You can't visit Paris without visiting the Louvre and eating baguettes, right? I made certain that my parents did both. We had a 10:00 rendez-vous inside the iconic glass pyramid, and I, naturally, half-ran to make it on time (which I did). We did exactly as we do when we visit the Metropolitan in New York City: each one of us took a map (I also used a coupon to give Mom a free audioguide), and headed off in opposite directions, agreeing to meet again at noon in the Richelieu side of the main pyramid.
I decided to visit the rest of the Northern European and French paintings in the Richelieu wing, having passed by the Germans, etc., in order to look at the Dutch, and I quickly stumbled upon the work of an artist whom I have mentioned before, finding a whole room of paintings by Jean Fouquet, whose c. 1450 medallion in the Medieval art objects section of the Louvre, is the oldest self-portrait in the history of western civilization. He had a moody-looking portrait of Charles VII (the king whom Joan of Arc served under). Realizing that this was going to be my last time in the Louvre before I left, I decided that I should try to see the famous masterpieces which I hadn't yet seen, so gently directed my course towards the works of art indicated on the map. I saw an enormous amount of portraits of kings, dukes, bishops, etc., anyone who had power, including the famous portrait of Francois I, the anonymous portrait of Gabrielle d'Estrees (Henry IV's mistress) being pinched in the bathtub by her sister, Durer's self-portrait (a gift meant for his fiance?), and La Tour's "Le Tricheur." Along the way, I took pictures of paintings sporting good-looking lace, for my Mother. I eventually found myself among the works of the brothers Le Nain, whose early 17th-century paintings are beautiful for their clair-obscur. The Le Nain are also remarkable for their choice of common subjects, such as the interiors of peasant dwellings, and families of French farmers at haymaking time. Who was buying these paintings at this time, I wonder? Did the dukes and the princes really want the pictures of commoners hanging on their walls? Did they enjoy reminders that they were above the rest of society, whose dignity was fully preserved by these paintings?
Back at the rendez-vous, I ordered some English Breakfast tea for Mom and Dad, and we discussed photography techniques as we ate our baguettes and Comte doux (Mom and Dad had picked it out, on my suggestion), specifically, how to stand in order to prevent an ugly glare of light from marring a photograph of a painting. Mom was a little bit overwhelmed by the audioguide, and didn't find it very helpful for providing information regarding the pieces that interested her, so I took it, after having the battery changed, and the language switched to French (theory: not all of the audioguide entries have been translated from French yet, and the French language option remains, at the moment, the most complete). We ran off for another couple of hours: this time, I decided to finally find that wooden statue of the Magdalen, and was surprised to find that it is actually life-sized! It's so large, I had never imagined, and quite beautiful (it's by the German sculptor Gregor Erhard, from around 1515, and is probably inspired by a print by Durer made about 10-15 years earlier). Then, I got into the room of Big 18th-century French canvasses, which somehow I had missed earlier: Delacroix, David, Gros, Ingres, etc., with such well-known pieces as "La liberte guidant le peuple" (1830), which Nick has told me is one of his favorite paintings. To be honest, my favorite was actually David's self-portrait, painted while he was in jail, following the fall of the Robespierrists. I saw Dad for 20 seconds on my way through the Italian hallway (see an earlier entry for a full description of this section), and made it to the small section of Spanish paintings. Although I keep on mentioning all of these schools and nations, to be honest, I leave it to the art historians to recognize the late-16th-century Fontainebleau school from the 18th-century English school, and just try to find sections which please me. I found the tastiest still-life I have ever seen, of a loaf of crusty bread and some ripe figs by a Senor Luis Eugenio Melendez, which looked as if it was positively popping out of the frame to greet me.
I eventually arrived at the famous "eighth section" of the Louvre, which contains the art of Oceania, the Americas, and Africa. There were some startling woodwork, stonework, and wickerwork, and I was quite impressed. There was also a very interesting film on the decision, in the mid-1990s, to create this "eighth section," which apparently was quite controversial. On the one hand were the people who insisted that the Louvre should contain the best arts from the whole world; on the other were the group who didn't like their fine old museum being meddled with by a new director who thought that he knew what was best. Jacques Chirac, surprisingly enough, took the side of the former, stating that he wanted the Louvre to be the place where the "premiers arts" of the whole world could be seen. Eventually, this side won the debate, and now, you can see a sculpture of the Hawaiian god Kuka'ilimoku, a giant basalt head from Easter Island, and the highly-iconic Mexican sculpture of Chupicuaro, dating from somewhere between the 7th and 2nd centuries B.C.E. I ran in order to make it back in time, because nothing is more distant from the glass pyramid than the eighth section.
Mom and Dad were semi-glutted with the Louvre that day ("all Louvered out" was the term), so decided to drink tea and take a peak at the museum postcards while I took a final tour through the galleries. In this last hour, I hit up two of the temporary exhibits, one on rock-crystal reliquaries and the other on the notion of the world at the Louvre (a guard here gave me a hard time for beginning to take a photo of an Ethiopian statue). I also decided to give the Mesopotamian and Iranian antiquities another chance, since I hadn't seen them too clearly the first time through with Nick. I saw a few curiosities, including a clay cone with a cuneiform text describing the reforms of the Sumerian prince Uru-KA-gina against the abuses of his the "old days:" the text was dated from 2350 B.C.E. I saw some Greco-Roman antiquities, too, including some items taken from Pompeii, which I rather enjoyed, before I made it back to meet my parents.
We took the Metro back to the hotel, where we didn't have much to do except worry about the furnace being broken back home. Eventually, though, we headed off in the direction of the restaurant where we were meeting Bruno. When I told the hostess that we were waiting for a fourth, she told us that the Latanicki reservation was actually for seven! That meant he was bringing his family! My parents met another branch of the family that night: Bruno, his parents Martine and JoJo, his wife Chi, and their daughter Lili-An. We had an excellent time (even the vegetarian food was good -- I had forgotten that Mom and Dad eat fish), and I got to speak some French (and some English). Another typical Lipkowitz evening! We made plans to meet at Gobelins the next morning, in order to visit a Parisian market.
~JD
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