Heart Symbol in Fine Art: From Medieval Manuscripts to Valentine’s Day Cards

The red heart is one of the most common emojis (third most popular in 2022). We all use this symbol at some point to show affection, care, or friendliness, no matter whether we choose trendy hearts of all sorts of different colors or simply stick to the conventional red heart emoji.

Before the heart became an emoji though, this symbol has been used for centuries. But when did it first appear in the form we’re familiar with? After all, it bears little resemblance to the actual, anatomical human organ that pumps blood throughout our bodies. And when did it start being used in art?

While most people associate the heart symbol with mushy Victorian Valentine’s cards (in company with chubby little cupids), it first appears in art in the Middle Ages. The ideals of chivalry and courtly love as developed by the educated scholars and troubadours of the ducal courts of Aquitaine, Provence, and Burgundy required befitting illustrations.

The earliest known image of the human heart as a symbol of love comes from the French manuscript of Le roman de la poire ("Romance of the Pear"), written in the 13^th century. The heart hardly looks like the symbol we’re used to seeing, but it’s the thought that counts.

Le roman de la poire. Illustration from fol. 41

The symbol of the heart looks much more conventional in the manuscript illuminations from the 14^th and 15^th centuries.

Collected works of Christine de Pisan, Paris, Cite des dames. Master and shop, 

c. 1415: British Library, Harley ms 4431,f. 100r

An illustration from the works of Christine de Pisan (1364 – c. 1430), arguably the most famous medieval female writer, shows Venus enthroned, with people giving her their hearts.  Here Venus represents Love, not the pagan goddess. The crowd beneath her feet consists of both men and women. Faces upturned, most of them hold their hearts high above their heads. It’s interesting to note that there’s a figure on the right, who holds his heart hidden behind his back – perhaps reluctant to yield to love.

One medieval manuscript in particular has been known for its romantic use of heart imagery – Le Petit Livre d'Amour (The Little Book of Love), written by Pierre Sala (b. 1457 — d. 1529) and given as a gift to his future wife, Marguerite Bullioud. It’s a sweet and bright-colored manuscript filled with allegoric illustrations to the poems it contains.

One illustration shows the author placing his heart into a marguerite flower (reference to his bride, named Marguerite). As is common for medieval art and literature, the illustrations contain a multitude of symbolic meanings and allusions. For example, the pansies around the lover’s feet symbolize fond thoughts, as the name of the flower derives from French pensée “thought”.

Lover placing his heart in a marguerite flower. Illustration from Petit Livre d'Amour, ca. 1500. 

Pierre Sala, British Library, London, England

Hearts appear in art much more regularly in the 19^th century, possibly due to the rise of mass produced Valentine’s Day cards in Victorian times.

Romantic paintings don’t normally use the heart symbol to convey their theme. So it’s interesting to see when painters opted to include this highly recognizable motif into their compositions and why. Whether used as a tiny detail that can be easily overlooked or put in the spotlight, the heart is a hard-to-miss sign that the painting has to do with love.

Here are some of the most recognizable artworks featuring hearts.

Young girl with a shield. Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725 –1805) was a painter known for his moralizing subject matter. He believed in art’s educational function that was meant to make the viewers more virtuous. In this painting the girl seems to sit in a brooding melancholy, looking at a shield of sorts that depicts a red heart in the very center. There’s an arrow that seems to have missed its mark by a few centimeters. In her other hand the girl holds a rose wreath.

Let’s try to discover what Greuze meant by this cryptic artwork. The girl is dressed in a silk tunic and the roses in her wreath are symbolic of love. A crown of roses was also a common adornment for brides.

The red heart seems to be the center of an archery target. The arrow is a common attribute of Cupid, who is often shown shooting the unsuspecting lovers in the heart, causing them to fall in love. Here the arrow missed its mark – love hasn’t been kindled. So, what we have here is a tale of woe involving a young girl’s dreamy expectation of love and consequent disappointed.

April Love 1855-56, by Arthur Hughes

This famous painting by Pre-Raphaelite painter Arthur Hughes shows a lovers’ quarrel. The name April Love refers to the tumultuous, fragile nature of first love. Like April weather, it can have storms or sunshine in store. While a beautiful romantic painting, it’s not immediately clear where the heart symbol shows up. Let’s take a closer look!

April Love, detail. by Arthur Hughes

The girl wears a heart-shaped medallion, a very popular lover’s gift in the Victorian times. Such lockets often contained the loved one’s portrait. The girl’s hand seems to hesitate on its way to take the locket off.

Luncheon on the Grass, 1866-67. Claude Monet

Bent on capturing the light (“painting the air” as the artist himself put it), Monet painted two versions of this composition. This one is the smaller version now in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow. If you look close enough, this airy outdoor picnic scene features a half-hidden heart.

Luncheon on the Grass, detail. Claude Monet

The heart carved on the tree trunk adds a touch of romance and mystery to the picnic. Who carved it and for whom? What name does the ‘P’ stand for? And why aren’t there two initials for the two lovers? Is this a token of unrequited love?

Joli Coeur, 1867. Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Painted the same year as Monet’s Luncheon on the Grass, Joli Coeur is one of Rossetti’s famous depictions of brooding young woman with red flowing hair and alluring eyes. This type of beauty was immortalized by Rossetti in numerous idealized depictions of female heads. Joli Coeur translates from French as “sweetheart”. The name also refers to the heart-shaped pendant around the young girl’s neck. Marie Spartali Stillman, a painter herself, seems to have modeled for this painting.

Jealousy. Frederick Augustus Sandys

The heart symbol in this painting by Frederick Sandys can be a little hard to find, with so much going on in the painting. The central figure shows a red-haired young man, and the background suggests a moonlit garden next to a castle, resembling a world of dreams. There’s a figure with wings that looks more like a medieval angel but is actually Cupid, shooting an arrow at the winged hearts over the young man’s right shoulder. There are narcissus flowers in the lower right of the painting, along with a scroll with text. The text comes from a poem by Robert Herrick, a 17^th century cleric and poet:

Jealous girls these sometimes were,

While they lived or lasted here:

Turned to flowers, still they be

Yellow, marked for jealousy.

It seems that Sandys did all he could to highlight the theme of his painting. The narcissus usually stands for “self-love, narcissism” in the language of flowers. Here, the painter possibly decides to interpret them as a symbol of jealousy, or hints and jealousy is a direct result of self-love and wounded pride, and not of love for the other.

The Masquerade. 1930s. Konstantin A. Somov

“The Masquerade” is a late painting by Konstantin A. Somov (1869-1939) from the 1930-s.

Somov was a Russian painter, known for his portrayal of imaginary, theatrical scenes often set in parks or gardens. “The Masquerade” follows this pattern. Two figures flank a moonlit park landscape on the right and on the left. Both figures wear masks. The masked lady on the right sports a highly theatrical red costume and a red wig, while the figure on the right is dressed in black, with only one bright detail – a huge red heart pinned to her chest.

It’s an allegory of the theatre, with both figures previously used in a slightly different form, in Somov’s cover illustration for a book on theatre from 1907. The figures symbolize Comedy and Tragedy, or possibly here the comedy and tragedy of love, since the background portrays two couples in a moonlit park.

Somov often reused poses from his previous paintings, and he does so again in “The Masquerade”. The central couple in the boat is copied from an illustration Somov painted in 1904.

The Kiss. 1904. Somov

 

Bibliography:

Lexikon der Symbole. Udo Becker. Komet Verlag, 1992

https://www.artandobject.com/news/history-heart-shape

https://maidensandmanuscripts.com/2018/01/20/the-little-book-of-love/