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People talk about seeing the Louve as a Sisyphean task that no one could ever have enough time to fully do (which is probably correct), but that kind of talk breads a certain reluctance to get started. If the worlds largest museum, the Mecca of art on Earth (as some would claim), is really that big, then surely no reasonable amount of time could be enough to see it. And if you can't do it justice, wouldn't it be better to wait until you have enough time to see it properly? Thus I found myself in Paris for a little over a month having not been to the Louve before finally recognizing the absurdity of my procrastination and set aside part of this afternoon to see it.
For years I've heard people talk about the contents of the Louve, but the museum itself is equal to any of its exhibits. The current structure which we call the Louve began its existence as the French royal palace, and it still looks the part. Even when museum goers noticed the artwork, almost all of them ignored the magnificence of the building itself. The Louve has a characteristic glass pyramid in the middle of one of it's courtyards which serves as the entrance to an underground atrium of restaurants, stores, ticket booths, and passages into different parts of the museum. Somehow the museum builders managed to excavate under the entire palace without doing permanent damage to the exquisite building or any of its plazas. Not only is it a nice fusion of modern and classical architecture, but they managed to build it under, around, and through the existing structure without leaving scars on the surface.
While I was waiting to buy my ticket to get in, a distinguished looking European gentleman approached me and offered to sell me a ticket for half price. I was a bit surprised, but he explained that he had been waiting for a French woman for more than an hour before writing her off as a no-show. I decided there was no harm since the ticket was legitimate, so we went in together. While waiting for the elevator we made small talk and he strongly admonished me never to make engagements with French women, after which he ushered me upstairs to make sure I could find the Mona Lisa. Politely protesting that I was here to see lots of other things as well didn't do much good, so I let myself get swept along until we reached the Mona Lisa and I gratefully parted ways with him. The over-emphasis in the museum on that one painting was so extreme that it was a bit embarrassing. There were signs with a images of the Mona Lisa and arrows all the way to the far end of the wing, which is a considerable distance for a royal palace. Whereas most of the paintings were reasonably spaced on the walls, the Mona Lisa had a massive wall to itself and amphitheater like railing to accommodate nearly a hundred people at once. It's an interesting painting, and I can see that there is a certain indefinable quality about it, but that could legitimately be said about many of the works in that room. I doubt that the crowds were there to really see the painting, in fact very few of them seemed to really look at it as they snapped pictures. Rather, the thrill of the painting for them was the first hand contact with a bit of celebrity, something they've been told embodies otherworldly qualities which they can't hope to understand and so they settle for touching for brief moments like a piece of moon rock. You can call me a cynic, but there were many other things in that room which filled me with a greater sense of wonder.
The most impressive painting I saw wasn't the Mona Lisa or several of the other famous names I recognized (though the Caravaggio painting was really intense and memorable), but “Marius at Minturnae” by Drouais. The version here is flat and doesn't even begin to convey the intensity of Marius's look. The original painting is almost nine feet tall, and I couldn't walk away for minutes on end. In the painting, Marius looks proud, compassionate, stern, driven by purpose, and confrontational while also calling on the soldier to join him. It was one of the most breathtakingly intense expressions I've seen in a work of art, and almost no one else in the hall seemed to even notice the painting since it wasn't the Mona Lisa.
While passing through my home train station of Bastille today I ran into a group of delightful Ukrainian folk musicians, and finally taking heed from previous experience that I err on the side of not making impulsive purchases when I should I bought one of their CD's. My only regret is that I didn't buy the other as well, since their website doesn't seem to exist and I'll probably never be able to track down the second album.
Traden, Romale (Bon voyage, Bohemiens) (folk. Tsigane)
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