Celebrity Gazing

The Slaves by Michelangelo

It must be difficult to be a celebrity.  The constant pressure of always having to look your best.  The annoyance of having to smile when you really don't feel like it.  The continual flashing of bright lights as the paparazzi take your photograph.  Although taking pictures with a flash is prohibited in the Louvre, there are always those tourists who don't follow the posted signs to turn off their camera flash. 

The Louvre is jam packed with art celebrities.  There are paintings by artists even third graders have heard of, especially if those kids watch reruns of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  There are artworks by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Donatello.  There are even some artists that are famous without being featured as a cartoon reptile.  As someone who spent seven years studying art then nine years as an art teacher, I was very excited to be in the Louvre for the first time.  So many of the famous artworks I have studied reside there.  I felt like a movie buff visiting Hollywood, constantly on the look out for someone I recognize. 

The first celebrity that E. and I encountered during our March 2010 visit was the Winged Victory of Samothrace.  She is large and in charge standing on a landing of the main staircases in the Louvre.  Even without a head or arms her presence is commanding. 

Winged Victory of Samthorace

One of the issues with being famous is that everyone knows who you are.  I found this to be a problem when there was a work of art that I would have like to have looked at closer but was unable to because of all the other people crowded around it.  I know that I am being unrealistic about getting to spend one on one time with certain artworks but the crowds did bother me.

People admiring a work by Leonardo da Vinci

Probably the most famous artwork in the Louvre is the Mona Lisa.  Friends had told me that she wasn't as big as you would imagine.  That is true, but the painting is bigger than I had thought.  From hearing people say that I imagined that it was the size of a piece of tablet paper.  It is bigger than that but not as big as the other enormous paintings in the same room. 

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

Mona is so famous that she has a wall all of her own.  She also has bodyguards.  I didn't see any other artwork with its own guards.  There is glass over the painting so no one can throw rotten tomatoes to voice their disappointment that Mona is smaller than her reputation.  There is also a roped off area to keep the crowd back.  And by crowd I do mean there was a literal crowd.  People were piled up behind the rope, craning their necks to see Leonardo's most famous beauty.  Jostling was occurring to garner the best space to take a picture of the lovely Mona.

Mona's fans

I was the most in awe of seeing two of Michelangelo's statues.  I had never seen a Michelangelo work in person before this.  I could have stood there staring all day long.  Thankfully these two statues aren't very well known.  I didn't have to fight against the crowds in order to see them.




detail of the Rebellious Slave



detail of the Dying Slave by Michelangelo



Surprisingly my favorite celebrity turned out to be the Venus de Milo.  Before seeing her in person I would never have guessed that this statue is so beautiful.  I liked her so much that I want to devote an entire blog post in homage to her. 

Venus de Milo

I could Live at the Louvre

When I was young I enjoyed reading the book From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by the author E. L. Konigsburg.  I haven't read it for years but it is about two children who spend some time living in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I have always loved museums of any type, but I haven't ever wanted to live in one.  That is until I went to the Louvre in March of 2010.  I could happily live in the Louvre.

I normally prefer contemporary art over the old masters.  But seeing the heavy hitters of the art world in person is a lot different than looking at slides in an art history class.  There is a reason why the artwork in the Louvre has been kept around for centuries.  It is truly that good. 

My friend, E., and I spent several hours weaving our way through halls of marble statuary and room upon room of paintings stacked from floor to ceiling.  It would take days to see all the artwork.  My favorite pieces weren't the ones that most people flock here to see.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed seeing the Mona Lisa in person.  But I didn't get teary eyed over seeing her like I did when I saw a pair of angels painted by Fra Angelico. 

Fra Angelico is not on my top ten list of favorite artists.  But seeing these two angels made me sentimental and grateful at the same moment.  I got misty-eyed thinking about the years I sat in art history classes as an undergrad at Clarion University, analyzing, memorizing, and admiring pictures of work done by artists who lived hundreds of years ago.  I saw so much of their work and thought so much about their styles, their intentions, the impact they had on later generations of art makers, that these artists became friends.  Seeing the Fra Angelico angels was like spotting old college buddies that I hadn't seen in years.  I wanted to linger with them, to sit down with a cup of tea and catch up on all the years that we had been apart. 

I wouldn't want to live in the Louvre for the excitement of running away like the children in The Mixed-up Files.  Rather, I would like to be given the time to catch up with the artists who made me fall  in love with art in the first place.  To have a whole day to study with Michelangelo in person rather than from a book, to spend a week observing how Delacroix tells complex stories with paint, to sit and stare at Leonardo's smoky sfumato would be so satisfying to me.  A day's visit was not long enough for me.