Louvre

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Musée du Louvre
File:Louvre Courtyard by Night.jpg
Map
Established1793
LocationPalais Royal, Musée du Louvre,
75001 Paris, France
Visitors8,300,000 (2006)[1] The Louvre led all museums worldwide with 8.3 million visitors in 2007. Paris's Louvre, home to the ``Mona Lisa, drew more visitors in 2007 than its local contemporary-art rival, the Centre Pompidou,(bloomberg.com ,25 feb, 2008)
DirectorHenri Loyrette
CuratorMarie-Laure de Rochebrune
Websitewww.louvre.fr

The Louvre (French: Musée du Louvre) in Paris, France, is the most visited and famous art museum in the world.[2] The structure is located on the Right Bank in the 1er arrondissement between the Seine River and the Rue de Rivoli.[3]

The structure originated as the palace during the Capetian dynasty under the reign of Philip II.[4] The building holds some of the world's most famous works of art, such as Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, The Virgin and Child with St. Anne, Madonna of the Rocks, Jacques Louis David's Oath of the Horatii, Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People and Alexandros of Antioch's Venus de Milo. The equestrian statue of Louis XIV constitutes the starting point of the "axe historique", but the palace is not aligned on this axis.

History

Construction and architecture

Palais du Louvre

Main article: Palais du Louvre

The present-day Louvre has been the result of a series of successive building projects completed over the past 800 years.[5] The origin of the term Louvre is murky. First, Potter contends that King Philip II of France referred to the structure as L'Œuvre (French language: The Masterpiece) because it was the largest building in 13th century Paris. Second, Sauval proposes that the name references an old Anglo-Saxon term leouar meaning "castle" or "fortress".[3] Additionally, Edwards posits that the name stems from the word rouvre meaning oak, referring to the building's location in a forest.[6]

The Richelieu Wing of the Louvre at night

Regardless, a fortress style structure was built under Philip Augustus from 1190 to 1202 in order to defend Paris against Norman attacks.[6][7] It is unknown whether this is the first building to be constructed on that spot, although contemporary references refer to the early Louvre as the "New Tower", which indicates there was an "Old Tower".[4][6] The only portion still extant from this period is the foundation of the southeast corner.[3] Additions were subsequently completed, notably by Charles V who in 1358 built a defensive wall around the fortress and converted the Louvre into a royal residence, although further monarchs used the structure as a prison.[7]

Louis IX (Saint-Louis) and Francois I added a dungeon and annex, respectively.[4] Additionally, Francois rebuilt the Louvre using plans of architect Pierre Lescot. Following Francois' death in 1547, his successor Henry II retained the architect, and the Louvre saw completion of the west and south sides alongside the addition of Jean Goujon's bas-relief sculptures.[8] Lescot's renovations modified the Louvre from a fortress to the style of structure visible today.[9]

In 1594 King Henry IV united the Palais du Louvre with the Palais des Tuileries, which had been constructed by Catherine de Medici. This "Grand Design" called for a Grande Galerie to built connecting to the Pavillon de Flore on the southern end and the Pavillon de Marsan to the north. To contemporaries, this edifice was one of the longest in the world.[8] Louis XIII (1610-1643) completed the wing now called the Denon Wing in 1560.[8][10]

In 1624 Le Vau Lemercier completed design of the Cour Carrée under the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, effectively quadrupling the size of the old courtyard.[11] Progress on the building halted as Louis XIV choose Versailles as his residence. The Louvre remained unchanged until the 18th century when it began its transformation into a museum under Louis XV. However, this does not accelerate until the French Revolution.[6][8]

French Revolution

File:Musée du Louvre - from Jardin des Tuileres, Paris, France (26 April 2006).JPG
View of Musée du Louvre from Jardin des Tuileries[12]

