Well, it's happened. I am officially over a year late on my blog posts.
I'm posting things that happened over a year ago. Sorry Tony, my father-in-law, who I'm convinced is the only person who remembers that I even have this blog.
Suffice it to say, I fail at blogging. I could never make a career of this. I know you were all hoping I would. Ha.
ANYHOW. Over a year ago, we went to the Louvre! Check it out:
I love the Architecture of this building. So much.
We were sitting on the floor near a column, trying to get all our backpacks, and cameras, and stuff straightened out. I snapped this shot, and a woman came and yelled at us for sitting on the floor. I guess that's not allowed.
There's an overwhelming amount of amazing art in the world. That's what I've learned living in Europe. It's like every museum I go to, there are millions of amazing pieces. How has it all survived?! Amazing.
Lady of Auxerra. Limestone, probably from Crete, ca 650-625 BCE.
GUYS. I got to see the Venus de Milo with my own two eyes, and she's stunning. I took WAY TOO MANY photos of her.
Did you know she's 6ft 8in tall? She was also created by Alexandros of Antioch (presumably) sometime between 130-100BC. That's old.
She was discovered on the Greek island of Milos in April 1820 by a peasant named Yorgas Kentrotas, in a small cave. Could you imagine being the only person in the world who knew about this amazing woman?
In the 20s, a man named Robert Ingersoll Aiken visited the Louvre and made a big stir about how the lighting and placement of the Venus de Milo wasn't worthy of her beauty, so they moved her to a more prominent location.
In preparation for the outbreak of WW2, they moved the Louvre's masterpieces to safer places in the countryside. The Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and Michelangelo's slaves (my most favourite pieces in the museum) were all bunkered at the Chateau de Valencay throughout the war.
(See? Too many photos. She's just astoundingly beautiful from every angle. I can't pick a favourite, so posted them all.)
I remember once reading an article about how women used the Venus de Milo's measurements as the standard to which they should try to model their own bodies. Supposedly, not only are the proportions of her bust, hips, and waist perfect, but the distance between her eyes, the length of her nose, the size and fullness of her lips...
In fact, she was considered so perfectly beautiful, that she became part of the seal for the
American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
If you notice, every statue here is posed contrapposto, an Italian term meaning counter-pose. Basically, it means to place most of your weight on one foot, so that your shoulders are on a different axis than your hips. This gives a more dynamic, fluid, and naturally relaxed appearance to the pose. It's also more slimming. Fun fact: If you've ever had a portrait session with me, and I tell you to put your weight on your back foot, this is why! BAM! CONTRAPPOSTO! Kami knows her stuff!
This, unfortunately, is a copy of an earlier bronze that has now been lost. BUT it's an ancient copy, made in the 1st century in Rome. So it's still important and cool! She's known as Athena of Velletri. Quite a few of these ancient copies exist, but this is the most impressive, standing at 10 feet high.
Chris, always photobombing me.
This is interesting. It's a metope from the Parthenon of a Centaur in battle with a Lapith. There are a bunch of these in the British Museum, which is why I took a photo of this one in the Louvre. Kind of sad that all these beautiful pieces are split up, and not in their homeland of Athens. Supposedly the Greeks have been trying to get back some of the Parthenon pieces for years, but haven't yet succeeded.
Also, this is what the ceilings look like throughout most of the Louvre. Insane.
I don't remember who these busts are, but I still love them.
There's so much beautiful art in this building, that pretty soon things become less and less impressive. "Oh, another Michelangelo? Big deal, I've seen plenty." I hate that that kind of desensitizing happens to me. But, I guess that's being human, right?
A common subject for Roman sculpture was Venus crouching near a river, about to bathe, and being surprised by her audience. Here's an example of one, called the Crouching Venus of Vienne. She was made in 1st or 2nd century, and is widely considered one of the finest Roman marbles of this type. I've also seen a Crouching Venus in the British Museum, and in Florence at the Uffizi Gallery.
This is a mid-3rd-century sarcophagus depicting the legend of Selene and Endymion. Selene was the Greek Goddess of the Moon, and was tasked with driving her chariot, pulling the moon, across the sky each night. While she was driving her horses one night, Selene saw the handsome young shepherd, Endymion. He was taking a nap among all his sheep, and was so beautiful that Selene fell in love. However, because he was mortal, she went to Zeus and asked if Endymion could be granted eternal youth and eternal life. Zeus granted Selene's wish, and cased Endymion to sleep, beautifully and peacefully, for eternity. (An appropriate legend for a funerary sarcophagus.)
This is the view of the Louvre, seen from the window of the room that houses the Crown Jewels of France.
