After going to the open market and putting away our purchases we headed to the Louvre. Following the guide book advice, once again, we went when it said it was a good day to go. Hmmm...I think everyone reads the same book because it was packed with people. The interesting thing to me was that we didn't run into many English-speaking tourists, but people from all over the world speaking in so many tongues that I finally stopped trying to figure out where they were all from and just listened...and watched. Everyone, no matter what their origin, had the goal of getting to the room holding the Mona Lisa. A friend had told me beforehand that people viewing the Mona Lisa provided some great photo opportunities so I siddled up very slowly to the two guards deep in conversation just inside the barrier next to the wall where she hangs for some shots. The painting itself is so small and so far from one that I mostly people watched.
It was a very interesting thing that most people were huddled up inching their way toward the Mona Lisa to get their shot of her in this large room filled with huge paintings, one directly across from where she hangs. One can almost imagine her thinking, "Why don't these people turn around and look at that gigantic masterpiece hanging in front of me (The Wedding at Cana)?" A few people did but one got the feeling that all the other paintings in the room were only looked at as stopgaps in the waiting to see the "famous" one.
Going to the Louvre, being able to see works throughout all of history close up, having those works placed according to their time period and being able to see what attracted people of that period (technique and subject matter) or how artists influenced each other, it was all part of the experience of spending the day in the Louvre. We went from one section to another and back again. We brought sandwiches made of ham, the cheese we had bought at the open market on baguette (French bread) and went outside when we couldn't go any longer to sit on the plaza near the famous pyramid, eat, people-watch and recoop our energies for more looking and reading and oohing and aahing.
I had expected lots of paintings and sculpture but was unprepared for the beauty of the building itself.
Sometime after the Mona Lisa room as we were walking to another section of the museum I came upon it: beautiful doorways, painted ceilings, sculpted ceilings, opulent, shimmering beauty. I'm so glad I looked up.
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