Easter Sunday we woke up to an overcast sky so we dressed for rain as we walked to the Metro to spend the day at the Louvre. It was Marie's first visit to what is the world's largest museum and she was determined to see Da Vinci's rather overrated painting the Mona Lisa first. It was easy to find it - we just followed the hordes intent on the same quest. It was disappointing to see it again behind glass and far back from viewing that one could not really appreciate it. I had last seen it in 1964 when our French class at General Naverau school in Metz had visited Paris on a day trip. Then it was displayed openly with just a velvet rope separating it two feet from the viewer. A selfie to say we there then we continued on to the Italian, Spanish and British paintings, where to my joy I discovered the only Turner piece in the Museum. Turner is my favourite painter after Courbet and we had missed the opportunity to see his more famous works in London. This was an unfinished work but a Turner none the less. We moved on to the gallery to look at some sculptures from around the world, the people having thinned out considerably at this point.
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| Turner, unfinished painting |
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| Constable's Weymouth Bay |
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| Gainsborough's Lady Alston |
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| Sculpture from Madagascar 17th century |
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| Sculpture Solomon Islands 17th century |
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| Caliari's Les Noces de Cana |
Then on to the Greek and Roman antiquities part of this huge museum, showing the development of Greek art from late prehistory to the Roman conquest and the late Roman Republic to the end of the Roman Empire. We especially enjoyed looking at the French sculptures by Donatello, Michelangelo and Canova. We found the Venus de Milo by the crowd around her and she looked pretty good for being over 2000 years old. This marble statue was discovered in 1820 on the island of Melos in the Cyclades (Greece) and is believed to depict Aphrodite, the goddess of love.
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| Hercules, marble 1400 BC |
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| Arcimboldo's Winter, Autumn, Summer, Spring |
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| Sculpture Easter Island 11th century |
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| Sculpture from Teotihuacan, Mexico 6th century |
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| Sculpture huaxteque, Mexico, 14th century |
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| Gladiator 100BC |
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| a perfection in marble |
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| Erhart's Sainte Marie Madeleine, 1540 |
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| Adam and Eve, German, 16th century |
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| Etruscan vase 580BC |
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| Oreste and Pylade, 1 BC |
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| Venus de Milo, marble, 120 BC |
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| Aphrodite |
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| Male nude, 430BC |
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| Hercules removing his sandal, 11BC |
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| The Sleeping Hermaphroditus , artist and year unknown |
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| The Three Graces, Goddesses of Vegetation and Beauty, companions of the God Apollo 2BC |
After three or so hours we decided to leave the Louvre while the day still promised some sun to walk to the Notre Dame Cathedral, checking out the booksellers along the Seine and watching the crowded tour boats going up and down the river. There were too many people lined up to go in to the Cathedral and again the security was obvious everywhere. We didn't do all we wanted to during our short time here (Marie really wanted to see the Paris catacombs, the underground ossuaries holding the remains of 6 million people but again the line up was over 2 hours to get into the network of old caves). Perhaps another visit, perhaps not but seeing Paris again - historic, beautiful, life itself - was an experience we won't forget soon.
gws
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| Eglise Saint-Gervais, Paris |
