Musee de Louvre - Part One

I figured that I would check out the Louvre today, and if there was some Versailles-esque ticket queue I would head over to the Dali Museum instead.  To my surprise, although there were a ton of people present, ticket sales are much more streamlined, thanks to multiple entrances and several ticket machines.  Within a few minutes I had my ticket, a map and absolutely no clue where to begin.  I was so impressed with the entrance in Napoleon Hall underneath I.M. Pei’s famous pyramid that I decided I would start with Denon Hall today.

There are three sections of the Louvre altogether, and since I enjoyed today so much I decided that I will spend one day on each wing.  Don’t get me wrong, this STILL does not truly allow me to appreciate all there is to offer, but it’ll be enough to say that at some point I walked through every open hall of the Louvre.

Having covered all floors of the Denon section today, I must say that it seems impossible to take it all in.  You’d have to be a freak, and I mean that in a good way.  Still, the only way to take it in is to glance at everything and select only the pieces to catch your eye for further appreciation.  One could go insane trying to read and study everything.  It is truly an amazing collection of the world’s art.

My favorites today were the Italian sculptures,  large French paintings and Egyptian funeral portraits.

I saw the Mona Lisa today and was not terribly impressed.  Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s DaVinci, I know it’s incredibly famous, especially now with the DaVinci Code hype, but still.  It’s nice but I was more impressed by other works in the same section.  What seriously bothered me though was that you’d think the Mona Lisa has a strobe light focused on her face.  At this point I’m going to get on my high horse for a moment.  There are signs EVERYWHERE that photographs are not to be taken of the paintings because the flashes are damaging.  And yet, that’s exactly what most people are doing.  I don’t even think they are looking at the paintings.  They just take the flash pictures.  Surprisingly, the Louvre docents don’t say anything.  They all look like they want to shoot themselves, so perhaps they’ve just given up.  Anyway, I think it’s irresponsible and selfish for people to snap photographs they’ll probably hardly look at and won’t even turn out worth a damn, meanwhile irreparably damaging the paintings for future generations.  Okay, rant finished.  The Louvre is really fantastic and I’m looking forward to my other two visits, although I haven’t decided yet which days I’ll go back.

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