So Many Amazing Museums

Stan says he is arted-out.  That is because we have visited so many museums in Paris.  I must give him credit, he is a good sport. To a point, Stan will do many things he’d never do if I weren’t with him. He goes because he knows I want to go; that’s just one of the many things I appreciate most about him.

The Musée du Louvre is probably the best-known museum in the world, but it is overwhelming.  The Louvre’s origin dates back to the late 12th century built as a fortress. It was converted to a residential palace for the Kings in the 1500s. It grew extensively as each king made additions and renovations to the complex. When Louis XIV decided to make Versailles his home, the palace became a place to display the royal collections. Today, the Louvre, the largest museum in the world, is the breathtaking home to thousands of masterpieces. It is a rich marvel of polished limestone and marble, filled with thoughts, imagination, and stories depicted in art from times that can never be repeated. Anyone who can manage to visit must.  Undoubtedly, a vist to the Louvre is exhausting; it requires patience as the crowds around the greatest pieces are frustrating but it is the only way to intimately see such well-known pieces as the actual Venus de Milo (possibly from 160 and 110 BC), the 18′ tall, Winged Victory of Samothrace (109 BC), and paintings by Van Gogh, Monet, as well as the star of the show, the 16th century graceful lady with the subtle smile, the Mona Lisa.  Over 80% of people visiting the Louvre come only to see this small but mysterious painting.

While the Musee d’Orsay is large, it is small compared to the Louvre, and more enjoyable too, especially if, like me, Impressionist painters are the favored artists.  An interesting point is that this lovely building was once a train station built specifically for electric trains.

L’Orange is an even smaller but glorious art museum.  There, Claude Monet’s 30’ waterlily paintings grace four walls, making it seem you are standing in the park, amidst the serene ponds. 

One of my favorites was the Petit Palace.  Admission to this museum is free, and the exhibits of rare art are displayed such that visitors do not feel crowded. I especially enjoyed learning that in the late 1800’s when Napoleon III (not the Napoleon Bonaparte) was the head of France.  At that time, the city of Paris was a mire of mud and shit . . . . literally.  Sewers did not exist, streets between wooden buildings were narrow, so narrow hardly a horse could go through, and there was no fresh water. With about two million people in the city at that time, stench, filth, and disease were uncontrollable.  Napoleon III, the self-proclaimed Emperor of the French Second Republic, also proclaimed by Napoleon III, modernized the city. He hired George-Eugene Haussmann, and together they designed a new city with wide, tree-bordered boulevards, parks, squares, and the beautiful 7-8-story buildings that even today give Paris its well-known harmonious look.  Napoleon wanted Paris to outshine London.  The wooden houses, structures, and narrow dirt streets of Paris were destroyed. Haussmann led the design and installation of sewer systems and fresh clean water provisioning, the creation of wide boulevards like Champs-Élysées, not only as a source of beauty and efficient traffic flow, but also as a mechanism for easy deployment of troops and artillery. Lessor streets flowing into the boulevards were designed to meet at a circle in a star-like pattern. All of the buildings in Haussmann’s plan required a similar height, black roofs, dormers, and walls of white limestone mined from nearby quarries, now so iconic of Paris. The first floors of the enormous houses were intended as stores and the upper floors as residential spaces.   That 50-year Napoleon/Haussmann project changed Paris.  

During this Second Republic period, artists were invited to compete for the privilege and contract to create artistic adornments and statuary for the new buildings, streets, and boulevards.  In the competition, artists submitted drawings and models of their plans.  For sculptures, the finalist sculptors were required to submit plaster casts of their proposed statue.  The competition and creation of the selected pieces took years to finalize and install, but when complete, Paris was magnificent; it became glorious.  

In World War II, metal was needed.  The bronze statues and monuments were an obvious first answer.  So many were melted down for the cause, not just in Paris but in numerous other cities and towns to make mortar and shells.  Gone. . . those magnificent works adorning the streets and buildings were gone forever. 

In some cases, though, the models and the plaster casts submitted in the competition were meticulously saved.  Today, an astonishing parade of plaster statues stands as regal as the bronze statues they once helped to create. Not only is the exhibit a peek into the craft of bronze statuary, but it also gives us a breathtaking glimpse into what was once lost but has been found again.