into conscious awareness. Kelly's depiction of Cupid, with his paradoxes of blindness and insight, vulnerability and power, perfectly illustrates this struggle and eventual triumph of integration, which is central to the process of individuation—the journey towards becoming a whole, unified self.
Kelly's visual choices, such as the white cane symbolizing modern blindness juxtaposed with the mythological figure, embody these complex psychological concepts. The Cupid who is both "in need of assistance yet capable of bringing the mightiest to their knees" reflects the integration of seemingly contradictory traits. This form of masculinity embraces vulnerability as a source of strength, acknowledges interdependence, and channels desire not just for procreation but for profound creativity—the creation of new relationships, new understandings, and a more integrated self. This generative desire, therefore, is crucial for both personal wholeness and the broader mythological narrative of how connections are formed and societies evolve.
The Marriage of Eros and Psyche
The marriage of Eros and Psyche, that most beautiful of ancient tales, forms an essential backdrop to understanding this image. Psyche, whose name literally means "soul" or "butterfly," was a mortal woman of such extraordinary beauty that she inspired jealousy in Venus herself. The goddess commanded her son to make Psyche fall in love with a monster, but Cupid instead fell in love with her himself. Their relationship, conducted in darkness with Cupid insisting that Psyche never look upon his face, represents the soul's relationship with love itself: we experience it, we are transformed by it, yet we cannot fully see or comprehend its divine nature.
01
The Forbidden Gaze: The Birth of Consciousness
When Psyche, driven by doubt and the poisonous suggestions of her envious sisters, finally succumbed to her curiosity and lit a lamp to gaze upon her mysterious lover, she found not a monster as she feared, but the radiant god of love himself, Eros. This pivotal moment, the "forbidden gaze," transcends a simple act of disobedience; it represents the human soul's inherent desire to understand and rationalize the divine, to pull the veil from mystery and bring the unconscious into conscious awareness. Her initial relationship with Eros was one of pure, unconscious bliss, sustained by trust in the unknown. However, the introduction of doubt, fostered by external influences, compelled her to seek empirical proof, transforming innocent faith into a need for explicit knowledge.
As she gazed upon Eros, a drop of hot oil from her lamp fell upon him, startling him and causing him to flee. This seemingly accidental act carries profound symbolic weight. It signifies the fragile nature of initial, unconscious love and trust, easily shattered by attempts to fully grasp or control it. The wound inflicted on Eros by the oil can be seen as the pain that arises when the sacred, unexamined aspects of love are forced into the harsh light of conscious scrutiny before one is truly prepared. This moment shatters the initial idyllic union, forcing Psyche into a journey of conscious struggle to reclaim what was lost, initiating her path toward individuation where love must now be earned through suffering and self-discovery rather than received passively.
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The Impossible Tasks: Forging the Soul
What followed were Psyche's famous trials, a series of seemingly impossible tasks set by the enraged goddess Venus, Eros's mother. These tasks were designed to torment Psyche and prevent her reunion with Eros, yet they serve a profound symbolic purpose within the individuation process, mirroring the arduous internal and external challenges one must overcome on the path to self-knowledge and spiritual maturity.
The first task was to sort a vast heap of mixed grains (wheat, barley, poppy seeds, lentils, beans) into separate piles before nightfall. Overwhelmed, Psyche was aided by a colony of ants. Symbolically, this represents the need to bring order to chaos, to discriminate and differentiate between myriad internal impulses and external demands. It speaks to developing discernment and analytical capacity, often with the help of instinctual or collective unconscious forces (the ants). The second task required her to collect golden fleece from dangerous, golden-fleeced rams. A green reed advised her to wait until the rams had passed and gather the fleece caught on thorny bushes. This task symbolizes the cunning and patience needed to obtain something precious without confronting aggressive impulses directly, learning to harness one's desires and ambitions without becoming consumed by them. The third, and perhaps most daunting, task was to collect water from the river Styx, a torrent guarded by fierce dragons and flowing from an inaccessible mountain peak. Here, an eagle (Eros's bird, often seen as a symbol of higher insight or divine intervention) assisted her. This represents confronting the terrifying, untamed aspects of the psyche and accessing profound, life-giving (or death-bringing) resources from the deepest unconscious realms. It also highlights the necessity of divine or transpersonal guidance when facing truly insurmountable inner obstacles.
Far from being arbitrary punishments, each trial forces Psyche to confront her limitations, develop new virtues like resilience, patience, and resourcefulness, and learn reliance not just on divine assistance but on her own burgeoning inner strength and wisdom. Through these trials, the soul (Psyche) is forged, transformed from a naive girl into a conscious, resilient being capable of true, enduring love.
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Descent into Darkness: Psychological Death and Rebirth
The culmination of these trials was Psyche's most harrowing journey: her descent into the underworld, the realm of death itself, to retrieve a box of beauty from Proserpina, queen of the dead. This task is a profound metaphor for confronting the shadow aspects of the self, facing profound loss, and engaging with the mysteries of psychological death and rebirth. Guided by a voice (often interpreted as an aspect of her deeper self or the collective unconscious), Psyche navigates the terrifying landscape of the underworld, avoiding temptations and making the correct offerings.
Her encounter with Proserpina is brief; she receives the box, explicitly warned not to open it. However, on her return journey, Psyche succumbs to yet another temptation: the desire to keep some of Proserpina's beauty for herself, to impress Eros. Upon opening the box, she finds not beauty, but a deathly sleep, a noxious vapor that plunges her into unconsciousness. This act symbolizes the danger of appropriating divine or unconscious energies for egoic purposes, and the necessity of humility and self-control. It is a moment of symbolic death, where her conscious ego is overcome by forces from the deep unconscious. Only Eros, who has now recovered from his wound and persuaded Jupiter to allow their union, can awaken her from this sleep. His intervention represents the integration of conscious effort with divine grace, signaling that the soul's journey, though arduous, is ultimately guided by love.
Psyche's emergence from the underworld and her subsequent awakening signify a soul reborn, having faced and integrated its deepest fears, temptations, and shadow elements. This journey represents the ultimate psychological ordeal, an encounter with the raw, transformative power of the subconscious mind, leading to true integration and wholeness. It is through this ultimate trial that Psyche achieves consciousness, earns her immortality, and is finally prepared for a true, conscious, and enduring union with love (Eros), having completed her individuation and become a fully realized being.

