This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s Guide to Paris
Louvre, a former royal palace and the largest, most visited museum in the world, shows about 35,000 pieces dating from 7000bc to the mid-19th century. Everyone is lost and it doesn’t matter; Whatever the way, whatever the object he encountered, the general impression of human imagination and inventory in civilizations and the era is exciting and affirming for life.
But as Louvre Laurence des Cars have admitted, a visit to the overcrowded museum can also be a “physical experience” and some facilities urgently need updating. Last month, President Macron announced a six -year -old restoration project, including a special entry for Mona Lisa’s viewing. Most visitors for the first time make for the top 10 stops separated by Louvre, including Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and winged victory. I have excluded these from my personal choice, and also 30 further recommended on the Museum’s guide map, assuming visitors will look for them according to their preferences. The following choices reflect my taste, but each is an indisputable masterpiece, demonstrating the quality of Louvre in all areas.
1. Akhehenate’s bust (1352–1335bc)
More than 3,000 years old, this excerpt of the sandstone with its face and chin fantastically elongated, the almond eyes and full lips is so vibrant, so abstracted that it shrinks millennia, calling on Modiglian or cubist sculpture . Against the protests, Pharaoh Akhenaten introduced monotheism – worship of the sun god alone – and decreed an exciting, newly stylized art to express it. For me, this androgenous, quasi-geometric figure, with wings cross-crucified on his chest and a blurred-high expression, full of internal determination-is the most enigmatic character of Louvre. Room 638, level 1, sully arm
2. Lamassu (720–705bc)
Flooded with natural light through its glass roof, Cour Khorsabad is home to the excavated remnants of a city built by Assyrian King Sargon II near today’s Mosul. It is a great evocation, abundant, unacceptable of a courtyard in the extraordinary Palace of Sargon, which was guarded by these wonderful hybrid animals, each carved by a single block of 28 tons of alabaster. The combination of the protective powers of different animals, Lamassu has bodies and ears of bulls, eagles’ wings and human faces with harsh eyebrows, but benevolent smiles. Expressive carving, describing wool, feathers and hair as dramatically repeated, shortened shapes, adopts them with life and monumentality – they are at the same time loving and magnificent. Room 229, Level 0, Richelieu arm
3. Borghese Centaur (AD100–200)
White marble sculptures, mostly Roman copies of Greek originals, have shone in the arched des cariatides since the 17th century. Among the many nice creatures, Centaur of Grizzled, his human head tweaked at an unexpected angle from the excited cupid riding his back, is sometimes attractive: the metaphors for age and youth, the suffering of love, the immature nature against civilization. Room 348, level 0, sully arm
4. ‘Madona of Chancellor Role’ (1435) by Van Eyck
Northern Renaissance painting tends to be overlooked in Louvre; Last year’s special exhibition, dedicated to this endless attractive, mysterious painting, welcomed it. In his strange contrasts – the charismatic chancellor of this world, wet, charismatic boldly described at the same scale as Virgin; The Burgundian city of miniature miniaturized, idealized in the distance; The Italian Loggia, giving a strange secret small garden, – the world of medieval lighting miraculously meets at the dawn of Flemish naturalism. Room 818, Level 2, Richelieu arm
5. ‘Virgin and Child with four angels’, 1464–69 by Agostino di Duccio
The facilitation of Duccio’s forged marble shows his overall debt to Donatello – naturalism, dynamism, pleasure of spatial illusion – and what is his special: linear ash, arabesques of shaky draperia and tender, echoing him, Continued heads, making marbles appear almost essential. Gallery Donatello under-visited has a wealth of individual sculptures, engraving Madonna and children from little younger contemporaries of the great Florentine pioneer, but no one moves more than Duccio’s. Room 160, Level -1, Denon Wing
6. ‘A table of desserts’ (1640) by Jan Davidsz The Home
The velvet curtains are included aside and large steep fruit plate, the embedded bronze shade with its bird lid and a detailed bend, poses as actors at the two -meter tabletop of de Heem. Material accuracy belongs to the Dutch tradition of life; Carefully composed-coated arrayal with half-cut grapes, bare cloth-jelly a baroque emotion of luxury abandonment as well as abundance. The famous cubist version of Matisse of this painting (1915, Moma) tributes De Heem’s architectural construction. De Heem’s painting is currently on tour at the Cambridge Fitzwilliam Museum until April. Room 840, Level 2, Wing Richelieu (from April)
7. ‘Four Seasons’ (1660-64) from Paussin
High on the Richelieu arm, I usually find myself only with pussins: cerebral, clear and patterns of stoicism. Their emotional impact is slowly and with particular solemnity in this perfect interpretation of the power, brightness and variety of nature. The “spring”, perfectly balanced light and shade, is set in the morning. Roasted corn blocks at noon announce “summer”. The evening throws shadows over the harvest of the “autumn” grapes, with its allusion to bacchic savagery; Then comes the shock of flooding and death in the wild “winter” of the moon – still a classic painting, but showing much ahead of romanticism. Room 825, Level 2, Richelieu arm
8. ‘Embarry for Cythera’ (1717) by Watteau
Watteau invented firm celebrationsoftening the pastoral idyll in aristocratic parties in nature. Light elegance – Lithites, snake figures, rusty silk dresses, rhythmic choreography, ventilated environments – evokes old regime Privilege but transcends it: an eternal celebration of pleasure and freedom moistened in delicate feather brushes, broken touches and light light, with notes of fragility, melancholy, passage. This was Monet’s favorite work in Louvre. Room 917, level 2, sully arm
9. ‘Strawberry basket’ (1761) by Chardin
Louvre’s latest acquisition was achieved by a donation by LVMH Bernard Arnault and 10,000 individual contributions, proving Chardin a beloved emblem of French painting and cultural identity. The strawberry pyramid, their lush red reflected in the glass of water, the balanced color from the right cherries and the silver accents of scattered flowers, is an extraordinary example of its transparency of light, color harmony, Poetry in obvious simplicity. It will join Chardin’s rooms this year. Room 920, Level 2, Sully Wing (to confirm)
10. ‘The Women of Algerians’ (1834) by Delacroix
No visitor lacks the big pictures of romantic statements – Géricault’s “Raft of the Medusa”, Delacroix’s “Death of Sardanapalus” – in the Rouges Hall. The little jewel (relatively) here is the most beautiful delacroix painting, recently cleaned, lit in its chromatic complexity and limpid strokes. The inch of the “algase women” is a surface for sensuality and seduction – stained embroidered suits, shiny earrings, ankles, pearls, a pale rose on dark hair, randomly cast gold slippers in pattern – nevertheless These women adorned with glory are impassive, with indifferent glory to us. Cézanne said this painting “goes into the eye like a glass of wine. . . And it makes you drunk right away. ” Room 700, Level 1, Denon Wing
What is your favorite work of art in Louvre? Tell us about this in the comments below. AND Follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @Ftglobetrotter
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