Le Louvre

So I already did a post about the Paris museums and how great they are.  If you are at all an art lover, please try to make it to Paris at some point.  There is such a wide range of FABULOUS art there, there's something for everyone and if you have eclectic tastes there's enough to keep you busy for much longer than we were even there!  I remember watching the last episodes of Sex and the City where Carrie is in Paris and (granted she moved there for the Russian who left her alone all the time) she mentions being there for two weeks and having "gone to every museum...twice" and being bored.  Well I call shenanigans on her!  You could spend two years in Paris and still find new museums and art displays and amazing things all over the place!  Now I bet you've heard of one museum in particular they have in Paris and while I can't say it was my favorite museum we went to in Paris, it was pretty spectacular.

First of all, the Tuleries gardens that are in front of the Louvre are like an outdoor museum in themselves.  There are several fountains, flower beds and many courtyard areas surrounded by trees, each housing awesome sculptures, some which are permanent and some which are rotated out.

There are also a couple cafe's in the gardens, and -how cool is this- there is a kid's area with a carousel and trampolines that are built right into the ground.  We looked over and at first thought all these children just had mad hops until we realized there were huge trampolines under them!

As for the art inside the Louvre, it's pretty great as well.  Here's a tip for you though, if you're under 26 (or even a little over we learned) you can go to the Louvre on Friday evenings for FREE!  If you really want to see everything you would want to go for a whole day (or multiple Fridays like Erin and I did) but it's a great way to save some cash and see some amazing art!



When we walked into the Louvre we decided to go to some of the "lesser known" parts first as we knew we would be coming back for the big stuff, but it's hard to walk through that place without finding famous pieces and we stumbled upon this arm-less lady by accident while we were trying to find the upper floors!  Similar to the feeling of seeing the David sculpture in person, it's kind of amazing to see such famous artwork up close and in person.  It's fun to know that when I see copies, renderings, or "inspired by" pieces of these famous works I'll always have my memory of seeing the real thing to carry with me :)  pretty priceless!





I was super excited when we saw this painting, as we recognized it as being a painting of the Duomo from the Boboli Gardens, our favorite spot in Florence!

I really like this small series of paintings as well, there were two walls just covered with these little landscapes and they were really beautiful!

Love love love it

Pretty soon we made our way over to the Egypt collection and saw some pretty great artifacts and mummies, and then came to two rooms that had the most fabulously painted ceilings in the whole place

The one on the left with the birds is by Georges Braque and was added in the 1950s, and the right hand one is more recent, by the american artist Cy Twombly and has only been there since 2010.  They are a stark contrast to the traditional ceilings with frescoes of gods and cherubs, and were one, well two, of my favorite things we saw at the Louvre.

Another modern addition to the Louvre is the now iconic pyramid at the entrance (I think it was added in the 1980s? And though it's loved by some and hated by others I am a fan.  I think it's very pretty and  represents Paris well, which is definitely a city mixing classic and traditional with new and edgy.  It also looks pretty awesome lit up at night.

This fun little hallway was part of a special exhibition about books and reading (there was also an entire wall filled with photographs of people reading books) and we found it very entertaining.  The lights flashed on and off and little neon words illuminated every so often, and we found one that said bok, which we were excited about because that means "hi" in Croatian, until we realized that each word was "book" in a different language and so it probably wasn't Croatian after all.  Though, now that I think about it the Croatian word for "book" could have very well been in there too!

Erin and I both really like impressionist paintings, so we spent quite a while hanging out in that room and looking at awesome work by artists like Monet, Degas and Cezanne.  One of my favorite things is looking at the artist's signature in the corners (or sometimes hidden other places) of these paintings.  For some reason I like seeing what their handwriting (or at least their signature) looks like.  It's a little thing but it makes me happy!

Another thing that makes me happy is walking through the galleries and making up stories about what is going on in the paintings.  It's especialy fun when we come across paintings like this which I have to say we did a double take on and inspected over again because the look on that guys face is just so crazy it didn't look like it belonged at the Louvre with all the serious paintings around it.  But on the other hand that's what makes it awesome, after all it's the one painting from the room it was in that I can remember!

I also like when I find little elements of a painting that stand out to  me, like this skull.  This photo is just of a small section of the painting at the bottom but it was my favorite part of the piece so it's all I took a picture of :)  This little element has just detail and care, I like to think that it was actually the main subject of the painting and the bigger figure that was more central was just a distraction.

If you ever find yourself walking through the Louvre don't forget to stop at a couple windows now and then, as there are actually some pretty beautiful views to be seen by looking out the windows from the various galleries in that place.