Divine Union

The story concludes with Psyche's transformation into a goddess, granted immortality so she could be united with Eros in marriage. From their union was born a daughter named Voluptas (Pleasure or Delight). This mythological marriage represents the integration of soul and desire, the transformation that occurs when passion and consciousness unite. The psyche, through its encounter with love and its willingness to undergo transformation, achieves its own divinity.

The Sunglasses as Symbol
Kelly's Cupid wears his sunglasses as both barrier and badge. They hide the eyes, traditionally considered windows to the soul, yet they also signal a kind of knowing.
This is a god who has been through something, who carries both ancient wisdom and contemporary cool. The sunglasses become a symbol of the necessary blindness that love requires: we must not see too clearly, analyze too completely, or we risk destroying the mystery that draws us forward. Yet there is also the suggestion of protection here, a shielding of sensitive eyes from harsh light. Perhaps the god of love must blind himself to bear the intensity of what he sees in the human heart.
Ancient Patterns, Contemporary Relevance
The classical backdrop, with its dramatic clouds and distant landscape, grounds the figure in mythological space while the sunglasses insist on contemporary relevance.
Kelly refuses to let this be merely a nostalgic recreation. Instead, he asks us to recognize how these ancient patterns still operate within us. The archetypes live. Cupid still shoots his arrows, Psyche still undergoes her trials, and the marriage of soul and desire remains the central drama of human existence.
The Cane: Limitation as Method
The cane introduces an element of pathos and complexity often missing from traditional representations. Here is a god who navigates the world differently, who has adapted to his condition, who has turned limitation into method. The blindness that in folk wisdom diminishes Cupid's agency becomes, in Kelly's rendering, part of his essential character. He does not shoot despite being blind; his blindness is intrinsic to his function. Love must be blind to do its work properly. It must ignore the boundaries we erect, the reasons we manufacture, the fears we harbor.
Conscious and Unconscious
The Inner Landscape
This image reflects the psychological interplay between our conscious thoughts and the deeper, often hidden, unconscious mind. It highlights the distinction between what we perceive and control, and the powerful forces that shape our inner world beyond our immediate awareness.
Struck by Emotion
Like Cupid's arrow, love and desire often strike us as if from an external force. This profound experience, encapsulated in phrases like "falling in love" or "pierced by desire," suggests that these powerful emotions happen to us, rather than being solely a matter of conscious choice.
Forces Beyond Our Sight
Cupid embodies the internal forces that guide our affections and passions, operating with their own intrinsic logic, independent of our ego or rational thought. These unseen influences steer our desires and connections, demonstrating that love often follows a path beyond our visible control.
Embodied Divinity
Physical Presence
The figure's robust physicality, rendered with careful attention to classical proportion and modeling, emphasizes embodiment. This is not an abstract allegory but a being of flesh, capable of pleasure and pain.
Natural Form
The slight softness of the body, the natural distribution of weight, the casual confidence of the pose, all work against the idealization often present in academic treatments of mythological subjects.
Living Reality
Kelly's Cupid lives in his body, and his blindness connects to physical reality rather than existing as pure metaphor.
Wings of Transcendence
