European Travelog D4E2: The Labyrinths of the Louvre

The Louvre is justifiably the most hyped museum in the world. It's got stuff, it's got history and it has an impeccable building to show off. Of course, many parts of the collection owe their origin to the Napoleonic looting of art that happened in the late 18th century, just as most of the British Museum in London was populated with loot from their colonies.

The Louvre itself started life as a fortress in the 11th century, was transformed into a palace, and after the Revolution became a national museum.

The numbers are staggering. It has close to half a million objects of which less than a tenth are displayed in over 750,000 square feet and it is estimated at at 30 seconds per object for 8 hours per day, it would take 36 days to view the entire collection. 

Our first sight is the La Pyramide Inversée - the inverted pyramid. Appearing to float tantalizingly above the ground, it's the same size as the famous Pyramid outside the Louvre. Designed by I M Pei, its modernity and technical sophistication is a stark contrast to the millennia old objects inside the museum. And functionally, it's just a skylight, guiding the sunlight into the subterranean passages of the Louvre.

We deposit our bags in the locker and start with the Richelieu Wing. It's not the most popular wing in the Louvre, but contains some of the older human attempts at art.

Coming face to face with a life-like depiction of humans who lived more than 5000 years ago in the Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia makes you think about how much humankind has gone through to establish its place on earth. And it also raises the existential question of whether anyone will remember you five thousand years later, either through written work or art.

We run into a similar piece in the Sully wing later in our tour - this time from Egypt.

The Egyptian Seated Scribe

Wikipedia says: This work is dated to the period of the Old Kingdom, from either the 5th Dynasty, c. 2450–2325 BCE or the 4th Dynasty, 2620–2500 BCE. It is a painted limestone statue, the eyes inlaid with rock crystal, magnesite, copper-arsenic alloy, and wood.

The scribe has a soft and slightly overweight body, suggesting he is well off and does not need to do any sort of physical labor. He sits in a cross-legged position that would have been his normal posture at work. His facial expression is alert and attentive, gazing out to the viewer as though he is waiting for them to start speaking. He has a ready-made papyrus scroll laid out on his lap but the reed-brush used to write is missing. Both his hands are positioned on his lap. His right hand is pointing towards the paper as if he has already started to write while watching others speak. He stares calmly at the viewer with his black outlined eyes.

A nearby bust depicts a pharaoh who tried to change religious practices. With his wife Nefertiti, he reigned at what was arguably the wealthiest period of ancient Egyptian history. He was dishonored after his death and rediscovered only about 3500 years later. 

Akhenaten

Akhenaten abandoned the traditional ancient Egyptian religion of polytheism and introduced Atenism, or worship centered around Aten. This culture shift away from traditional religion was reversed after his death. Akhenaten's monuments were dismantled and hidden, his statues were destroyed, and his name excluded from lists of rulers compiled by later pharaohs. Traditional religious practice was gradually restored, notably under his close successor Tutankhamun. When some dozen years later, rulers without clear rights of succession from the Eighteenth Dynasty founded a new dynasty, they discredited Akhenaten and his immediate successors and referred to Akhenaten as "the enemy" or "that criminal" in archival records. Akhenaten was all but lost to history until the late-19th-century discovery of Amarna, or Akhetaten, the new capital city he built for the worship of Aten.

An adjacent exhibit is a monument to an ancient victory of Naram-Sin, the king of Akkad in approximately 2350 BCE. The first Mesopotamian king known to have claimed divinity for himself, taking the title "God of Akkad", this "Victory Stele" depicts Naram-Sin's triumph over Satuni, the tribal chief of Lullubi in the Zagros Mountains.

We move on to the relics of the Assyrian civilization - which at one point was the largest empire then yet assembled in world history, spanning from parts of Iran in the east to Egypt in the west - and lasted from the 21st century BCE to the 7th century BCE.

We encounter a massive lamassu - an Assyrian sculpture typically placed in prominent pairs at entrances in palaces, facing the street and also internal courtyards - with the body of a bull, the wings of a bird and the head of a human.

The British Museum in London has many more of these sculptures and the ones that were not taken away by the colonial powers in the 19th and 20th century were destroyed by the Islamic State when it swept into the region in the early 21st century.

