René MagritteThe Lovers (Les Amants) / 1928 / Oil on canvas / 21”x29” / Museum of Modern Art, NYC

The Lovers (Les Amants) / 1928 / Oil on canvas / 21”x29” / National Gallery of Australia

Enshrouded faces were a common motif in Magritte’s art. The artist was 14 when his mother committed suicide by drowning. He witnessed her body being fished from the water, her wet nightgown wrapped around her face. Some have speculated that this trauma inspired a series of works in which Magritte obscured his subjects’ faces. Magritte disagreed with such interpretations, denying any relation between his paintings and his mother’s death. “My painting is visible images which conceal nothing,” he wrote, “they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, ‘What does it mean?’ It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.”
FROM https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/rene-magritte-the-lovers-le-perreux-sur-marne-1928

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Paris BordoneAllegory with Lovers
1550 / Oil on canvas / 43.8”x68.7” / Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Victory crowns Mars and Venus with myrtle, Venus plucks a lemon from a tree,
and Cupid tips roses into her lap

Venus, Flora, Mars and Cupid (Allegory)
c.1560 / Oil on canvas / 42.5”x50.7” / Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Cupid crowns Venus and showers Flora with roses while the two exchange flowers;
Mars, in the background, holds a battle axe

Paris Bordone was from Treviso on the Venetian mainland…After the death of his father (a master saddler), he was taken at the age of eight by his mother to Venice. According to Vasari, he trained for a time with Titian, who is said to have treated him badly…Whether because of a continuing hostility by Titian towards his former pupil or because of competition from other artists, Bordone had difficulty securing major commissions in Venice and, though he continued to live mainly in the city, much of his work was done for patrons elsewhere. ~cavallinitoveronese.co.uk

Bordone increasingly became identified with glossy portraiture, frequently illustrating the theme of problematic love. He often painted beautiful courtesans and erotic mythological and allegorical subjects, which appealed to his wealthy clients. ~getty.edu

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The Birthday (1915)
“In life, just as on the artist’s palette, there is but one single colour that
gives meaning to life and art — the colour of love.” ~Marc Chagall

From the moment they fell for each other in 1909, Marc Chagall and his wife, Bella, seemed to share a particular way of seeing the world. Bella was a talented writer and her description of their first encounter is like a Chagall painting in words: “When you did catch a glimpse of his eyes, they were as blue as if they’d fallen straight out of the sky. They were strange eyes … long, almond-shaped … and each seemed to sail along by itself, like a little boat.”

Bella swiftly became Marc’s muse and continued to visit his canvases for the rest of his life. Famously, he often depicted himself and Bella flying together, as if their shared joy had such physical force it countermanded the law of gravity itself. In Birthday, they appear surprised by their flight, rising towards the ceiling like two astonished bubbles of ecstasy.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/may/27/marc-and-bella-chagall-the-flying-lovers-of-vitebsk-emma-rice

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