The wings, magnificent and precisely detailed, mark his divine nature. They allow him to move between realms: earth and Olympus, conscious and unconscious, human and divine. Wings represent transcendence and perspective, the ability to see from above and move beyond earthly constraints. Yet even with wings, even with divine power, Cupid wears his sunglasses and carries his cane. The image suggests that transcendence and limitation coexist, that even the divine operates under constraint.
The Moment Before Recognition
For those familiar with the Psyche myth, the image resonates with the moment before recognition, before the lamp is lit. It recalls the darkness in which the soul first encounters love, knowing it only through touch and feeling. The sunglasses become a voluntary darkness, a choice to experience rather than analyze, to feel rather than dissect. In our contemporary moment, dominated by surveillance and exposure, by the demand that everything be seen and known, Kelly's blind Cupid offers alternative wisdom. Some things should remain mysterious. Some experiences require darkness to unfold properly.

Alternative Wisdom: In an age of total visibility, Kelly's Cupid reminds us that mystery is not the enemy of truth but its necessary companion.
Technique and Tradition
The painting technique itself, with its smooth gradations and careful modeling, pays homage to the academic tradition while the digital medium allows for a precision and flexibility unavailable to earlier masters. This fusion of old and new in technique mirrors the fusion of classical and contemporary in content. Kelly demonstrates that the old stories can be retold with new tools, that ancient wisdom can speak through modern forms.
Universal and Particular
"Mr. Quivers, The Blind Archer" ultimately presents love as both universal and particular, timeless and immediate. By giving Cupid his sunglasses and cane, Kelly makes him accessible, almost friendly, yet the classical setting and powerful wings remind us that we are dealing with forces beyond human control. The image captures the paradox at love's heart: it is the most common human experience and yet remains utterly mysterious, the most studied phenomenon and yet completely unpredictable, the most desired state and yet it cannot be willed into existence.
The Trials Haunt This Image
The trials of Psyche haunt this image as backstory. We see Cupid but we think of her, the soul, undergoing her impossible tasks, descending into darkness, learning through suffering.
The marriage between them can only occur after transformation, after the soul has been tested and proven. Kelly's Cupid waits, perhaps, for his Psyche to complete her journey, for the soul to achieve consciousness sufficient to unite with divine love. Or perhaps this is Cupid after the marriage, having himself been changed by the experience, now carrying the marks of his own journey.
An Invitation to Contemplation
In presenting Cupid this way, Joseph Kelly offers collectors and viewers not just a beautiful object but an invitation to contemplation. The image asks us to consider our own relationships with love, desire, and transformation. It suggests that what we cannot see might be precisely what we most need to experience, that blindness might be a form of sight, that limitation might be a kind of gift. In making love's deity visible yet blind, powerful yet dependent, classical yet contemporary, Kelly creates a figure that embodies the contradictions we all navigate in our encounters with the most transformative force in human life.
Our Relationships
Consider our own relationships with love, desire, and transformation
Blindness as Sight
What we cannot see might be precisely what we most need to experience
Limitation as Gift
Blindness might be a form of sight, limitation might be a kind of gift

Mythology Made Relevant

This is mythology made relevant, archetype made visible, ancient wisdom translated into contemporary visual language. "Mr. Quivers, The Blind Archer" stands as both homage and innovation, honoring the tradition while insisting on its continued vitality and relevance to our lives today.