The military expeditions of Ashurbanipal

Wikipedia says: Ashurbanipal is chiefly remembered today for his cultural efforts. A patron of artwork and literature, Ashurbanipal was deeply interested in the ancient literary culture of Mesopotamia. Over the course of his long reign, Ashurbanipal utilized the massive resources at his disposal to construct the Library of Ashurbanipal, a collection of texts and documents of various different genres. Perhaps comprising over 100,000 texts at its height, the Library of Ashurbanipal was not surpassed until the construction of the Library of Alexandria, several centuries later

Ashurbanipal is also recognized as one of the most brutal Assyrian kings; he was one of the few rulers to boast of his gory massacres of rebellious civilians. Ashurbanipal described his victory with the following account: Like the onset of a terrible hurricane I overwhelmed Elam in its entirety. I cut off the head of Teumann, their king, – the haughty one, who plotted evil. Countless of his warriors I slew. Alive, with my hands, I seized his fighters. With their corpses I filled the plain about Susa ... Their blood I let run down the Ulai; its water I dyed red like wool.

An ivory plaque from the Neo-Assyrian empire in the 8th century BCE shows a calf drinking milk, while its mother licks its body - a common motif seen in many South Indian temples too.

The neighboring panel is from the neighboring empire of Babylon.

This panel depicts the lion, the animal attribute of the goddess Ishtar, and was part of the decoration of the Processional Way of Babylon via the Gate of Ishtar. The Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon constructed c. 569 BCE by order of King Nebuchadnezzar II on the north side of the city. 

Even though the tile is more than 2500 years old, a close-up revels how the artist has captured the dynamism of the animal.

Our next stop in the Richelieu Wing is probably one of the most famous relics of the Babylonian empire - the Code of Hammurabi.

A Babylonian legal text composed during 1755–1750 BCE, this stele was found at the site of the ancient Elamite city of Susa (now in Iran).

The top of the stele features an image in relief of Hammurabi with Shamash, the Babylonian sun god and god of justice.

 The code comprises of about 4,130 lines of cuneiform text. 

Wikipedia says:

One principle widely accepted to underlie the Code is lex talionis, or "eye for an eye". Laws 196 and 200 respectively prescribe an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth when one man destroys another's. Punishments determined by lex talionis could be transferred to the sons of the wrongdoer. For example, law 229 states that the death of a homeowner in a house collapse necessitates the death of the house's builder. The following law 230 states that if the homeowner's son died, the builder's son must die also.

King Sargon II (reign 722-705 BCE) who called himself

King of Assyria

King of Babylon

King of Sumer and Akkad

King of the Four Corners of the World

King of the Universe

We end our viewing of the Richelieu Wing on that note of human vanity.

 We catch a glimpse of the courtyard as we move on the Denon Wing.

The corridor leading to the Denon Wing

The Louvre website states:  If you only have an hour or two, we recommend visiting the Denon wing, which houses some of the most famous masterpieces (Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, The Raft of the Medusa, and more).

However, before we get to these, we stop to view the Napoleonic rooms.

The Throne Room of Napoleon I

Throne room of Louis XVIII (1814-1824) and Charles X (1824-1830) at the Tuileries Palace.

The plaque in the room states: 

A gallery along the banks of the Seine connected the Louvre to the Tuileries Palace -the king's residence in the 19th century - until the latter's destruction in the 1871 fire. In 1882, the decision was made to demolish the damaged palace, leaving behind only the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, which marked the courtyard entrance, and the Tuileries Garden sprawling beyond the palace. Since the First French Empire (1804-1814), the throne room had been located in Louis XIV's former state bedchamber on the courtyard side of the first floor. Louis XVIII ordered a complete refurbishment of its interior, which resulted in a room of unprecedented splendor.

Much of the French wealth came from colonies established in the 17th century, the slave trade and the spoils of wars led by Napoleon which expanded the empire and the fertile lands which supported agriculture and the growing demand for manufacturing driven by the military-industrial complex.

We move on to the Dutch paintings. The Dutch, along with the British and the French were the original colonial powers and the paintings depict this.