The Louvre as a place for display of art, although not as a public museum, dates from the time of Francois I, however it was not until the French Revolution that the royal Louvre collection became the "Muséum central des Arts" and opened to the public as such.[6] Historically, the notion of a public gallery intended for the display of works of art began in Paris at the Luxembourg Palace. This art museum, the first in France, was inaugurated in October 1750, following an article written by La Font de Saint-Yvenne. Saint-Yvenne voiced the first call for a public gallery, ideally in the Louvre structure.[13] This gallery contained about 99 works which were located in the two wings of the palace. The collection, which allowed visitors of all social classes, was an enormous success, both with the French and those coming from abroad. Saint-Yvenne again criticized what he called the neglect of much of France's national artistic treasure and further requests for the Louvre as a museum began to mount. In 1780, the count of Provence and future Louis XVIII began moving works from the Luxembourg Palace to the Palais de Louvre, in response to both these requests and insinuations that the royal collection was not as grand as that of other members of the nobility.[6][13]

The Marquis de Marigny and his successor, the Comte d'Angiviller then began developing the Louvre's permanent collection, which became legally authorised on May 6 1791. The museum then officially opened to the public on August 10 1793.[6][13] From 1794 onwards, France's victorious revolutionary armies brought back increasing numbers of artworks from across Europe, aiming to establish it as a major European museum. Particularly significant additions to the collection were the masterpieces from Italy (including the Laocoon and his sons and the Apollo Belvedere, both from the papal collection) which arrived in Paris in July 1798 with much pomp and ceremony (a special Sèvres vase was commissioned for the occasion).

The sheer number of these statues forced the museum's curators into reorganising the displays[citation needed]. The building was redecorated and inaugurated in 1800, given its first director (Dominique Vivant, Baron de Denon, by Napoleon after the Egyptian campaign of 1798-1801), and renamed the "Musée Napoléon" in 1803. It continued to grow through purchases and spoliation (e.g. the forced purchase of part of the Borghese collection, handovers as part of the treaties of Tolentino and Campoformio) and was an attempt at creating a universal museum of art, with all the best sculptures[1] - indeed, most of the art Napoleon directed his commissioners to take was sculpture rather than old-master paintings[citation needed]. For a short period, this allowed north Europeans to see the finest of classical sculpture without having to organise a grand tour to Italy[citation needed]. The collections shrank again when almost all wartime acquisitions had to be returned after Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo in 1815.

Louvre Pyramid

Courtyard of Museum of Louvre, at night
Main article: Louvre Pyramid

The central courtyard of the museum, on the axis of the Champs-Élysées, is occupied by the Louvre Pyramid, which serves as the main entrance to the museum.

The Louvre Pyyyyy is a glass pyramid commissioned by then French president François Mitterrand and designed by I. M. Pei a Chinese-American architect. The construction work on the pyramid base and underground lobby was carried out by Dumez[14]: it was inaugurated in 1989. This was the first renovation of the Grand Louvre Project. The Carre Gallery, where the Mona Lisa was exhibited, was also renovated. The pyramid covers the Louvre entresol and forms part of the new entrance into the museum.

Le Louvre-Lens

Main article: Louvre-Lens
File:Louvre-Pyramide-Interieur.jpg
View of the outside from inside the Louvre Pyramid

Since many of the works in the Louvre are viewed only in distinct departments — for example, French Painting, Near Eastern Art or Sculpture — established some 200 years ago, it was decided that a satellite building would be created outside of Paris, to experiment with other museological displays and to allow for a larger visitorship outside the confines of the Paris Palace. Sourced from the Louvre's core holdings, and not from long-lost or stored works in the basement of the Louvre, as widely thought, the new satellite will show works side-by-side, cross-referenced and juxtaposed from all periods and cultures, creating an entirely new experience for the museum visitor. The project completion is planned for late 2010; the building will be capable of receiving between 500 and 600 major works, with a core gallery dedicated to the human figure over several millennia. This new building should receive about 500,000 visitors per year. There were originally six city candidates for this project: Amiens, Arras, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Lens, and Valenciennes. On November 29, 2004, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin chose Lens, Pas-de-Calais to be the site of the new Louvre building. Le Louvre-Lens was the name chosen for the museum.

