The Louvre in a hurry
Written: May 12 '00 (Updated Jul 03 '00)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Contains some of the world's best art
Cons: Overwhelming if you don't plan first
|
|
|
| WritingLife's Full Review: Musée du Louvre |
Trying to do justice to the Louvre in a single epinion is like trying to see the Louvre in a day. Since I made a valiant attempt at the latter on my first Parisian excursion, I will make an attempt at the former as well.
The Metro will bring you within a block of the Louvre. From there, find your way to the Pyramid, the main entrance in the center of the structure. I.M. Pei’s ultra-modern glass Pyramid looks strikingly out of place in the center of the former palace, but once you pass through the glass portal and descend into the reception area, the functionality becomes clear. The revised entrance is swiftly efficient at moving people into the museum and allowing them to get their bearings.
You can purchase a day ticket for about 45F, or, if you plan to visit many museums and monuments on your trip, get a 1, 3, or 7 day museum pass. With your ticket in hand, you can proceed immediately to the Sully (which began with the original palace/fortress), the Richelieu wing to the north, or the Denon wing to the south. Keep your ticket handy, because if you cross the reception area or the plazas to get from one wing to another you’ll have to show your ticket again.
On our first trip to the Louvre, we began by exploring the Egyptian antiquities in the Sully. After passing the better part of the morning wandering the complexities of the Egyptian, Greek, Iranian, and other oriental antiquities, it became painfully clear (by our painful feet and the pitiful amount of ground we’d covered) that we needed a better plan.
We sat down with the free map and decided what exhibits we’d like most to see. The Mona Lisa was a must. Next in importance were the large-format French paintings (David, Ingres, Gericault and the rest) housed in the Denon wing, the 16th-17th and 13th-15th century Italian paintings also in the Denon wing, and the Dutch, German, and Flemish paintings which occupied the second floor of the Richelieu wing. We would conclude with the Venus de Milo, and that would almost certainly fill the day.
Fill the day it did! The large French paintings by themselves could have occupied an entire afternoon, just sitting on the convenient padded benches to look and look and look at them. The romantic Rubens depictions of the life of Catherine de Medici were astonishing in their oily, voluptuous grandeur. The Northern European painters display a quirky sense of humor, putting flies in their still lifes and enhancing old men’s noses to glorious proportions. Seeing the Louvre with my better half, who has studied art history extensively, made strolling the galleries a much richer experience than it otherwise might have been. Besides the sections we planned to see, we also managed to take in the 17th century French paintings on the second floor of the Sully on our way to the Richelieu wing. A mid-day break in the Louvre cafe, to have a sandwich and sip Orangina, was refreshing if expensive. Never mind the expense -- how often does one get to lunch in the Louvre?
One might think that, having seen the Mona Lisa (or La Giaconda, as the Italians call her, or La Joconde, as the French would have it) reproduced many times and in many variations, that there would be nothing special about seeing the original. On the contrary, we were drawn in by the details, observing da Vinci’s masterful brushstrokes. We were fortunate that there were few people in the gallery at the time, allowing us a close-up look -- at least, as close as the bullet-proof glass would allow. Two other da Vinci paintings hang, unprotected, in a nearby gallery: St. John the Baptist, and da Vinci’s depiction of the Virgin, St. Anne, and the infant Jesus.
Like good tourists, we managed to get lost at the end of the day as we tried to cross a sculpture gallery and find our way to the Venus de Milo, our last stop. The museum guards were patient and polite, answering our English inquiries in English, wonder of wonders. I could see in their eyes that they thought we were stupid sheep, but since we were behaving as such I couldn’t blame them. I thanked them profusely and off we went to find the Greek sculptures. Venus was there, standing proudly on a pedestal in the middle of the gallery. One could reach out and touch her, except that touching artwork is forbidden, of course. We glared sternly at some school boys who were about to climb on one of the sculptures.
We passed over the bookstore in the reception area, regretfully, but thought and thought about all those wonderful books the next day. Fortunately, getting in to the reception area and the bookstore (as well as many book stands) doesn’t require a ticket, and we trotted down to the Louvre on the last day of our trip to do some book shopping.
For the first-time visitor, I strongly recommend finding a good guidebook to the Louvre, either prior to the trip or at the Louvre itself. Page through it to see what artworks are housed here and decide which ones you want most to see. Map out your plan before you start wandering the galleries, and you’ll have a better chance of seeing what you want to see in one day. You won’t see it all -- you can’t possibly -- but you can at least hit your most desired highlights.
One word of warning: Never leave a purse, bag, wallet, or anything else in the restrooms. It will be immediately taken off and destroyed. The museum guards are ultra-alert for anyone who might bring a bomb or any other destructive device into the museum.
A second word of warning: Leave your flash camera behind. Flash photography is forbidden in the Louvre. Video cameras work well in the low light conditions. If you really want good pictures of the artworks, buy postcards from the many bookstands in the museum.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
WritingLife
|
|
Location: Salem, OR
Reviews written: 76
Trusted by: 16 members
About Me:
Iconoclastic, skeptical, dyed-in-the-wool curmudgeon. Synesthete. Surprising.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.