Backhuysen - The return of the fleet of the Dutch East India Company, 1677

The first Dutch capitalist company, the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC), brought luxury goods back from Asian colonies. Backhuysen is probably portraying here the annual return to Amsterdam of the company's fleet.

Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer, 1688

The 17th century was the age of scientific revolution. The astronomer studies a celestial globe and there is an astrolabe, possibly of Persian origin, on the table. The man wears a dressing gown similar to a kimono. The Netherlands played a central role in international trade, which explains how Vermeer would have had access to such items.

Along with the growth of interest in science, there was also the interest in alchemy - aimed at converting base metals into gold.

Thomas Wijck, The Alchemist

When they were not trying to convert metals to gold, alchemists also worked on the creation of an elixir of immortality and the creation of panaceas able to cure any disease.

In contrast to contemporary art in the rest of Europe which focused largely on religious motifs, the Dutch artists also depicted day to day life as seen in The Apothecary(1661) and The Doctor's Visit (1665) above.

Of course, paintings based on Biblical stories were also there.

Matthias Stom, Pontius Pilate washing his hands (1630)

This painting, made in Italy, depicts the Roman governor of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, who denies responsibility for the death of Jesus by the highly symbolic act of washing his hands. In the background, in a shortcut of the Biblical account, Jesus is shown carrying the Cross. This work was influenced by Caravaggio (1571-1610).

Frans Hals, Portrait of Rene Decartes in Dutch costume (c. 1650)

Rene Descartes, the most prominent French philosopher of the 17th century, wrote his books in Holland, where he found a freedom of expression that was absent in the France of Louis XIII. The philosopher poses here in Dutch dress, paying homage to his host country.

These galleries are fairly deserted, with most of the visitors drawn to the crowd-puller that is in this wing - the Mona Lisa.

Turning round the galleries always provides amazing views of the Louvre- which are as fascinating as the interiors.

Our next stop is one of the largest paintings in the Louvre - 33 feet by 20 feet.

Jacques-Louis David, The Coronation of Napoleon, 1807

According to Wikipedia: The composition is organized around several axes, and incorporates the rules of neoclassicism. One axis is that which passes through the cross and has a vertical orientation. A diagonal line runs from the pope to the empress. All eyes are turned towards Napoleon, who is the center of the composition. Napoleon, Pius, and Josephine are illustrated in profile upon the steps towards the altar. The Emblem of the Holy See is hung above the attendants to the left while La Pietà de Notre-Dame de Paris is partially seen at the rightmost edge of the canvass.

Napoleon I and his wife Josephine were crowned Emperor and Empress of the French on December 2, 1804 at Notre-Dame de Paris in Paris in the presence of Pope Pius VII. It marked "the instantiation of [the] modern empire" and was a "transparently masterminded piece of modern propaganda". Napoleon wanted to establish the legitimacy of his imperial reign with its new dynasty and nobility. To this end, he designed a new coronation ceremony unlike that for the kings of France, which had emphasized the king's consecration and anointment and was conferred by the archbishop of Reims in Reims Cathedral. Napoleon brought together various rites and customs, incorporating ceremonies of Carolingian tradition, the ancien régime, and the French Revolution, all presented in sumptuous luxury.

Napoleon crowned himself and then crowned the kneeling Josephine with a small crown surmounted by a cross, which he had first placed on his own head.

The coronation had its own share of controversy:

Napoleon's detractors like to say that he snatched the crown from the pope, or that this was an act of unbelievable arrogance, but neither of those charges holds water. The most likely explanation is that Napoleon was symbolizing that he was becoming emperor based on his own merits and the will of the people, and not in the name of a religious consecration. The pope knew about this move from the beginning and had no objection (not that it would have mattered)." Historian Vincent Cronin wrote "Napoleon told Pius that he would be placing the crown on his own head. Pius raised no objection."

The entire ceremony cost 8.5 million Francs.

Jacques David, The Lictors bring Brutus the bodies of his sons, 1789

Brutus, the first Roman consul in the late 6th century BCE, set an extreme example of civic virtue by having his sons beheaded for conspiring against the Republic. The grief of the mother and daughters is highlighted while Brutus sits motionless in the shadows, torn between his sadness and his sense of duty.