The new satellite museum, funded by the local regional government, the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, will have 22,000 m2 of usable space built on two levels, with semi-permanent exhibition space covering at least 5000 m2. There will also be space set aside for rotating temporary exhibitions. The project will also feature a multi-purpose theatre and visitable conservation spaces. The building is comprised of a series of low-lying volumes clad in glass and stainless steel in the middle of a 60 acres former mining site, largely reclaimed by nature. The estimated cost for this building is 70 million euro, or 96.6 million US dollars (at July 2007). The new satellite building was selected after an international architectural competition in 2005. The architectural joint-venture team of SANAA of Tokyo and the New York-based IMREY CULBERT LP were awarded the project on September 26, 2005.

Access

Map of the Louvre

The Louvre can be accessed by the Palais Royal — Musée du Louvre Métro station. The station is named after the nearby Palais Royal and the Louvre. Until the 1990s its name was Palais Royal; it was renamed when a new access was built from the station to the underground portions of the redeveloped Louvre museum.

Management

Long managed by the French state under the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the Louvre has recently acquired powers of self-management as an Établissement Public Autonome (Government-Owned Corporation) in order better to manage its growth.

Directors

The director of the Louvre has in the past been known as its "Conservateur", and is now known as its "président directeur général". These have included:

Panoramic view of the Louvre in 1908


Panoramic view of the Louvre in 2006

Departments & collections

Khorsabad - Human Headed Winged Bulls and Reliefs

The Musée du Louvre's collections number over 380,000 objects[15], though not one of the world's largest collections, arguably one of the finest.

The Louvre displays 35,000 works of art drawn from eight curatorial departments, displayed in over 60,600 m2 of exhibition space dedicated to the permanent collections[16]. According to the most recent Annual Report, published in 2005[17], the museum's holdings are as follows:

Canova - Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss

The hallmark of the museum's collection is its 11,900 paintings (6,000 on permanent display and 5,900 in deposit), representing the second largest holding of western pictorial art in the world, after the State Hermitage, Russia. There are large holdings from such artists as Fragonard, Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian, Van Dyck, Poussin, and David. Among the well-known sculptures in the collection are the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo.

The collection of Prints and Drawings was significantly supplemented with the donation of Baron Edmond de Rothschild's (1845 – 1934) collection in 1935, containing more than 40,000 engravings, nearly 3,000 drawings and 500 illustrated books.

Besides art, the Louvre displays a host of other exhibits, including archaeology, sculptures and objets d'art. The permanent galleries showcase large holdings of furniture; the most spectacular item was the Bureau du Roi, completed by Jean Henri Riesener in the 18th century, now returned to the Palace of Versailles.

Notable paintings

13th to 15th century
16th century
Leonardo Da Vinci - Mona Lisa
17th century
Nicolas Poussin - Et in Arcadia ego
18th century
19th century

Template:Western European & American Paintings

Trivia

The Louvre is a central location in the 1979 serial City of Death in the science fiction television series Doctor Who.
In the episode of the USA Network Show Psych entitled "Who You Gonna Call?", Shawn Spencer poses briefly as an art collector, stating that the show would've been called Louvre Two and Night Gallery, among others.

Film

The Louvre, its art, particularly the art in the basement — not on display — is the subject of a scene in Kate & Leopold.
Scenes were filmed in the Louvre in both Martin Scorsese's 1993 The Age of Innocence and Merchant Ivory's 1990 Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.
The Louvre is destroyed (along with the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe) during a counter-terrorism mission in the 2004 satirical film Team America: World Police.

