Monday, August 20, 2007

Paris III Musée du Louvre

On Monday we visited the Louvre, the oldest, biggest, most famous, most visited, most everything museum in the whole wide world. Our favorite exhibits were those of the more ancient civilizations, and everything Egyptian (the encyclopedia of Egyptian gods was really neat), Hammurabi's code (the first written code of laws in human history), the Grand Gallery of huge paintings, the sculpture garden.. too many to list. It is easy to be distracted by the walls and ceilings of the former Royal Palace as you walk through the exhibits, and the Medieval Louvre underneath it all...

My least favorite was the Mona Lisa. It was a madhouse, literally, and I'm just glad we got out alive.

It's pretty cool to finally see the artifacts of everything you've ever read or hear about in history. The picture of the ancient pottery decorated with what we now call swastikas is for Shari, who has said that the (now corrupted) symbol has been around for a long time! Pretty amazing stuff...








Below, the painting with the longest title, David's "Sacre of the Emperor Napoleon I and the crowning of the Empress Joséphine in the cathedral of Notre-Dame of Paris" and Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People," First picture (above): my own artistic rendering of "Nike" or "Winged Victory."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Love the pictures as usual!
I took many of the same pictures as you did when we were at the Louvre!
Some believe the swastika symbol has been around for 3000 years. It has been seen in many different ancient cultures with many different meanings.
It is one of those archetypal symbols found throughout history.
Really interesting.