We took this picture for two reasons.  One, I like flowers and I thought it was pretty.  Two, the painter is Abraham Mignon, which reminded us of the scene in Serendipity when John Cusak is talking to the painter trying to find out about Kate Beckinsale and he can't pronounce his name right, he keeps saying "Mr. Min-yun", and the guy relentlessly corrects him "it's Min-yon" (like filet mignon).  Haha anyway totally random, but hey that's how we keep ourselves entertained :)





After the pretty impressionists and flower paintings we headed over to some pretty famous pieces.

First we stopped by the "Winged Victory" that stands by itself in a giant staircase area and conquers the room with it's "stopped in mid flight about to charge and kick some ass" stance.  I think I like this one more than the Venus de Milo, maybe because even without arms or a head this lady is still intimidating.

Then it was off to the Mona Lisa wing, with (much like finding the Sistine Chapel in Rome) seemed to be a trail through a maze - Mona Lisa this way, your're almost there, just 5 more turns and corridors to go, please check out this other stuff on your way to see it!- ending with a crowded room.

Here's a picture of the room the Mona Lisa is in.  While there are paintings on the outer walls, that whole wall there in the middle is just for her, and every time I showed these pictures to anyone they all said the same thing : "It's so small!"  Yup, folks the Mona Lisa is smaller than you think it is.

But it's still pretty impressive and cool to see as it's probably the most famous painting ever.  So scroll down to see a better picture of that famous lady, I added some space to try to give you the full effect :)

Your welcome.  Here's another picture for scale.  Now it is a little bigger than it looks in the picture because theres a barrier about 10ft out from it that prevents you from going right up close to it, but you can see, it's a lot smaller than you would think it would be for all the attention it gets, but as Dr. Seuss would say, A person's a person, no matter how small! (paintings too :D)

After we saw Mona we ventured back down that hall and noticed this bronze sculpture, which we had seen the marble version of in Rome!  We were pretty excited and found novelty in the fact that we could say, "Oh look, it's a bronze version of the one we saw in Rome!" and took a step back to marvel at how lucky we are and how awesome this traveling experience has been!  It's the little things in life!

Next up we went to the Apollo Gallery which contains the crown jewels of Louis XV and.... look mom! another elephant!

It also had awesome ceilings that depicted the different astrological symbols and corresponding months

A view of the pyramid at sunset

On the way out we walked past some other beautiful sculptures, including this "Cupid and Psyche"

On our exit route we passed the "inverted pyramid and stopped for some photos at the sculpture.

The top pyramid also looked really awesome all lit up at night when we were walking out.  It's amazing how much the look of a city changes at night time, and Paris is definitely a pretty city all lit up!

We also went back to the Louvre when Lindsey was here with us, and we got to see some parts we didn't venture into before, like the "Medieval Louvre" in the underground area that shows the old moat and castle walls from when the Louvre was a palace.

We also spent more time in the Egyptian artifacts section, where I found this bluehippo figurine that I am going to somehow find a copy of someday because I think he is just fantastic!

Erin and I also like to entertain ourselves at museums by posing like the things we see.  We are totally those annoying tourist girls making fools of ourselves and looking ridiculous while people around us are trying to have serious conversations about critiquing the art techniques and observing the nuances of the sculptures, but I guess we're just goofy kids.  I blame our Dad.

I was yet again entranced by the ceilings as we walked through the rooms and probably almost ran into a few people as my eyes were constantly directed upwards instead of looking ahead.

These ones are some of my favorite sculpture posing pics :)

We went by the big three again to make sure Lindsey got to see all the super famous stuff at the Louvre.

I like this painting because of the awesome lady in the middle that seems to
be saying "break it up guys" to the crazy gladiators.  You go girl.

more sillyness

here's another (brighter) look at those crowns

And we stopped back by those beautiful impressionists

and the fun neon hallway

I'm pretty sure I stole this picture from Lindsey, isn't she a fabulous photographer? So pretty!

Here's some more paintings we made up stories about, just think about what that lady on the left could be thinking with that look on her face and of course the right painting is the adventures of the three Muskateers!

The last part of the Louvre we visited were the Napoleon Apartments and they were so cool because they featured these completely awesome "twisted" sculptures that were done in a shiny silver material, and were classic sculptures that had been skewed and twisted in a spiral shape.  I loved them.

These pigs were also pretty rad

This unusual sculpture was on the dining room table in one of the rooms, pretty scandalous Louvre!

So that about wraps up our Louvre adventures!  It's definitely a cool place and I can see why it's the most visited museum in the world!  Another check off the bucket list!