Le Louvre and its Code

« The Da Vinci Code the movie » has gone to a mad frenzy. Worse, the blatant mugs of Tom Hanks, Tautou and Jean Reno are literally in yer face as you walk in and out most public places in Sydney at the moment. The critique has been less favourable, some call the movie "stodgy", "too long and unconvincing".

I understand the public’s hysterical interest in this movie. But it’s just way excessively unrequired. I enjoy the storyline, the hush hush business, the stylish methodical page-turning approach Dan Brown applied in recounting his larger than the Vatican conspiracy theory.

But what I find tantalising to my «voyage buds» is Angels and Demons, this is a superb work where Langdon takes you all around Rome, revisiting all the historic corners and monuments, infiltrating the Vatican Secret Archive (as if they would grant access to just anyone!) and guiding you through the most significant legacy of the Renaissance artists.

So the Da Vinci Code saga commences with Prof Langdon's finding a curator of The Louvre dead in a very comprimising position. The location is exotic enough, but it goes beyond the hype. Not only is Le Musée du Louvre one of the most popular Parisian edifices, it’s also the largest, the most visited, the one with the most artefacts and objet d’arts institution in the world. It is the grandest home to les beaux arts ─the beautiful arts, as the French simplified it!

If you’re an art buff and had to choose one museum to visit [mamma mia … what an excrutiating choice one has to take!] this is pretty much it. This is the place.

Now, I admit I'm bursting to check out Gli Uffici in Florence (or Firenze, for the purists out there! ^^) the epicentre for all Renaissance arts. But whilst it still has to wait just a wee longer, Le Louvre does it for me. Hey, it’s even an ultra chic haunt to be about (o how I wish I could go and cover every corner of it everytime I want to!) and the café is even relaxing enough to take a breath momentarily before embarking onto another assault mission into a different part of the museum.


Le Musée du Louvre (Les Tuileries)

Officially named Le Musée du Louvre, it’s now as lovable an iconic symbol of the city of Paris as Gustave Eiffel's Tower. But even more significant than the younger welded mishmash of tawny metal further up North, Les Tuileries housing the Louvre was once the very centre of the French Kingdomship, Empire, and Republique ─effectively evidencing a great example of a melange of architecture originating from the Middle Ages, Rennaisance, Classicism, and even post-modernism.

The foundation was laid just over eight hundred years ago, Philippe Auguste ordered its construction in the year 1200, serving as a fortress for the French royal family. Rebuilt, reconstructed, enlarged, renovated and gentrified, it’s what we now contest as one of the most fantastic edifices of the Renaissance time. It has been home to a fair share of grands hommes: King François Premier, Louis Quatorze (the king of the Sun), Louis Seize (decapitated by his own people), and Napoleon Bonaparte himself. Even so, there was a period of nearly a century when it fell into a disuse following Louix XIV’s decree to move his government seat to the Palace of Versailles.

So we all love statistics, so let’s crunch a couple of figures. If you are to spend one day admiring just one art object in the Louvre, you’ll need more than a life time (eg. average life span of 80 years) to get to see all objets d’art of the Museum. There are over 300 000 works of art housed here of which any 35 000 are exhibited at one time in rotation. Stretching over 700 metres over the Right Bank (La Rive Droit) of the Seine, the once château-cum-fotress surface expanded from 31 260 m2 to 58 470 m2 in 2002, and to have been 60 620 m2 by last year. Its main building is housed in what's called Les Tuileries, a residential complex fit for no less than a King of France. One end of the Jardin des Tuileries is where Napoleon built a miniature of L'Arc de Triomphe (perfect for those who can't be hassled with going to the real thing at Place de L'Etoile and dodge deadly traffic circulating a 12-way roundabout).


It’s frequented by over five million visitors before the third millenium, and now effectively boosted by up to an extra two million, owing to the popularity of the Da Vinci Code tome. Two thirds of its revellers come from out of France, one third from European countries, followed by the Americans by 18.5% and Asians (7%). Every second guest is a Louvre-virgin rendering visit for the first time.

Visit hours are between 9am and 6pm with an admission price of EUR 8.50, reduced to half for visitors arriving after 3pm, or EUR 6.00 on Sundays. Visit is free for European citizens under 18, French university students, and people with concessions. First Sunday of the month is free to public, and only twice a year it puts up the "FERME" ─close─ sign: Nov 1 (All Saints Day, le Toussaint) and Dec 25. It shuts forty percents of its galleries at any time following a rotation. What I reckon they are trying to say is it’s way too big to cover for the average visitor, yea, that’s you and me.