The Da Vinci Code

The Louvre and many of its works of art are featured prominently in Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code and in the 2006 film adaptation. The Louvre is the main setting in the prologue and first few chapters of the book and parts of the movie. The museum is the homicide crime scene where renowned curator Jacques Saunière is murdered by an Opus Dei member named Silas.

Film productions

The Louvre scenes of The Da Vinci Code were filmed on location. Originally, director Ron Howard was unable to obtain permission to film there, having already been denied access to Westminster Abbey and Saint-Sulpice (Paris). However, French President Jacques Chirac invited Howard to lunch at his home, where he informed the director that he would obtain clearance and Howard could contact him personally if there were any further problems.[18]

Gaming

The Louvre inspired a virtual setting of adventure in the video game Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, starring Lara Croft.

Radio

The Louvre is a frequent location in the British radio series The Goon Show, in particular the episodes "Napoleon's Piano" (11 October 1955) and "The Mountain Eaters" (1 December 1958).

Music

The Louvre was also the name of a Los Angeles-based rock band in the 1980s.

Louvre Abu Dhabi

Main article: Louvre Abu Dhabi

In March 2007, the Louvre announced that a Louvre museum would be completed by 2012 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The thirty-year agreement, signed by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Sheik Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, will prompt the construction of a Louvre museum in downtown Abu Dhabi in exchange for $1.3 billion USD. It has been noted that the museum will showcase work from multiple French museums, including the Louvre, the Georges Pompidou Center, the Musée d'Orsay and Versailles. However, Donnedieu de Vabres stated at the announcement that the Paris Louvre would not sell any of its 35,000-piece collection, on display.[19]

See also

Gallery

Medieval Fortress

Paintings

Sculptures

References

  1. ^ "Yahoo News". Retrieved 2007-05-07.
  2. ^ "Top 5 Most Visited Museums". Time magazine for kids. Retrieved 2008-01-10.
  3. ^ a b c Mary Knight Potter (1904). The Art of the Louvre. L.C. Page. pp. p. 1. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  4. ^ a b c Francis Miltoun (1910). Royal Palaces and Parks of France. L.C. Page & Co. pp. pp. 114, 115, 76. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  5. ^ Delia Gray-Durant (2004). Art/Shop/Eat Paris. London: A&C Black. pp. pp.p. 7. ISBN 0-393-32595-4.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Henry Sutherland Edwards (1893). "Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places". Cassell and Co. pp. p.p. 194.
  7. ^ a b Alexandre Gady; Pitt, Leonard (2006). Walks Through Lost Paris: A Journey Into the Heart of Historic Paris. Shoemaker & Hoard. pp. pp. 112, 113. ISBN 1-59376-103-1. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ a b c d "Structurae [fr]: Palais du Louvre (1993)". Structurae Database. Retrieved 2008-01-14.
  9. ^ The project is analyzed in the context of Parisian urbanism. David Thomson (1984). Renaissance Paris: Architecture and Growth, 1475-1600. Berkeley, University of California Press. pp. pp. 60-70. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  10. ^ Sutcliffe, Anthony (1993). Paris: An Architectural History. Yale University Press. pp. p. 31. ISBN 0300068867. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  11. ^ Baedeker, Karl (1891). Paris and Environs: With Routes from London to Paris; Handbook for Travellers. K. Baedeker. pp. pp. 87-89. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  12. ^ Castles : un album photos sur Flickr
  13. ^ a b c McClellan, Andrew (1999). Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum... University of California Press. pp. pp. 14-20. ISBN 0520221761. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  14. ^ Vinci website: Louvre
  15. ^ 2005 Annual Report - Tableau récapitulatif de l’état d'avancement de l'informatisation des collections fin 2005, pg 185
  16. ^ Oeuvres | Musée du Louvre
  17. ^ 2005 Annual Report - Tableau récapitulatif de l’état d'avancement de l'informatisation des collections fin 2005, pg 185
  18. ^ TIME, April 2006
  19. ^ France to Open Louvre in Abu Dhabi - TIME

External links

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