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A Quick Walk Through of the Denon Wing of the Louvre November 23, 2000             When I am away from the Louvre, I miss it--especially the galleries of the Denon Wing. It is probably just my cultural background, but I miss being in the presence of the icons of my culture. This page is not an attempt to appreciate art. If you want to see the paintings closeup, look up the titles on the net or buy a book. It is beyond any passing photographer to take a good photo of a classic painting that is suitable for study. These pages are about what it is like to say "I visited the Mona Lisa today." No matter how jaded you are, there is nothing like moving among the images that inspired generations of the Western world.             Note on the format: At first I was going to make a page for each room to click through, but waiting for each page to load is often annoying, so I have put it all on one page. This way, one can start to look through the beginning while the rest is loading. Map of the rooms detailed below Entrance Hall On the way Victory of Samothrace Room 75   Room 76 Room 6 The Long Gallery   Room 77 Entrance It's 9:30 and the Louvre is about to open!         This is the entrance hall under I.M.Pei's glass pyramid. In the center of the spiral staircase is a rising platform used to take people from ground level into the ticket area. To the right is entrance to a shopping mall and subway station.          Luckily today the ticket takers are on strike and admittance is free and there are no lines (if we were unlucky, the guards would be on strike and the whole thing would be closed). Crowds rush toward the Denon wing (in the darkness in the background on the left) to head for the Mona Lisa (or La Gioconda, as the French call her). We follow. Victory of Samothrace Behold Victory of Samothrace!           On the way  we pass one of the supreme achievements of antiquity, Victory of Samothrace. 2190 years ago, a nameless sculptor was able to use marble to simulate transparent fabric over skin. It was part of an artistic tradition that existed "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" and was lost before being rediscovered from scratch during the Middle Ages. Here, a group of French students listen as their teacher lectures. On the first floor balcony looking back. Ahead is Room 75. Room 75 Someone has their picture taken with a celebrity (The Coronation of Napoleon I, 2nd December 1804).         This is one of the most memorable halls of the Louvre to enter for the first time. Massive paintings line dark-red walls. Natural light from overhead bathes epic works of art. Looking back, Victory of Samothrace is framed in the door. The scale and grandeur of these rooms bespeaks their former use as a palace. Ahead lies Room 76. Room 76             This dramatic and ornate square hall, noted for its ceiling, houses Lady MacBeth and several famous landscapes. The spectacular ceiling Room 6 Home of the Mona Lisa Entering through the passage on the left or right, one comes upon the newly restored The Wedding Feast at Cana.         Fans gather before the Mona Lisa. It is behind glass in its own cabinet. It is a rather small painting. Why is it so perennially famous? There's an old adage about the work: The Mona Lisa has stood the test of time. When you stand before it, you are not judging it, it is you who are being judged. Just to the right of the Mona Lisa, an old man with a scarf tossed jauntily around his neck copies Titien's The Country Concert, taking long pauses between each brushstroke. The room quickly becomes crowded. This is the first place most people come because of the Mona Lisa. This is wall opposite to The Wedding Feast at Cana (where we entered). These paintings were the blockbusters of their day. The passage on the right leads to the Long Gallery. One last look back into Room 6 as we move into the Long Gallery. The Long Gallery         This fabled long hall seems to vanish into infinity like the perspectives of early Italian artists. There are too many masterpieces here to digest. Da Vinci's The Virgin of the Rocks, John the Baptist, and The Virgin, the Infant Jesus and St Anne hang here side by side (and are somewhat neglected compared to the adulation the Mona Lisa receives in the next room). An artist emulates the masters (Correggio's The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria). Room 77         One of the most striking works of the Louvre--Gericault's The Raft of the Medusa. Unlike almost anything else, it's unusual composition is without a focal point. The viewer's eye zigzags from hope to death examining a raft of tempest-tossed mariners. And all on a monumental scale. Delacroix's The 28th of July 1830: Liberty Leading the People-- an icon of French culture. This is a rare moment when no one is clustered around it. A mortal regards Napoleon. One of  the sculpture atriums in the Richelieu Wing             Only the beginning...             Let me stress that these rooms are only the smallest fraction of what is in the Louvre. They are just a few galleries from one wing. Even if you walk through as fast as possible without looking at anything, you would need a couple days to pass through every gallery (and not all galleries are open every day). At the end of a visit to the Louvre you will be mentally exhausted having held court with so many things more permanent and meaningful than yourself.            If you live in a U.S. east coast city, watch for a cheap fare to Paris and take it. It is worth it. Most people spend hundreds of dollars on CDs made by morons who did not finish high school and whose songs become pointless cultural noise within a month of their release. Stop going out to shop (remember, if you see, you buy) and spend the money on a cheap ticket instead. Better to live like a pauper and spend the money on travel. Gawking at the Venus de Milo in the Sully Wing Return to cityrain.com All photos and text copyright 2000 Ron Morris. All rights reserved.