Saturday we spent 6 hours at the Louvre. Fantastic. We could have spent more time. I did not bring my camera. The camera has a way of getting between me and what I am viewing, and I just wanted to experience. This idea was really brought home to me when we stood in front of the Mono Lisa. We are surrounded by a couple of hundred people, and everyone is taking pictures. The Mono Lisa is behind glass, on a large wall in the middle of a large room. Because of the glass no one was enforcing the no flash rule. It was a zoo. Still, we worked our way to the front, and stood and gasped. What follows are pictures I took from the web.
I must say that if I did not know it was Da Vinci's Mona and there was all the mystic about the painting, I would not have picked it out as my favorite painting at the Louvre. Even among the Da Vinci's I actually preferred the tenderness in his
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne.
And there were so many paintings to marvel. The monumental David's
Coronation
,
Géricault's
Raft of the Medusa
and Delacroix's
Liberty Guiding the People
all struck me as majestic and I was in awe to see how intimately and boldly the artists of the day were reflecting on the politics of their times. I could go on and on, we were there for hours. We took two guided audio tours, and walked around by ourselves. We visited the underground display of the old walls of the fort that predated the Louvre. We saw all the must sees,
Venus de Milo (did not move me),
the
Winged Victory of Samothrace (WOW, and no picture on the web did it justice), and Mona. But we also loved to see the original
Code of Hammurabi,
and the ancient simple art from the time before the Bronze Age.
If I had a favorite, it would be this sculpture 'Eros and Psyche' from Canova. I found a nice picture of it on the web.
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1 comment:
I could send you my pics of the Louvre artwork. I remembered to bring my camera and I think I have video also. Good review.
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