Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Greek sculpture. Painting a 3-D world on a 2-D surface is tough, and after a millennium of
Dark Ages, artists were rusty. Living in a religious age, they painted mostly altarpieces full
of saints, angels, Madonnas-and-bambinos, and crucifixes floating in an ethereal gold-leaf
heaven. Gradually, though, they brought these otherworldly scenes down to earth.
TwomastersoftheItalianHighRenaissance(1500-1600)wereRaphael(seehis
La Belle
Jardinière,
showing the Madonna, Child, and John the Baptist) and Leonardo da Vinci. The
Louvre has the greatest collection of Leonardos in the world—five of them, including the
exquisite
Virgin and Child with St. Anne
;
the neighboring
Virgin of the Rocks;
and the an-
drogynous
John the Baptist
.
But his most famous, of course, is the
Mona Lisa
(
La Joconde
in French), located in the
Salle des Etats, midway down the Grand Gallery, on the right. After several years and a €5
million renovation, Monaisalone behindglass onherownfalse wall. Leonardo wasalready
an old man when François I invited him to France. Determined to pack light, he took only
a few paintings with him. One was a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a wealthy
Florentine merchant. When Leonardo arrived, François immediately fell in love with the
painting,makingitthecenterpieceofthesmallcollectionofItalianmasterpiecesthatwould,
in three centuries, become the Louvre museum. He called it
La Gioconda
(
La Joconde
in
French)—a play on both her last name and the Italian word for “happiness.” We know it as
the
Mona Lisa
—a contraction of the Italian for “my lady Lisa.” Warning: François was im-
pressed, but
Mona
may disappoint you. She's smaller than you'd expect, darker, engulfed in
a huge room, and hidden behind a glaring pane of glass.
Thehugecanvasopposite
Mona
isPaoloVeronese's
The Marriage at Cana,
showingthe
Renaissance love of beautiful things gone hog-wild. Venetian artists like Veronese painted
the good life of rich, happy-go-lucky Venetian merchants.
Now for something
Neoclassical.
Exit behind
Mona Lisa
and turn right into the Salle
Daru to find
The Coronation of Emperor Napoleon
by Jacques-Louis David. Neoclassi-
cism, once the rage in France (1780-1850), usually features Greek subjects, patriotic senti-
ment, andaclean, simple style. AfterNapoleon quickly conquered mostofEurope,heinsis-
ted on being made emperor (not merely king) of this “New Rome.” He staged an elaborate
coronation ceremony in Paris, and rather than let the pope crown him, he crowned himself.
The setting was Notre-Dame Cathedral, with Greek columns and Roman arches thrown in
for effect. Napoleon's mom was also added, since she couldn't make it to the ceremony. A
key on the frame describes who's who in the picture.
The
Romantic
collection, in an adjacent room (Salle Mollien), has works by Théodore
Géricault (
The Raft of the Medusa
—one of my favorites) and Eugène Delacroix
(
Liberty
Leading the People
)
.Romanticism,withanemphasisonmotionandemotion,istheflipside
ofcool, balanced Neoclassicism, thoughthey bothflourished inthe early 1800s.Delacroix's
Liberty,
commemorating the stirrings of democracy in France, is also an appropriate tribute
