Europe 5: Palais Royal Musee du Louvre


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July 9th 2008
Published: July 9th 2008
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Check-out at our hotel was at noon and we didn’t want to go back and forth. So we dumped our luggage at the Gare du Nord Station lockers, validated our Eurorail pass at the ticket counter and proceeded on the Metro to Palais Royal Musee du Louvre (The Louvre museum). It was a lovely morning and I felt glad to be in Paris. A couple in the subway sensed my mood, as the boy sang a melodious French tune at the top of his voice and his girlfriend dance-walked beside him. It was obvious that the French loved life; it was filled with music, just like their country was filled with rich history. The day was going to be superb, I just knew!

The Louvre opens at 9 am. The 1st Sunday of each month, entry is free for all. We made use of that opportunity and reached there at 8:45 am expecting a huge crowd, but there were very few people waiting to get in. We didn’t want to be stuck in museums, which would take a big chunk of our day, so the goal was to head straight to the Mona Lisa and maybe, Venus de Milo and get out. The lady inside handed us a map of the museum. Mona Lisa was located right in the middle, forcing us to pass through a large number of exhibits to get to her.

The Louvre is a historic monument, former Palace of the Kings of France and a national symbol, containing 35,000 of the world's most celebrated Renaissance artworks and sculptures, including Egyptian, Greek as well as Islamic art and antiquities. A lover of Renaissance Art, in particular, it was wrong to let me inside the Louvre. I just didn’t want to get out. Equipped with an audio guide, I made up my mind to check out the 10 greatest masterpieces, listed below in order of my favorites.

1. Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci
We saw the Mona Lisa with practically nobody else in the room and stood gaping at her for nearly 15-20 minutes. The Mona Lisa was a bit smaller than I expected. It is a 16th century portrait painted in oil on a poplar panel by Leonardo Da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance. The painting depicts a woman whose expression is described as enigmatic, visible in the faint smile. Mona Lisa has no visible facial hair, including eyebrows and eyelashes. Some researchers claim that it was common at that time for genteel women to pluck them off, since they were considered unsightly. Another strange opinion is that Mona Lisa was really a man in disguise, perhaps a self-portrait of Leonardo himself. Computer tests have shown that some of the facial features of Mona Lisa match well with that of a self-portrait of Leonardo.

2. Oath of the Horatii, Jacques-Louis David
I loved the history behind this painting. It was like a Shakespeare tragedy. The painting depicts the Roman Horatii, who were male triplets destined to wage war against the "Curiatii," who were also male triplets, in order to settle disputes between the Romans and the Albans. In the painting, the three brothers express their loyalty and solidarity with Rome before battle, supported by their father. The mothers and sisters are shown clothed in silk garments seemingly melting into tender expressions of sorrow. Their despair is explained by the fact that one sister was engaged to one of the Curiatii and another is a sister of the Curiatii, married to one of the Horatii. The background woman in black holds two children -- one of whom is the child of a Horatius male and his Curiatii wife. The younger daughter hides her face in her nanny’s dress as the son refuses to have his eyes shielded. Upon defeat of the Curiatii, the remaining Horatii journeyed home to find his sister cursing Rome over the death of her fiancé. He later killed her; horrified that Rome was being cursed. Now that’s another lovely painting!

3. Ship of Fools, Hieronymus Bosch
This is another interesting painting. In The Ship of Fools, Bosch is imagining that the whole of mankind is voyaging through the seas of time on a small ship, a representative of humanity. Sadly, every one of the representatives is a fool. This is how we live, says Bosch--we eat, drink, flirt, cheat, play silly games, pursue unattainable objectives. Meanwhile our ship drifts aimlessly and we never reach the harbor. The fools are not the irreligious, since prominent among them are a monk and a nun, but they are all those who live “in stupidity''. Bosch laughs, and it is a sad laugh. Which one of us does not sail in the wretched discomfort of the ship of human folly? Eccentric and secret genius that he was, Bosch not only moved the heart but scandalized it into full awareness. The sinister and monstrous things that he brought forth are the hidden creatures of our inward self-love: he externalizes the ugliness within, and so his misshapen demons have an effect beyond curiosity. We feel a hateful kinship with them. The Ship of Fools is not about other people, it is about us.

4. Winged Victory of Samothrace, Nike of Samothrace
The Winged Victory of Samothrace, a white marble sculpture of the Greek goddess of Victory is a third century B.C. and one of the most celebrated sculptures in the world. It is said by tourists that the statue carries the aroma of the spring it was found in. It stood on a pedestal of gray marble representing the prow of a ship, and represents the goddess as she descends from the skies to the triumphant fleet. Before she lost her arms, which have never been recovered, Nike's right arm was raised, cupped round her mouth to deliver the shout of Victory. The work is notable for its naturalistic pose and for the rendering of the figure's draped garments, depicted as if rippling in a strong sea breeze, which is considered especially compelling. The statue’s outstretched right wing is a symmetric plaster version of the original left one. As with the arms, the figure's head has never been found, but various other fragments have since been found: the missing right hand tip of the Goddess's ring finger and her thumb which is now in a glass case in the Louvre next to the podium on which the statue stands. A magnificent fragment of history!

