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| Sunrise in Paris |
From outside and afar, the Louvre dominates the city of Paris. Massive, imposing, mysterious it awaited our arrival.
We woke up at around 6:30 in the morning and had a nice
breakfast at the hotel. Our breakfast
here was to be something we’d see commonly at almost all the hotels throughout
our trip to France. There were fresh
breads, yogurt, ham, prosciutto, jams, cereal, eggs, sausage, tea, orange juice
and all kinds of cheese. I’ve never been
a breakfast person but I gobbled up everything I could get my hands on and it
was all very good. Sitting back we
briefly discussed our goal today: we
were going to the Louvre.
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| Musee D'orsay at Sunrise |
Thankfully, the museum was only a short walk from the
hotel, and we set out across the Pont Des Arts and into the Tuileries garden. This is a lovely park with flowers and
fountains that border trees and places to eat.
In the spring, the garden comes alive with tulips. There was no one else around, save the
occasional groundskeeper, and we made our way towards the Louvre itself.
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| Tuileries Garden |
The outsider has no idea how big the Louvre is until they
stand at the apex of the steps of the Tuilieries garden. The outside stretches for acres, with a
central wing and two sprawling side “arms” that open up to the garden before
them. The walls rise up above you like
mansions on top of a fortress, with dozens of chimneys, sweeping spires and
steeply descending roves. Statues of
great leaders and men of France stand watch below her windows, and above them
all are golden coat of arms and crowns from her imperial past.
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| One of the wings of the Louvre |
It’s strange to refer to the Louvre in a female sense,
but the building does have a certain softness about her at first. Approaching the famous glass pyramid, you
realize you must descend downwards into a central point that then spreads out
into each of the many wings. Thankfully
the line was not long at all to start, and we were early. With our passes in hand all we had to do was
go inside without worrying about an additional wait for tickets. My parents had done this before and so they
were well prepared with a game plan of exactly where we were going and what we
wanted to see.
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| Main Couryard with the pyramid |
Even with a game plan though, the Louvre is incredibly
large, with three wings all with three levels and three outlying wings on top
of that. It is extremely easy to get
turned around, and the terminus lies in the center just beneath the glass
pyramid itself. It feels like an
airport with escalators going up and down and lots of people moving about en-
masse towards the different wings. They
move with a hurried sense of purpose, wanting to see all there is to see.
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| Long halls like this seem to stretch forever |
The moment the doors opened, we were on the move, beating
a hasty track to one place and one purpose:
the “Mona Lisa”. Of the many
things my parents raved about that inspired me to travel to France, this
portrait was among the most referred.
They couldn’t get enough of Mona, and at the time I figured it was
justified. The Mona Lisa is the most
famous painting in the world, and people come to the Louvre just to see
her.
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| Statue of Dianna near Mona |
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| First Meeting |
My parents had found that they could get a good, long
look without the long lines or the impossible crowds when they traveled here
before, so we beat a hasty line to Mona’s wing.
We passed many other masterpieces on the way, including winged victory,
but I had my eye on the prize as I entered the Italian artists section of the
museum. There, sitting on an individual
wall in front of me, was “Mona Lisa” herself.
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| Pictures do no justice |
Any picture, any photo you have seen of the “Mona Lisa”
is a flat, lifeless proxy of the real thing.
You have not seen “Mona Lisa” until you have seen the portrait itself,
and the mass production of her famous smile is ludicrous to even consider when
you actually exist before her. Mona IS
alive. She lives and breathes, she gazes
upon the viewer with eyes that exist with a presence and soul. The warmth and depth of the painting give
such dimension, that when you compare it to all the others in that room make
every single one flat and artificial.
Leonardo Da Vinci captures such a human expression, and
while the smile is famous, it is the eyes that hold the key. She follows you around the room, and the
smile seems almost an afterthought. I
likened it to an imagined conversation where the great master told some little
sly joke that made the real person smile in a way that says, “Oh Leonardo you
sly dog.”
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| Even from the side, her eyes follow the viewer. |
She sits, gazing from the frame as if it’s a window, and
you feel as if she might step out at any moment to stand and talk to you. Looking at Mona, is like looking at a modern
photograph and how the master achieved this feat I do not know. Many people don’t think she has an identity,
but some scholars believe she was a particular patron rather than the wild
theory it’s a gender bent self-portrait.
I did notice a similar warmth and
depth to other paintings Da Vinci did, ones less famous but no less
spectacular. My personal favorite was
Saint John the Baptist.
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| Saint John the Baptist |
John has far more personality than even Mona, he grins in
this impish way while pointing upwards and above. You feel like he’s about to lean over and
whisper you some quiet inside joke about God, and God doesn't mind in the
least. Behind him is a cross, and it’s
this he’s actually gesturing you to. The
look is disarming, yet cautionary, John clad in skins seems like a humble
shepherd pointing the way to Christ.
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| Another Da Vinci,, The Virgin Mary with her mother and the baby Jesus. |
This painting deserves as much celebrity as Mona, who is
assaulted by countless people taking pictures.
I found it interesting you could take photos of everything inside, but
you can’t take photos of people taking pictures. It seemed a bit strange, but there was more
than enough to capture. I stood in the center of a long hall, and
before me stretched hundreds upon hundreds of paintings for what seemed a mile
in each direction. There were portraits,
statues, busts, all beneath the glass roof which leant a bright and cheery
light to everything.
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| A huge painting opposite Mona |
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| Saint John in the Wilderness, Da Vinci's last work |
Here and there as we walked back the way we came, I
caught glances of students doing as many masters have before. They were studying sketching, honing their
art and craft to become master’s themselves.
We paused back at “Winged Victory”, which had attracted her own
crowd. She stands on a piece of stone
shaped like the prow of a ship. The form
is human bit from her back, wings spread like arms unfurled.
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| Winged Victory |
It’s most impressive, but I couldn’t help but
think “king of the world”. (Sad I know
to think of a pop culture reference when looking at a master’s art.)
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| Vermeer |
The closest art we saw to capturing Da Vinci’s style was
a Vermeer. As an artist, Vermeer is
peerless, and I highly recommend people check out “Tims Vermeer” if you want to
see the way the artist, and a modern inventor, did these kinds of
paintings. Looking at a Vermeer has the
same photographic quality as Da Vinci.
Getting up close, you can even see the fine thread nestled between the
woman’s fingers.
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| You can see the finite detail of the thread |
There was so much more, and still is so much to relate here. The statues and sculpture were next to see....
