The Louvre

I was lucky to be able to visit The Louvre in two occasions this pass month. Needless to say, this was not enough time to see the more than 35,000 objects found at museum nor to walk through the 60,600 square meters. This forced us to select the pieces of art work we desired to see the most. On our first visit, we took line one of the metro and got off on Rivoli. This led us directly to the lower ground floor of the museum. As we were buying our tickets, I could not help but think of how fortunate we were to be able to enter the palace. Previously, this was a privilege that was not given to the public until 1793 by King Louis XVI. To begin our visit, our professor led us onto the ground floor. It was here that we were able to walk through the Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiques. Almost immediately we found ourselves in front of the very famous Venus de Milo that dates from 100 B.C. The marble sculpture is believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty. As we kept walking, we encounter the neoclassical sculpture Cupid’s Kiss by Antonio Canova. This sculpture tells the story of Venus’ son who falls in love with Psyche. The Michelangelo Gallery was found in the next room. Here, we were able to admire the Rebellious Slave and the Dying Slave. Although all of the sculptures were quite different they had several things in common. It becomes evident that the sculptures were meant to instruct the people who saw them and also it is inevitable to disregard the fact that the muscles were never seen being flexed; therefore lacking a sense of movement. For the second part of our visit, we opted going up to the first floor in the Denon wing were the paintings are located. I was thrilled to see once again, what was my favorite paining as a kid, The Crowning of the Empress Josephine by J.L. David. Not far from there, we were able to see the Italian paintings. The images of biblical scenes and saints filled the halls of the early Renaissance. We knew we had arrived to the room where the Mona Lisa by Leonardo de Vinci is located when we saw a huge number of people pushing each other in order to get closer to the painting. It is crazy to think that about a decade ago this was not the case. The Mona Lisa was not surrounded with so much security nor were there as many tourists. Our tour came to an end with the Spanish paintings. As we followed this path it was amazing to see the drift in styles from the classical way of painting to a style that seemed to have more movement. This type of painting was what carved the way for the impressionistic movement. On our second visit we arrived by getting down on the metro stop called Palais Royal. This allowed us to come in through the main entrance and admire the glass pyramid designed by the American architect I.M. Pei. During this visit, we were able to learn about the history of the Louvre by going to the ground floor of the Sully wing. To conclude our visit, we visited the Egyptian Antiques.