The next item we see is probably one of the most famous pieces in the Louvre, after the Mona Lisa.

Niké of Samothrace (or The Winged Victory of Samothrace)

The Winged Victory of Samothrace,  is a monument originally discovered on the island of Samothrace, north of the Aegean Sea. A masterpiece of Greek sculpture dating from the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, it is composed of a statue representing the goddess Niké (Victory), whose head and arms are missing and its base is in the shape of a ship's bow. The statue, in white Parian marble, depicts Niké , the goddess of Victory, alighting on the bow of a warship.

The Greek government considers the Winged Victory, like the Elgin Marbles, illegally plundered and wants it repatriated to Greece. 

We're now moving to the vertex of the Denon Wing. There are three Da Vinci works we view on the way to the Mona Lisa.

Leonardo Da Vinci, Virgin of the Rocks, 1486

The Virgin Mary has her right hand on St John, while her left extends towards the infant Jesus who is sitting next to the angel Uriel.

Leonardo painted another version of this same painting, which is in the National Gallery, UK Their website states: 

Leonardo gives the impression of the landscape’s vastness through a technique we now call ‘aerial perspective’. From his studies in optics, he realized that we perceive the same colors differently depending on their distance from us; mountains appear blue and paler if viewed from far off.

He softened their edges so they appear hazy, another technique that mimics the effects of vision in reality. The light towards the horizon and the cool blue of water and distant mountains also contrasts directly with the warm dark browns of the earth and rocks.

‘The Virgin of the Rocks’ demonstrates Leonardo’s revolutionary technique of contrasting light and shadow, known as ‘chiaroscuro’ to define three-dimensional figures.

By blocking out most of the sky and surrounding his figures with tall rocky outcrops, overhanging ledges, and dark hollows, Leonardo creates a gloomy environment from which the figures’ faces and bodies emerge as though spot-lit. This unnatural illumination emphasizes their divine beauty.

Leonardo achieves subtle transitions between light and shadow through another innovative technique, now known as ‘sfumato’ – from the verb ‘turn to smoke’. By using this smoky, blurry effect around the edges of forms, such as around the Virgin’s temples and nose, rather than stark outline, the figures appear to emerge subtly from the darkness. It is the beautiful modelling of flesh and skin using fine gradations of smoky grey tones that makes each figure appear three-dimensional.

Leonardo Da Vinci, Portrait of a woman of the court of Milan, 1497

The sitter has traditionally been identified as Lucrezia Crivelli, mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, but this identity has never been confirmed. Some critics believe it to be a portrait of Ludovico's wife Beatrice d'Este or of Isabella of Aragon.

Leonardo Da Vinci:  Saint Anne, the Virgin Mary, and the Infant Jesus Playing with a Lamb, 1497

This symbolic painting shows Saint Anne, her daughter Mary and Jesus, who is playing with a lamb, a symbol of his future sacrifice. Leonardo set the holy scene in an imaginary landscape of lakes and mountains. The water over the rocks in the foreground is an allusion to the future baptism of Christ.

What the visitors see

What Mona Lisa sees

She is housed in the Louvre’s largest room, the Salle des États inside a protective bullet-proof glass case which is temperature and humidity controlled since over 9 million visitors pass through this room every year.

And finally, the lady herself

Titian, Lady With a Mirror, 1515

The two mirrors enable the young woman - a model of ideal Venetian female beauty - to see herself both from the front and from the back. The artist used these multiple reflections to demonstrate his technical skill and illustrate the superiority of painting over sculpture.

The next painting, based on a real-life incident, reflects various aspects of the human condition - despair, hope, indifference. 

In 1816, the Médusa, a French frigate, wrecked off Mauritania in 1816 due to the captain's incompetence. Of 400 passengers, 146 were abandoned on a raft. Facing storms, mutiny, and cannibalism, only 15 survived after 13 days at sea, marking a tragic maritime disaster.

Gericault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1819

It's a vast picture - 23' by 16', painted only a few years after the disaster and was also a political statement calling out the incompetence of the political class.

