The Louvre and Pompidou Center
What can a tourist or traveler say
about the Louvre? It's one of the
best-maintained museums in Paris,
combining historical buildings with
a contemporary accent.
I.M. Pei designed the statuesque,
glass pyramid that greets the visitor
at the entrance, as people travel down a long escalator to a modern
center underground. The pyramid sits in a square, surrounded by
the historical buildings of the Louvre
along with sculptured antiquities. It
can be seen from a distance, as well
as the Eiffel Tower and arches built
to commemorate Napoleon's victories.
The Louvre, Photograph
by Amy L. Fukunaga, Copyright 1997, All Rights Reserved
The Louvre houses well-known works of art including the painting of
the Mona Lisa, by Leonardo Da Vinci. I.M. Pei's design was completed in the late 1980's; an
underground center includes museum shops, a cafe, a post office, and also the gallery wings of the
museum.
A visitor to the museum pays a fee
downstairs, to enter the galleries,
then reads the printed map to find
the locales of the artwork. In the
huge museum bookstore are art
objects, books, multimedia items,
calendars, etc. There are two other
museum shops, one which sells
art sculpture and prints, and another
that sells postcards and printed material.
The Louvre Guide,
English Version
In the latter shop, I realized that the selector of postcards had
a sense of humor for along with the regular Mona Lisa postcard,
the shop had two other cards of the Mona Lisa - one with a mustache drawn on her face, and another one with an ugly picture of the painting. Both were like little jokes about the painting.
In order for us to view the original painting of the Mona Lisa, we went up several floors of stairs passing through various galleries which held many paintings and artwork. Up one staircase, was the statue of "Winged Victory."
Winged Victory, Photograph by Amy L. Fukunaga, Copyright 1997, All Rights Reserved
In another gallery upstairs, was an ornate ceiling painting of
Napoleon Bonaparte's return to France. The gold leaf on the ceiling looked authentic, and expensive.
When we finally reached the gallery with the painting of the Mona Lisa, we found it situated behind a glass exterior. The original painting is very small. I took a photograph of it, and captured other tourist photographers in the glass reflections.
Like all museums, there are people who sit and monitor the activity in the galleries. Usually if a tourist disobeyed the "no flash" signs, a monitor would shout very loudly, "no flash!"
Of course, tourists never read signs. Some of them did not realize the reason for taking photographs without camera flashes.(It fades the artwork.)
We had lunch downstairs in the contemporary cafe, right across the museum's bookstore. It was a baguette sandwich with soft drink for me, and a sandwich and wine for my sister, at relatively affordable prices.
Pompidou Center
My sister and I traveled to a section of Paris called, "Les Halles," to visit the Pompidou Center. The center was built in the
1970's, and serves as a contemporary museum/exhibition center.
The architecture of this building was most controversial when it was built. The "insides" of the building can be readily seen, and it provoked criticism from people who didn't understand the design concept. On the outside of the building are transparent tunnels of escalators, which visitors ride to each floor level for exhibit viewing. It sounds like an unusual design idea, and the building becomes a tactile interaction between museum-goer and exhibit.
I felt uncomfortable going up the transparent tunnels so Carol visited the upper floors by herself. I browsed through the gift shop downstairs, and bought myself a simply-designed Lamy pen. It's a German fountain pen, with a contemporary design. That set me back about $17.00. I don't think I would have purchased it if I saw it being sold in Hawaii, but I wanted to bring back a memento of the center.
Perhaps reflecting the following month's closure of the center, were the exhibits which appeared to be incomplete and not very interesting. A major renovation costing millions of dollars is now in progress at Pompidou Center.
Amy L. Fukunaga, Copyright 1997, All Rights Reserved
Bonjours
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