putto
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈpʊtəʊ/
ipa: /ˈpʊtoʊ/
ipa: [-ɾoʊ]
Forms: form: putti
form: puttos
form: puttoes
Etymology: Borrowed from Italian putto (“cupid, putto; boy”), from Latin putus (“boy”), a variant of pūsus (“(little) boy”), from puer (“boy, lad; child”), from Proto-Italic *puweros, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w- (“few, little; smallness”).
The plural form putti is also borrowed from Italian putti.
Senses: examples: text: There is in the porch of the present church a tablet to Luke Flood (died 1818) which has much the appearance of having been made up of portions of earlier monuments. It is surmounted by a bas-relief of a winged boy holding an inverted torch. But not only is he a baby putto, not a youth, and without an urn, but the style and execution scarcely seem worthy of [Thomas] Banks even when not at his best.
ref: 1938, “1788: Piety Weeping at the Tomb of Benevolence, a Model of a Monument to be Erected in Whitechapel Church, to the Memory of Dr [Robert] Markham the Late Rector, at the Expence of His Parishioners”, in C[harles] F[rancis] Bell, editor, Annals of Thomas Banks, Sculptor, Royal Academician: […], Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: At the University Press, →OCLC, page 72:
text: The Carmelite scapulars held by the putto and young male saint on the right indicate that the altarpiece was intended for a church of the Carmelite order.
ref: 1971, Jacob Bean, Felice Stampfle, “Oil Sketches by 18th Century Italian Artists from New York Collections [GIOVANNI BATTISTA PITTONI [...] 22. The Crucifixion.]”, in The Eighteenth Century in Italy (Drawings from New York Collections; III), New York, N.Y.: Metropolitan Museum of Art; Pierpont Morgan Library, →ISBN, page 333:
text: A second putto with a gallows in its hand cries at the judge's feet.
ref: 1973, “Analysis of Beauty: Etched and Engraved from Drawings, March 1753 [84: Plate I: Third State]”, in Sean Shesgreen, editor, Engravings by Hogarth: 101 Prints, New York, N.Y.: Dover Publications, →ISBN, column 1:
text: In The Youth of Bacchus (illus. 51) [by Nicolas Poussin], a painting produced before 1630, the figures are arranged in a triangle. The young Bacchus is at the top, the putti lying on the ground and the feet of the sitting figures mark the base-line and the lower corner, while the sides are designated by the nymphs and satyrs.
ref: 1990, Oskar Bätschmann, “Deliverance – Destruction”, in Nicolas Poussin: Dialectics of Painting, London: Reaktion Books, →ISBN, part I, page 62:
text: The picture shows a putto who has just blown bubbles through a clay tube. He holds a scallop shell of soapy water and leans against a skull. [...] In picture and verse the imagery echoes classical and biblical metaphors for the brevity of a man's life. The fresh flower is in contrast to the dying tree like the putto as childhood innocence is opposed by the death's head.
ref: 1990, Kristine Koozin, “The Vanitas Still Life”, in The Vanitas Still Lifes of Harmen Steenwyck: Metaphoric Realism (Renaissance Studies; 1), Lewiston, N.Y.; Queenston, Ont.: Edwin Mellen Press, →ISBN, page 25:
text: The walls [of Naples Cathedral] have ranks of white marble niches capped by huge marble scallops, and flanked by urns and flowers, drapes and putti.
ref: 2004, Richard [Alan] Fortey, “Up and Down”, in The Earth: An Intimate History, London: HarperCollins, →ISBN; Earth: An Intimate Portrait, 1st Vintage Books edition, New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, November 2005, →ISBN, page 15:
text: Whatever the case, the evangelical animals are appreciably larger than the puttos of the painting. The animals gaze upward, their mouths gaping. They are cawing, bellowing, roaring out the Gospel. [...] Only the attendant puttos seem to be taking the divine afflatus or descent in stride.
ref: 2005, David Farrell Krell, “God’s Footstool”, in The Tragic Absolute: German Idealism and the Languishing of God, Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 160:
text: A Galatea with Triton, 5 puttoes and 5 other figures, painted frame in fake marble and gilded, 12 palmi in height, copy of Raphael made by Caracci.
ref: 2018, Claudia La Malfa, “Copies of Raphael’s Mythological Paintings in the Collection of Cardinal Ludovisi”, in Maddalena Bellavitis, editor, Making Copies in European Art 1400–1600: Shifting Tastes, Modes of Transmission, and Changing Contexts (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History; 286; Brill’s Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History; 30), Leiden; Boston, Mass.: Brill, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 347:
topics: art
arts
glosses: A representation, especially in Renaissance or Baroque art, of a small, naked, often winged (usually male) child; a cherub.
wikipedia: Pécs Cathedral
Saint Sebastian
Hyponyms: amoretto
amorino
cupid