Paris – January 11, 2023

The Louvre Museum

I went to the Louvre museum today. The line to get in took about fifteen minutes (at 9 a.m.). Later in the day, this is what the line looked like:

But the outside of the building has a lot of nice photo opportunities.

Setated lady in Greek dress surrounded by other people in Grecian dress

Once I entered and stowed my coat (the cloakroom is now all automated; you choose a locker and enter a combination and you’re good to go), things got interesting really quickly. When I presented my printed page with the QR code for my ticket, a person with a video camera started filming it. It appears they were from French national TV, and the ticket-taker explained how the process worked. They didn’t take any video of me, as far as I know, but unless they blurred it out, everyone saw my name on the ticket.

I chose a starting point pretty much at random, with 12th century and later religious art (was there any other kind?):

Woman representing charity, dressed in blue, holding baby.

Christ with bound hands under arrest, led by a creepy looking person

Two popes, a cardinal, a bishop, a canon, and seven monks in prayer (painted sculptue)

Two popes, a cardinal, a bishop, a canon, and seven monks walk into a bar...

These pictures just go in whatever order I went through the museum, so there is no particular theme.

Ceiling with gold decorations, carvings, and paintings

Even the ceilings are artistic here.

Yes, it’s the Venus de Milo. That’s what you get for biting your nails.

Sculpture of seated naked woman; hand-shaped piece of marble on back of sculpture

The handprint on the back of this sculpture was just plain weird.

Egg-shaped sculpture with riders on horses

We’re getting into prehistoric territory here.

Charioteer; most of front of chariot is missing and only horse's head still exists

This jewelry would look great even today.

View of room with several display cases of prehistoric objects.

Painted relief sculpture of Persian archer

Even the chairs that the security people sit in are fairly artistic.

wooden chair w. black seat cushion; back of chair has semi-circular carved areas.

OK, back to the pictures, starting with (surprise!) some secular art:

Girl holding candle,looking at blacksmith.

Apparently the painter of this one, Eustache Le Sueur, had a thing for Saint Bruno. This is the one of him being taken to heaven. If you ask me, the look on his face says, “I did not have this on my bingo card for today.”

At first I thought this room full of empty frames was a joke, but they did this on purpose to emphasize how the Louvre curates a collection of picture frames as well as paintings.

side view of frames showing wires for hanging

This wasn’t part of the exhibit, but the arrangement and wires caught my eye.

More artworks:

I really liked the perspective in this one.

Closeup of brush work

The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

“Getting murdered was not on my bingo card today.”

This is a self-portrait of the artist.

Back to Egypt

Necklaces; gold, and one with green stones

The Winged Victory of Samothrace. Getting your head cut off isn’t my idea of victory...

Oh, there’s the head...never mind, that’s Johnny B’s head.

The Mona Lisa (La Joconde)

I went into the room, but decided it wasn’t worth standing in line to see it up close. Yes, it is smaller than you think it is. Here’s a blurred picture taken with zoom lens at max, and I’d claim that the blurring is on purpose to give an artistic effect, but that would be a lie.

Blurred picture of Mona Lisa, taken over heads of people in crowd

The line waiting to see her Jocondity.

Islamic Art

This area had some interesting works.

Before we leave the Louvre, some categories:

That’s Hideous

These might be great works of art, but I think they are just horrible, and definitely not anything I would want in my house even if I could afford them or had room for them.

A wall-sized monstrosity

Yeah, that would look great above the dining room table. It would sure set the mood.

Creepy Baby Jesus

There are some madonna-and-child paintings and scultpures where the infant Jesus is somehow, well, wrong (from our modern viewpoint).

Painted sculpture of Mary and infant Jesus.

This is not...

Sometimes you see an artwork and you think it looks like someone famous in this day and age. Hence the category “this is not...”

This is not David Dastmalchian.

This is not Joseph Sirola.

This is not Jimmy Durante.

This is not some dude with a baseball bat.

Man in top hat, riding boots, with riding crop

This is not Eustace Tilley.

This is not a prehistoric Muppet.

The Rest of the Day

On the way out of the Louvre, there’s a shopping gallery with a Lacoste store with the trademark crocodile:

Some buildings near the Louvre:

This isn’t very near, but I liked its looks.

This is the building for the Council of State.

The building across the street has mirrored windows...

“Currency Street”

I decided to not go to the Eiffel Tower on this trip, but you can’t avoid getting it in the background as it’s visible from large areas of the city.