Elephant in Tiger Skin: Paris, Day 4

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Paris, Day 4 :: The Museums

Monday was our last day in Paris until Friday, so we decided to knock both the Louvre and the de l'Orangerie out of the way. Both were very impressive. As usual, we did a fair share of just walking around. I can't say it enough- Paris is just beautiful.

Monet's Water Lillies take up the walls of two entire rooms at the Musee de l'Orangerie. Very impressive. The color's in Monet's water lillies are almost not normal, due to his ability to see some ultraviolet wavelength's after the lens on his right eye was removed (to save his vision from cataracts).

Couldn't handle all the excitement.

Paris really does have some of the best, if not the best, public spaces in the world.

The Louvre holds the world's most valuable art, but it is a piece of art in and of itself. It is the most visited museum in the world, and for great reason. It houses more than 380,000 objects in more than 652,000 square feet of real estate. It's roots date back to the 12th century when it used to be the royal palace. In a brilliant move Louis XVI starting building Versailles in the late 1680's to become the official royal headquarters, leaving this entire building to house the royal jewels and whatnot. (More on that in the next post.) After the French Revolution in 1793 it finally opened to the public as an art museum. If nothing else, the French know a thing or two about sheer opulence. This thing is absolutely ridiculous.

Nothing like mother's milk...

The Nike of Somathrace.

Discovered in 1863, this marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike (Victory) is estimated to have been carved around 190 B.C. Think about it. With all this nonsense going on in Greece at the moment, you think they'd try their hand at sculpting again. Just a thought.