(Same window, different view.)
Just some jewels in a crown, whatever. No big deal.
The Sun or The Fall of Icarus. This is a piece on the ceiling of the Louvre, commissioned in 1819 by Merry-Joseph Blondel. As the story goes, Icarus wanted to fly, so built himself some wings out of feathers, glued together with wax. His father, Daedalus, warns him not to fly too close to the chariot pulling the sun across the sky, but he disobeys and the sun's rays heat the wax. His wings melt away, and he falls into the ocean and drowns. I just love how, because it's on the ceiling, you look up to see him literally falling toward you. A gorgeous use of the space.
This room is ridiculous. The building of the Louvre used to be a royal residence for Louis XIV, until he abandoned it in favour of Versailles. So much extravagance. (Also, I love that little girl, arms way up, trying to take a photo. Too cute.)
I loved the gold leafing all over this piece. Striking.
St. John the Baptist by Leonardo Da Vinci, 1513-1516. This is believed to be Da Vinci's final painting.
Madonna of the Rocks, by Leonardo Da Vinci, 1483.
There are two of these paintings in existence, both by Da Vinci, and nearly identical. The other is at the National Gallery in London.
La Belle Ferronniere, by Leonardo Da Vinci, 1490-1496. From Wikipedia: "It is also known as Portrait of an Unknown Woman. The painting's title, applied as early as the seventeenth century, identifying the sitter as the wife or daughter of an ironmonger (a ferronnier), was said to be discreetly alluding to a reputed mistress of Francis I of France, married to a certain Le Ferron. The tale is a romantic legend of revenge in which the aggrieved husband intentionally infects himself with syphilis, which he passes to the king through infecting his wife."
This ROOM! So crowded with people. And see all those paintings on the right wall? They all get ignored. Because the painting on the left wall, the teeny one, is the Mona Lisa.
The best (maybe worst?) part of the throngs of people is that once they get to the front, no one looks at the painting. They all turn around to do a Mona Lisa Selfie. So of course, we had to do our own. It's culturally expected at this point, right?
Me, not so much pointing to La Giaconde, rather the three selfies you can see being taken at the time.
#MONALISASELFIE
Everyone. EVERYONE TAKES A SELFIE. I seriously consider going back there, and just taking photos of people taking selfies in front of the Mona Lisa, and publishing a portrait series called Mona Lisa Selfie. I will do it one day. What a sad commentary about how technology has affected our culture.
ALL THOSE PHONES AND CAMERAS! I'd love to have been there before all this technology. To see crowds of humans actually, you know, looking at the art.
La Grande Odalisque, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. 1814.
This piece was widely criticized for her elongated proportions and lack of anatomical realism. She has about five vertebrae too many. She's drawn with a curvature of her spine, and a rotation to her hips, that is impossible to replicate with a real human body. Also, her left arm is way shorter than her right. Initially, these were all supposed mistakes on the part of Ingres. However, further theories propose that, because an Odalisque is essentially a concubine, a woman whose sole duty is to satisfy the carnal pleasures of the sultan, the elongation of those parts are considered symbolic, as they're to lead your eye to her pelvic region.
Another very impressive ceiling. This building is crazy.
Perhaps one of my favourite paintings of all time, (maybe second only to Picasso's Guernica), Eugene Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People." In an 1830 letter to his brother during the creation of this painting, he wrote, "If I haven't fought for my country, at least I'll paint for her." A beautiful sentiment. Two years after the painting was unveiled came the June Rebellion. It was removed from public display for being too politically inflammatory.
The painting may have influenced Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables. Particularly the character of Gavroche, who was inspired by the pistol-wielding boy running over the barricade. (Les Mis describes the events of the June Rebellion, which led to the painting being removed from public view, and, get this, RETURNED BACK TO THE ARTIST! "No thanks, it's causing upheaval. You can just have it back." Insane.)
Just a statue taking a selfie. "Check it out guys, I just slayed a python! #vanquished"
Okay, okay, it's really where Apollo's sword would have been, but it's missing now, okay?
MICHELANGEO'S SLAVES! MY FAVOURITES!!
That one in the center, named Dying Slave, is just gorgeous in real life.
I was trying to tell Chris how this is significant in the Da Vinci Code, but then I remembered I haven't read it since high school and it wasn't all that great, so I gave up. But he thought he should document it anyway. Haha.
I've no idea what's going on here. But I wish you could've heard Chris's giggle when we came upon this statue. It was the single best thing I've ever heard.
And that's the Louvre! Next up, Disneyland Paris! (Brittany, Jimmy, basically I took all the photos for you guys.)
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