Le Louvre: Stairs, statues and more stairs

Today (Friday) we went to the Louvre.
It was really cool, and I was really excited to go! We had a tour guide, his name was Bernie.
He took us around the outside of the Louvre first and showed us the oldest part and told us about how additions to the building were added and constructed over time.He also showed us how the King who constructed the addition would always put their initials/seal on the building to show that it had been constructed by them.

This is the oldest part of the Louvre (kind of disputed, you'll see why in a mo)

Here are 2 seals the top one has three names in one and the bottom just stands for Henry II (I think, it's possibly Henry IV.

After talking about the outside, we went inside and started our tour.

We started in the French sculpture from the 18th and 19th Centuries and then moved from that to Mesopotamia and the birth of writing.

This was meant to hang in Versailles but it depicts Alexander the Great being offended by a wise old man, and politically it didn't send the right message so it ended up being put here.

Artemis

This is either Apollo or Hercules

First use of writing in Mesopotamia

the switch to Cuneiform

This is a statue of a king, it's got inscriptions carved into it in Cuneiform and his head was purposefully loped off by the next regime.

In his lap is the oldest blueprint ever found for a building, in this case a temple.

This sort of statue also is interesting because it is very one sided. You're not meant to walk around it and see the true human form, it looks good from the back and the front but disproportionate at the sides, unlike Greek and Roman sculpture which came later.

This is Hammurabi's code. The oldest law system in existence.

This is King Darius and a Lamassu. King Darius is holding a lion to show that he can tame nature and a war club to show that he can protect you.

This is another Lamassu, it has the head of a man, the body of a bull and wings. It was a good/protective creature. This also shows the block sculpture because from the front all you would see are two legs.

but from the side you see 4 so from the corner it looks like the Lamassu has 5 legs.

 All of the carvings below were on a wall frieze depicting them getting trees from Lebanon to build the palace this hung in.

It's a merman

 Here we go more into Akkadian influenced art from Mesopotamia

This is the capital or top of a column that stood in King Darius's palace

Then we visited under the Louvre to see the old foundation of an old castle that used to stand there. When they were building a part of the Louvre, they excavated and found the ruins of the old castle that was there.

From Mesopotamia we moved to Greek and Roman sculpture, and then the Venus de Milo.
Bernie showed us how the sculptor created movement in the statue through the drapery and by the way the statue curves. So from different angles she appears to be moving in different ways. He also said the reason the Venus de Milo is seductive is because the drapery seems to be continuing to slide down. yep.

 These are columns carved to look like people

 This shows the motif of Henry II who adored hunting

 This is Artemis, she shows very dynamic motion as well

You'll notice that unlike the block sculptures as you move around her, Venus stays proportioned and can be looked at from any angle.

After the Venus de Milo, we moved to the Winged Victory. I liked this statue more. The drapery was more dynamic as was the pose, it seemed to have more movement than other statues. Fun Fact, when they reconstructed her, they actually only found a small portion of one wing, like a feather or two. So the wings were actually made out of plaster and attached to the statue, which brought up the question when they restored her as to what they should restore her too. Back to the Greeks, or back to the 19th Century. She also is missing arms and hands, but they found one so it's in a display case next to her.

After Winged Victory we traveled to Italy 16th Century. Bernie showed us Italian art from the Middle Ages to Da Vinci so we could fully appreciate Da Vinci's work.

The seal of the Republique Francaise

 Middle age art work, Egg Tempra on a piece of wood, the faces and dimensions are purposefully distorted/unrealistic so that people wouldn't pray to the painting itself but realize that the painting was just a means of focusing your prayers to the actual person.

 This is very classical, the person looks as though he's been cut from stone.

Madonna on the Rocks. My favorite Da Vinci painting that I saw there. The longer you stare at it the more interesting it becomes.

Another Da Vinci, both paintings show that his colors were more vibrant because he used oil based paint instead of egg and  was able to layer paint to get the correct shade of colors.

This is perspective, to show how little the painting is.

The Mona Lisa! It has no actual historical significance, but because of its fame its caused history to happen. An interesting phenomenon.
After seeing the Mona Lisa we walked out past the classical art wing, so there was a Gericault and a Delacroix, actually several of both.

This is Napoleon trying to link himself to the nobility lines so that he can have claim on the throne.

This is "le Radeau de la Méduse" by Gericault, a political painting that is really cool in person.

And finally we went to the newest addition of the Museum which is Islamic art, very cool and the space was very reminiscent of what you think when you think Middle East.

After the tour, my group stuck around the museum and ate lunch and then explored some more.

Here's the hand the found.

This is Hygie daughter of Asclepius god of medicine. We get the word Hygiene from her.

Apollo after defeating the serpent (I think)

A sphinx

Bes the Egyptian god of ugliness.

Isis/Hathor

Mummies!

Bes again, you would take this statue and put it next to your door and he would protect you by scaring away all of the evil spirits.

One of the many staircases I climbed.
So that was my trip to the Louvre! It was really exciting and I didn't even see half of what it houses so I'll definitely be going back!

Until next time-same bat time, same bat channel