Although the Louvre is the western world's largest
museum, its collection of western art from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance can not begin to match what we saw last year on our trip to Rome, Florence and Venice. Yes, there are the three masterpieces that everyone comes to see--The Winged Victory of Samothrace, Venus di Milo, and Mona Lisa--but after that, the collection is spotty at best.
I had hoped to see more works of the Italian Renaissance, but there was only one Caravaggio, and it was a copy (or vice versa) of the one at the Capitaline Museum in Rome. There was, however, a rare Michelangelo masterpiece, one of the series of slaves that he had begun sculpting for his patron's unfinished tomb. The others are in Florence.
I may be grumpy, though, because I hate crowds almost as much as I hate guided tours. We picked up our tickets for the museum yesterday, thereby avoiding the endless line waiting to buy them at the I. M. Pei pyramid in the Louvre's square. (See Bob's photo.)
Once inside, though,
you had to fight your way through the throngs to get anywhere. I asked Bob to take a photo not of the Winged Victory, but of the flood of tourists flowing up the stairs to see her.
We left after a couple of hours and enjoyed a quiet luncheon with a glass of red wine. That helped a lot.
After, we returned to the hotel by Metro, using an entrance built to look like the gaudy crown that Louis XV used. Bob's apt comment when he saw the real thing was, "It looks like something out of Toys R Us." Maybe the French had more than one reason for their Revolution.
museum, its collection of western art from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance can not begin to match what we saw last year on our trip to Rome, Florence and Venice. Yes, there are the three masterpieces that everyone comes to see--The Winged Victory of Samothrace, Venus di Milo, and Mona Lisa--but after that, the collection is spotty at best.
I had hoped to see more works of the Italian Renaissance, but there was only one Caravaggio, and it was a copy (or vice versa) of the one at the Capitaline Museum in Rome. There was, however, a rare Michelangelo masterpiece, one of the series of slaves that he had begun sculpting for his patron's unfinished tomb. The others are in Florence.
Once inside, though,
We left after a couple of hours and enjoyed a quiet luncheon with a glass of red wine. That helped a lot.
After, we returned to the hotel by Metro, using an entrance built to look like the gaudy crown that Louis XV used. Bob's apt comment when he saw the real thing was, "It looks like something out of Toys R Us." Maybe the French had more than one reason for their Revolution.