Of its four entrances, two are open to the general public whereas the other two are reserved for visitors with pre-booked ticket and handicapped visitors. The underground access connected to the métro while the alfresco glassy Pyramid entrance in the La Court Napoleon (see photo) which, not unexpectedly, sparked a few controversies following its proposal in the 70s. Former President François Mitterand was an Egyptophile, he had a knack for everything Egyptian. Effectively his idea was to incorporate something he’s fond of as part of the most loved museum. IM Pei, a Chinese-American architect, submitted a design for a glass pyramid. And for quite some time, no self-respected Parisian failed to snort at the contemporary addition as what they called a subversion to our patrimoine (heritage) legacy.

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These are typical weekdays on the courtyard of the Louvre:






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One indispensable advice any visitor should consider: when “doing” the Louvre, you should focus on one section, one wing, one part, one particular branch of art of the entire collection on offer, it’s just simply too enormous a place, of which these are most prominent:

Antiquités égyptiennes - Egyptian antiques
Antiquités étrusques et romaines - Etruscan and Roman antiques
Antiquités grecques - Greek antiques
Antiquités orientales - Oriental antiques
Antiquités orientales - Arts d'Islam : Oriental antiques, Art of Islam
Peinture anglaise - English painting
Peinture espagnole - Spanish
Peinture européenne - European
Peinture flamande - Flemish
Peinture française - French
Peinture italienne - Italian
Sculpture européenne - European Sculptures
Sculptures françaises - French
Sculptures italiennes - Italian

Scary enough, the Louvre catalogue lists collection of objet d'arts, in its Egypt Department, dating four thousand years (4 000) B.C. That's a mind-numbing figure, I reckon. A massive thanks to Napoleon and his plundering mission in the early 1800s upon conquering Egpyt.

Everyone has favourites collections of the Louvre, and mine are :
1. La Chambre de Napoleon - The Napoleon's chambre, for a quick glimpse what life was like for the grand man of small stature two hundred years ago following his self proclaiming to the French throne.

2. A couple of corridors-cum-display rooms where the frescoes depicted on the ceiling, I must say, are exquisitely unreal. They may even be en par with those at the Sistine Chapel. What can I say, it's grandmaster Botticelli himself.

Frescoes by Botticelli

2. The Italian Renaissance Wing, it's luxuriously arty. Every single piece of the painting literally drew breath out of me, every second one outdoes the previous.

Italian Renaissance Paintings Wing

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I must confess I found I was attracted to the superb works of Raffael (Raffello Santi, 1483-1520), the grand painter buried in the Pantheon in Rome, in particular his grand tableau, St Michael downing the Dragon (Dragon symbolises Evil)

Saint Michel terrassant le dragon

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Admittedly, I'm one of those curious visitors, flocking to this museum de grandeur to absorb the enigmatic smile and perhaps dig out what all the fuss is about.

What can I say, it may be embarrassingly daunting ─what with the ordeal to see the masterpiece─ one has to follow what seems to be a rite, a pilgrimage. The queue was long, choreographed by a band of security personnel, and lingering in front of her was cut short.

+ Messieurs, Dames, s'il vous plait ... circulez!
Roughly, what the security guads trying to tell you is, Please move your arse Ladies and Gentlemen!

And no photo allowed, strictly speaking. In reality, the hordes of tourists can't be arsed with that protocol having come halfway the world to check the painting out. Snap snap, blitz blitz, merci bien!


La Joconde aka Monalisa

My first time meeting "Lady Lisa" was a brisk business. She's a 500-year old woman, understandably being so delicate and high maintenance. Housing hear requires the latest technology minimising carbon presence in the room (from visitors' expiration), providing her a care 24/7 via the most advanced vacuum boxy frame thicker than an austronaut's helmet and given the history she was once abruptly nicked from the Louvre nearly 100 years ago, the toughest known security system has to be in place to protect her.

Sadly enough, what's happened is, Mona Lisa is not listed in the Louvre cataloguing under her international moniker « Mona Lisa » but « La Joconde ».

Mona Lisa was a contraction of:
Monna, short for Madonna (Italian for "My Lady")
Lisa (The lady posing, said to be Lisa Gherardine, wife of Francesco del Giacondo)

The painting was called La Giaconda in Italian.

And when transferred to France, to the salon of François Premier, King of France, she's known by the Gauls as La Joconde.

Whatever you call it, Mona Lisa, La Joconde, or La Giaconda, she may be the wife of the wealthy businessman Giocondo of Florence over five hundred years ago.

But whatever the deal is, you really should find la Joconde next time you pop in the Louvre!

A la prochaine!