At the highest point is a black character, signifying hope and a possibility in the future, inspite of the despair behind him. By placing a black man in a heroic and central role, Géricault challenges prevailing racial stereotypes, especially  as the Medusa tragedy occurred during a mission to reassert French control over Senegal, a former colony tied to the transatlantic slave trade.

Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830

Delacroix created the painting in 1830 as a tribute to the July Revolution that led to the overthrow of King Charles X. As with many modern dictators,  Charles X affirmed absolute monarchy by divine right and opposed the constitutional monarchy concessions towards liberals and the guarantees of civil liberties. He also initiated the French conquest of Algeria as a way to distract his citizens from domestic problems, and forced Haiti to pay a hefty indemnity in return for lifting a blockade and recognizing Haiti's independence (which they paid off till 1952 - the transfer cost a staggering amount of $115 Billion which impoverished generations of Haitians).

Delacroix's composition features a bare-breasted female figure personifying Liberty, who stands atop a barricade and the bodies of the fallen, leading a diverse group of revolutionaries. She holds the French tricolor flag in one hand and a bayonetted musket in the other, symbolizing both freedom and the struggle for rights

Romano, The Circumcision, 1524

All eyes are on the infant Jesus as he is circumcised on his eighth day.

Da Volterra, The Battle of David and Goliath, 1555

This vivid colors and the moment of death for Goliath make this painting throb with life. We don't see the faces of both the protagonists but their bodies communicate all that needs to be said.

After all these intense paintings it's good to see some whimsical paintings from Arcimboldo.

The Winter Spring Summer Autumn series was commissioned by Maximilian II of Habsburg, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The figures in this series are made up of various plants; they each characterize one of the four seasons. These 'composed heads', as whimsical as they are masterful, are meant to invite the viewer to reflect on nature's devices, but also on the emperor's power, manifested by his timelessness through the seasons and by his ability to bring coherence to a very diverse empire. The paintings were restored in 2024.

As we swing around a corridor, we catch another view of the Louvre courtyard from another angle.

With that we conclude our tour of the paintings of the Louvre and move on to some of the sculptures.

Michelangelo Buonarotti, The Rebellious Slave and The Dying Slave, 

These statues by one of the greatest sculptors of the West, along with the monumental Moses which we will see later in Rome, were originally intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II.

The Dying Slave (on the right) depicts a young male figure in a moment of surrender to death, characterized by a pose that suggests both struggle and resignation. His right hand lies on his chest, symbolizing his attempt to break free from bondage, while his left hand rests on his head. This sculpture is notable for its intricate anatomical detail and emotional depth, portraying the tension between life and death. 

The Rebellious Slave (on the left) stands in a more defiant posture, with his body twisting as if attempting to break free from its constraints. This figure contrasts with the Dying Slave by embodying resistance and struggle against oppression. Like its counterpart, it is also unfinished and invites various interpretations regarding themes of captivity and liberation.

Apparently selfies were an ancient phenomenon, as this sculpture shows.

Psyche, Revived by Cupid's Kiss

The plaque near the sculpture informs us that Psyche, poisoned by the fumes from a flask she was instructed not to open, is on the brink of death. Cupid rushes to her rescue, pricking her with an arrow and reviving her with a kiss. The complex composition and subtle carving of the marble are a testament of Canova's skill: the wings appear translucent and the figures' skin seems almost real to touch.

A closer look at the kiss which revived Psyche.

The last sculpture we are going to see is one of the most famous ones in the Louvre -  Venus de Milo which is estimated to have been sculpted around 100 BCE.

While we will never know what her arms once held, the sculpture remains as one of the classic representations of Greek beauty.

And on that note of mystery, we exit the Louvre. It's almost closing time - we've spent almost five and a half hours and seen art almost five thousand years old and barely seen a fraction of the exhibits or the limits of human art and creativity.

If we're back in Paris again sometime, we'll be back in the Louvre again.

How we did it

We used the Paris Museum Pass. Even if you have the pass, you need to reserve a slot on the Louvre website and these fill up really fast. We only got a slot for noon when the museum was already crowded. There are also long security lines to enter the Louvre.

The museum has a locker for small bags.