The Louvre

Sunday, August 22, 2010 Day 53
This morning after breakfast and some morning chores, we set out for the Louvre. Because we had already bought our tickets, we did not have to stand in line outside the pyramid, but entered through a side door which took us directly under the pyramid and allowed us access to the museum immediately. We didn’t arrive until well after 10:00, and the museum was already full of visitors. It is big enough to handle them all! Roger and I went our separate ways, and I set off for the second floor of the Richelieu wing. I had almost forgotten about all those Dutch and Flemish painters, and I really enjoyed seeing some of their work. The religious art, not so much, but there are plenty of landscapes, still life works and other paintings to keep me busy all morning. I spent the last half hour of our morning enjoying the sculptures, which ranged from the very small to the immense. I found the treatment of the penis very interesting – in some of the sculptures it was out there in full display for everybody to see (I’m sure John Ashcroft would be appalled!), in others, there was the proverbial fig leaf or other foliage rather amusingly placed on an otherwise nude statue, and in still others, a small bit of fabric would trail over the crotch to serve as a cover. Hmmm . . . .

We agreed to meet under the pyramid at 12:30, and we left the museum to get some lunch and walk out our stiffness a bit. We ate at a random street café not too far from the museum, then walked over to the Eglise Saint Eustache to see an amazing sandstone statue which depicts a representative head bent resting on one hand. The work is titled " Listen."

We returned to the Louvre again to spend another hour and a half. On the way in, we went through the security check where they scanned my purse. As I picked it up from the conveyor belt after the scanning, I found a small cellophane block which I picked up, as no one seemed to be looking for it. It was a cake of French-milled vanilla-scented soap. This afternoon I saw some huge and amazing Charles Le Brun paintings dedicated to Alexander the Great, a sphinx with a missing foot, ancient burial urns and lots of other wonderful art. The Louvre was splendid – there is no other way to describe it. But it is too large. We were totally wrung out and neither of us covered nearly all there was to see. But Paris is that way as well – too large for us to see everything in the two short months we have allocated. We are working almost every day, however, to reap more and more of the benefits this beautiful city has to offer before we must kiss it goodbye.