French Bread Moments Part 2...A Lesson from The Louvre

I like my art to move.  I prefer dance, theatre, and film to art museums. 

Today, we spent the day at The Louvre, the largest art museum in the world. 

We studied the guidebook and map while we waited in line in the courtyard.   We decided to begin with Greek and Roman statues, and from there to Italian Renaissance and then the French Neo-Classic works and the Dutch masters. 

The Venus de Milo was impressive.  All the marble statues were impressive.  As Mike said, “You could give me a chisel and a hammer and an unlimited supply of marble.  I could work for years and never come up with anything even close to good.” 

It’s amazing what skill and talent we humans possess.  How we can find ways to share what we see, hear and feel with others. 

After the statues came the Renaissance paintings.  Daphni found a side room off the main gallery, and said, “She’s in here.”  And we went in to see the Mona Lisa.

The guidebook was right.  The painting is smaller and darker than you expect it to be, and it’s behind glass.  A huge crowd jockeyed for position, wielding their cameras.  I stood back at the edge of the crowd and said to Daphni, “I’d just like to look at her for a while.”  And we stood.  And looked.

Then we moved closer, into the crowd.  I didn’t want a photo.  I just wanted to look.

I felt full of possibilities as I looked at the Mona Lisa.  I believed that the ordinary can become extraordinary given the right circumstances.

Lisa del Giaconda was a Florentine merchant’s wife.  Her portrait was one of several paintings brought to France by Leonardo daVinci, at the request of Francois I.  Apparently Francois loved the portrait and made the Mona Lisa the centerpiece of his collection of Italian art.  Three centuries later, Francois’ collection became the beginnings of The Louvre.

Though I’ve seen copies of the Mona Lisa hundreds of times, the original had an energy, a complexity, a light about it.   I’ve never felt that way about a painting before. 

Today I found I liked my art to move me.