5. The Coronation of the Emperor Napoleon I and the Crowning of the Empress Joséphine in Notre-Dame Cathedral on December 2, 1804, Jacques-Louis David
This vast painting was commissioned by Napoleon I to immortalize his coronation on 2 December 1804 at Notre-Dame. Specially redecorated for the occasion in neoclassical style with painted trompe-l’œil wooden paneling, the choir of the cathedral resembles a theater stage in which each actor has his place amidst the grandiose scenery. As in any work of political propaganda, there are certain notable arrangements with reality: the presence of the emperor’s mother on a throne in the center, when in fact she was absent that day, as she was angry with her son; or the idealized beauty of a slimmer, taller Napoleon and a younger Josephine, rejuvenated by the brush of a diplomatic artist, recently appointed First Painter to the Emperor. It depicts Napoleon crowning Josephine, blessed without great conviction by Pope Pius VII, seated behind the emperor. I felt that the artist, if alive today, would be the best to capture celebrity events in magazines where luxury is supposed to feed the dreams of the public. Nevertheless, it is indeed a beautiful painting!

6. Venus de Milo (Aphrodite), Alexandros of Antioch
The Venus de Milo, is an ancient Greek statue and one of the most famous works of ancient Greek sculpture. It is believed to depict Venus, the Greek goddess of love and beauty. It is a marble sculpture, slightly larger than life size. Its arms and original plinth have been lost. From an inscription that was on its plinth, it is thought to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch. Another beauty to behold!

7. The Wedding at Cana, Paolo Veronese
The painting depicts the wedding feast at Cana, a miracle story from the Christian New Testament. In the story Jesus and his disciples were invited to a wedding celebration in Cana, Galilee. Towards the end of the feast, when the wine was running out, Jesus commanded servants to fill jugs with water, which he turned into wine (his first miracle of seven).

8. Liberty Leading the People, Eugène Delacroix
A woman personifying Liberty leads the people forward over the bodies of the fallen, holding the tricolor flag of the French Revolution in one hand and brandishing a musket with the other.

9. Odalisque, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Here, Ingres transposed the antique theme of the female nude to the Near East, a place he had traveled to only in his dreams and the pretext for the sensual image of a naked woman in a harem, set against an exotic background. Until the end of his life, Ingres continued to paint exotic scenes and female nudes, one of his favorite subjects, as in The Turkish Bath. This odalisque has three vertebrae too many. Likewise, her right breast and left leg are joined to the rest of the body in a curious fashion. In contrast to this physical deformity, the heavy blue drapery, the turban, and the nargileh are treated in an illusionistic manner. The artist’s fantasy did not appeal to me as I do not like nude paintings, but the odd painting triggered an interest to stare!

10. The Virgin and Child with St. Anne, Leonardo da Vinci
The Virgin and Child with St Anne is an oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci depicting St. Anne, her daughter the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. Christ is shown grappling with a sacrificial lamb symbolizing his Passion whilst the Virgin tries to restrain him. In addition to that it is believed that St Anne's serene expression, in contrast with Mary's anxiety for her child, "perhaps stands for the Church that does not want to have the Passion of Christ prevented". The theme for this painting, is an altarpiece in a church in Florence, that inspired Leonardo da Vinci. Somehow, I didn’t quite get this painting; perhaps my intellectual level was not that high or maybe I wasn’t a Christian.

Another treasure which I stumbled upon and believe must be added to the list is - Slaves, by Michelangelo. Doing my research on this exhibit, I read that many interpretations of the 4 unfinished statues of the slaves are possible: symbols of surmounted passion, of the soul enchained by the body, or of nations subjected to the pope’s authority. They could also represent the imprisonment of the arts after the death of a great patron, Julius II, who had funded the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. For, at the foot of the Dying, or rather sleeping Slave, is a monkey, an allegory of painting imitating reality in the way a monkey mimics mankind. The numerous marks left by tools prove that these statues are unfinished. The hand of the Rebel Slave is imprisoned in the marble in which it was chiseled. Unlike other sculptors, I read that Michelangelo generally worked on a block of marble from front to back, without a model. A very interesting exhibit!

Completing our tour of the masterpieces of the Louvre, I proceeded to check out other historical highlights on the map that caught my interest - Madame de Pompadour's Sevres vase collection and Napoleon III's royal apartments. By then, Rajesh had had enough and managed to drag me away from the Louvre, following the Sortie (exit) signs, onto the courtyard outside.

The delicate pyramid in the central courtyard of The Louvre was correctly proportioned so as not to overwhelm the architecture of the Louvre. We sat outside the Louvre at a café, ordered a basket of assorted French breakfast rolls and cappuccino and ate brunch, watching the crowds throng into the Museum, feeling lucky to have escaped the mob. I bit into the warm and soft croissants and sipped the strong and aromatic cappuccino; and listened to Rajesh narrate the story of the movie, “The Da Vinci Code”, in which the Louvre and the pyramid are portrayed.




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9th July 2008

Excellent and very enthralling!!! You have indeed done a fantastic job of documenting every moment of your Europe trip. I am amazed at the details you have included in your articles. Great Job. Keep up this good work. Birendra

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