The Little Loves of Our Lives: Palais du Louvre: Art-yssey beauty

Visiting or revisiting the Louvre is always an ambitious undertaking. To cover all of this labyrinthine palace in one visit is impossible and ( a good excuse to return!). It took us around 3 hours to skim through 1.1 out of 3 wings while I was a little sick at the same time. We focused on the Greek sculpture, Italian and French painting and ended at Mesopotamian/Persian stone work.
Denon Wing:
Greece (500 B.C-A.D-1)

The great Greek cultural explosion that changed the course of history was revealed over 50 years starting around 450 B.C in Athens. Having united the Greeks to repel a Persian invasion, Athens rebuilt, with the Parthenon as the centerpiece of the city.
"The Greeks demonstrated the ancient world through brain not brawn and power, and their art shows their love of rationality, order, and balance. In art, the balance between timeless stability and fleeting movement made beauty."(Rick Steves) In a sense, we're all Greek: Democracy, mathematics, theater, philosophy, literature, and science were practically invented in ancient Greece.

Venus de Milo (Aphrodite, 130 B.C)

Venus: 'Epitome of Golden Age':

Venus de Milo or (goddess of Love) statue sums up all that ancient Greece stood for. The Greeks pictured their gods in human form, meaning humans are godlike, telling us they had an optimistic view of human race. The two halves of her body balance each other perfectly. Venus's figure defines several planes in space while being a harmonious balance of opposites, orbiting slowly around a vertical axis! Venus's dress of size 14, is another idealized beauty feature that appealed to Greeks of the time!

Me poking fun at another Aphrodite ‘ Venus Genitrix’ !

The winged victory of Samothrace(190 B.C)

This composite monument of the goddess victory poised on the prow of a ship stood in the sanctuary of the Great gods overlooking the sea. Her large wings still seem to beat the sea air that blows her clothing against her body. If this were a wet T-shirt contest, she would probably win! Nonetheless, she is an example of a semi 'contrapposto' pose- with the weight resting on one leg, giving a subtle balanced S-space-curve to her body. However, unlike Venus de Milo, Samothrace has gone somewhat Hellenistic, from the time after culture of Greece was spread throughout Europe and Asia by Alexander the Great. Her wings and missing arms, stretch upward while the clothes curve and whip around her. These opposing forces create a sense of great energy, making her the lightest two-ton piece of rock in captivity. The earlier Golden Age Greeks might not have approved of this statue. The off-balance pose leaves you hanging. But Hellenistic Greeks loved these cliff-hanging scenes of real-life humans struggling to make their mark. Her right hand, in a glass case near-by re-creating the gesture of her raised arm and victory, was discovered in 1950 in Turkey, but considering all the other ancient treasures that France had looted from them, Turkish government found it only appropriate to give the French the finger...

Medieval world (1200-1500):

The style and poses of this era were a little puzzling to me. During the age of faith (1200s), nearly every church in Europe had a painting like this one. Mary was a cult and trendy figure, adored and prayed to by the faithful for bringing Baby Jesus into the world. After the collapse of Roman Empire( 500 A.D) medieval Europe was a poor and violent place, with the Christian Church as the only constant in troubled times. However, many of the pieces tended to feature stiff poses, elegant folds in the robes, and generic angels. Violating the laws of perspective- the angles at the “back” of Mary’s throne are the same size as those holding the front. These holy figures, were laid flat, seeming to me that they were existing in a golden never-never land, as though the faithful couldn’t imagine them as flesh-and-blood humans inhabiting our dark and sinful earth.

Cimabue- The Madonna and Child in Majesty Surrounded by Angels, 1280 A.D.

Italian Renaissance:

Among the noticable changes in the Italian Renaissance, are the Realistic human features, Three Dimensionality with a distant horizon, and Classical features where Mary is even a Venus with her face and gestures embodying all that was good in the Christian world.

The Virgin and Child with St. Anne, 1510, Leonardo Da Vinci.

Three generations-grandmother, mother and child are arranged in a pyramid, with Anne's face as the peak and the lamb as the lower right corner. With this balanced structure, Leonardo sets the figures in motion. "There is a psychological kidney punch in this happy painting. Jesus, the picture of childish joy, is innocently playing with a lamb-the symbol of his inevitable sacrificial death"- Rich Steves

Raphael, La Belle Jardiniere, c. 1507, Hard core museum seeing along the grand gallery with 2 audio-tours, guide book, picture and video taking. We promised each other to discuss/reflect on 3 paintings/art works while in the museum. The plan couldn't be more practical!

Raphael perfected the style Leonardo pioneered. This configuration is also a pyramid of balance. Mary is a mountain of maternal tenderness as she eyes her son with a knowing look and holds hands in a gesture of union. Jesus looks up innocently, standing contrapposto like a chubby Greek statue. Baby John the Baptist keels lovingly at Jesus’s feet, holding a cross hinting his playmate’s sacrifice. With Raphael, the Greek ideal of beauty reborn in the Renaissance, reached its peak. Many imitated his style later but this is the real deal.

Mona- a Rorschach inkblot:

Mona Lisa( La Joconde), 1503-1508, Leonardo da Vinci

The famous smile attracts you first. Leonardo used a hazy technique called sfumato, blurring the edges of her mysterious smile. Is she happy, sad, cynical, or shy? the answer is in the eye of the beholder!

French Neoclassicism(1780-1850):

Jacques-Louis David- The coronation of Emperor Napoleon( 1806-7)

French Romanticism(1800-1850):

Theodore Gericault- The raft of the Medusa( 1819)

Eugene Delacroix-Liberty Leading the People(1831)

It's 1830. King Charles has just issued the 19th-century equivalent of the Patriot Act, and his subjects are angry. Parisians take it to the streets once again, Les Miz-style, to fight royalist oppressors! The people triumph-replacing the king with Louis Philippe, who is happy to rule within the boundaries of the modern Constitution.

Does this symbol of liberty, with a strong woman waving the French flag look familiar? It's the Winged Victory, wingless and topless. France is the symbol of modern democracy, and this painting has long stirred its citizen's passion for liberty. The French weren't the first to adopt modern form of democracy, ( Americans were), nor are they the best working example of it, yet they've had to try harder to achieve it than any other country. They are now working on their fifth republic.