The Louvre

Today we went to the Louvre. We left our apartment at a little after 10 and we were done at about 3:30. So much for the "you need days to do the Louvre." I always do blow through museums pretty fast. It certainly isn't that I am a Philistine. One of the best classes I ever took in my entire academic career was Art Survey in high school which was a history of art overview. Our teacher, Vince Lia, did an absolutely fantastic job. I took that class in 1986 or 1987 and I still remember so much. I visited Mr. Lia a year after I graduated. He told me that one of the UW affiliated schools was going to give college credit for his class. They asked him, "now that your students will receive college credit for this course, what are you going to change to make it university level?" Mr. Lia told them "nothing." Bravo!!! He's absolutely right! It still stands as one of the best classes I've taken--ever.

We took the subway. Getting off the subway, we were behind a family whose husband was videotaping even the trip from the train to the museum. I guess so he can bore his friends back home. Crimeny! Give it a rest, Video-man! Yes, the Louvre contains several works of art, but that doesn't mean all your friends want to see you getting off the damn subway and going to the museum.

So anyway, we got our tickets for €9 at some tobacco shop between the subway and museum. I thought it a bit odd, but in the end it doens't really matter where you get the tickets. We got a plan of the museum in the museum lobby. The Louvre has 3 wings, Richelieu, Denon, and Sully. We started with Richelieu since I really like the Dutch painters. It was happily uncrowded. We got to admire the painting of the Dutch painters in relative peace and calm. I really like Dutch painting. They seem to really have figured out how to paint better than anyone else, yet they don't get the credit in the general public.

Then we went to the Apartments of Napoleon III. It didn't say so, but I'm guessing it was Rococo style--at least in some of the rooms. I remember Baroque started to get ornate, and Rococo took "ornate" to the extreme. Some rooms were ornate and some were just way overboard. I don't know how the people who lived in the age when the Rococo style was in fashion didn't gag on it. Oh wait, I guess I do know. I recently saw Indiana Jones and the Realm of the Crystal Skull or whatever it is in English. It was a good enough movie, but it really stretched the boundaries of what is believable. Just like the Rococo style really pushed the bounds of decoration. Maybe even, you could say that cable news pushes similar bounds. Maybe we are in a Rococo period with respect to movies and cable news. Anyway...

Elena was anxious to see the Mona Lisa so we then headed over to the Italian and Spanish section. We saw the Slaves of Michelangelo, first. The difference between the Dutch section and the Italian section is that the people in the Italian section were video taping and photographing like crazy. At first I tried to stay out of people's shots, but then I just gave up. There is no point. I started treating them as if they didn't have cameras. I took no pains any longer to give them a clean view of anything. If you want to snap a picture in the Louvre, fine, but don't expect me to change anything for you.

We looked at all sorts of Italian paintings from the Renaissance. All the tourists were snapping pictures at all angles of everything. It's interesting that the Protestant artists inspire self-control while the Catholic artists inspire the tourists to act in the worst possible manner. Why is that? Is it something about the Catholic vs. Protestantism thing?



We made it to the Mona Lisa and there it was in the middle of a room filled with tourists. Now I am a fan of da Vinci. But there is not such a vast difference between the Mona Lisa (la Joconde) and other paintings to make all the tourists flock to it. Sure it is a nice painting. And da Vinci did a good job. In fact, he da Vinci was really bad at finishing what he started and the Mona Lisa is one of the few paintings he finished. I read a book once that suggested that the background of the Mona Lisa is actually da vinci thinking about other projects like digging a canal. da Vinci and I have a lot in common--by which I mean we have the same character flaws. It's nice to know that no matter what I do to screw up my life, da Vinci did the same. It sort of makes it easier to pursue my unorthodox lifestyle of travel and laziness mixed with industrious engineering.

We soon needed lunch. We went to the self serve bar. They only had half the stuff we wanted and they didn't put out many tables and chairs so we had to stand while eating most of the time. Elena was pissed off because given the limited number of chairs and tables, the people using them should eat and go, but some people were sitting there reading, etc and not consuming food purchased in the cafe that owns the tables. Oh well. Then we went back in.

We looked at Greek, Egyptian, Roman, and Etruscan art. Elena headed out to look around outside while I finished up with the ancient Iranian, Assyrian, etc. Also the French sculpture, some of which is very sexy--like this naked girl lacing up her sandal--yummy! I found the Baron de Montesquieu by the title of his book Spirit de Loix. I saw the title and asked myself--Is this Montesquieu? It was! The Spirit of Laws is an interesting book. The US Constitution is almost plaigerized from it. It is probably the most influential book of the authors of the Constitution. It is sad that Montesquieu is so little known in the USA today. The French can complain about Americans all they want, but we Americans are products of French ideas implemented in a practical manner. I spent quite a bit of time with Montesquieu in 10th or 1th grade. It was nice to see what he looks like. I had to write a 25 page paper that year. What a stupid waste of time. The premise of the class was that we would have to write 25 page papers in college, but I never had to write a paper over 10 pages during my entire university career. Five pages was the norm. Instead of one 2 page paper over the semester, they should have made us write several 2-5 page papers. But I digress.

I passed several people making copies of the art and making their own drawings. I think the oil painters making oil copies are making copies to sell--or more likely, they are already sold. Several people were drawing the statues. Now that is a topic that I know a little bit about. I did take several figure drawing classes, after all. My instructor, Tamara Codor is a believer in the classical style of drawing and I am as well. To me, you start by drawing a whole thing really rough--just circles, ovals, squares, triangles, etc. With figures, you draw in the masses of the body--then the muscle groups, then the muscles. In all cases, you are drawing organic shapes on top of shapes. But all of the people I saw drawing were drawing lines. I would draw an arm by drawing first ovals for the forearm, upper ar, etc. But they were drawing one side of the arm and then the other side of the arm. I don't think you can draw something that way. It was interesting to see at any rate.



I left Elena to use Philippe's internet connection at work. I came home and got a bottle of chianti a €9,50 pizza, and settled in the for the evening.