I Louvre the Louvre!

Sunday, 7 January, 2012 - My last day in France. Lucky me, I at least got to make a full day of it. I was on the train bound for Paris before 7:00am and my flight didn't leave from CDG until 9:00pm. I really felt like I couldn't walk away from five days in Paris without getting lost in the Louvre for at least a few hours, so I decided to make it the only destination on my agenda for the day; if I saw everything I wanted to see and still had time left, there were still plenty of other places on my list. That definitely didn't end up happening! I spent about six hours roaming the vast and richly decorated halls. That didn't include my hour long lunch break.

Without further ado and long-winded description, here are a handful of my favorites:

The Marly Courtyard, filled with Greek and Roman themed bronzes and marbles by 17th and 18th century French sculptors; I loved the whole courtyard, though the Marly Horses were my favorites

 A few of the sculptures around the Marly Courtyard

Medieval and morbid.

Alexandre et Diogéne, Pierre Puget, 1689

Interesting on two accounts:

-a surprisingly anatomically accurate horse, except that the chestnut (that protruding nub on the upper inside of the horse's leg in the second photo) is way too high up

-this depicts Diogenes of Sinope publicly mocking Alexander the Great and getting living to tell the tale. I read up on him when I got back and even aside from this relief he's a very interesting, if not controversial, character.

Caryatids from... sometime and somewhere in ancient Greece

Winged Victory, a classic

Dragon, Paul-Ambroise Slodtz, 1732

Arch decoration and keystone

I didn't make note of this one, nor can I figure out who it would be. Drat.

Of course I tried to see the Mona Lisa. This was about as close as I dared get.

Paintings by Théodore Géricault, 1791 - 1824

I really liked his work, in particular his depictions of horses. I'll have to keep an eye out for him in the future. Also, the title of the last one translates to Dead Cat.

Le Tricheur (The Cheater), Georges de La Tour, 1593 - 1652

There's an alternate version of this in the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

I found the content of this to be incredibly humorous and the facial expressions priceless.

The lion is completely nonchalant, the mother is more affronted than horrified, and the child is swooning like a woman straight out of a Jane Austen novel.

And then, of course, there was the Louvre itself which has a detail or two I wouldn't mind in my future home:

Final tidbits:

• If you come in by the Metro (lines 1 and 7) and get off at the Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre stop, there's a separate entrance that you can get into the Louvre from that takes you through an underground shopping mall of sorts. If you go here you don't have to wait through the line that winds kilometers long to come through the glass pyramid. Unless you're just into that. But if you come via Metro, you'll also pass the inverted glass pyramid that hangs from the ceiling right above the very small marble triangle.
• The Louvre is closed on Tuesdays! Don't try to go then. However, it's open until 9:45pm on Wednesdays and Fridays (normally closes at 6:00pm).
• Free entrance to teachers or EU citizens (or passport/visa holder) from 18-25, and anyone under 18, and for everyone on the first Sunday of every month and anyone under 26 after 6:00pm on Fridays.
• Give yourself at least one hour for each of the three wings.
• If you're going to show up after 9:30 or so in the morning, bring a book. The lines reached surprising lengths fairly early in the morning.