This article is part of the Paris Guide to FT Globetrotter
The former royal palace and the world’s largest and most visited museum, the Louvre exhibits approximately 35,000 works from 7,000 BC to the mid-19th century. Everyone gets lost and that doesn’t matter. Whatever the route, what it may be, the objects encountered are exhilarating and life-affirming overall impressions of human imagination and originality across civilization and times.
However, as Louvre President Lawrence de Cars admitted, visits to overcrowded museums are also a “physical test” and some facilities need to be updated urgently. Last month, President Macron announced a six-year restoration project that includes another entrance to viewing the Mona Lisa. Most first-time visitors will create top 10 stops selected by the Louvre, including Mona Lisa, Venus de Miro and Winged Victory. I have excluded these from my personal choices. We also ruled out an additional 30 recommended in the museum’s guide map, assuming that visitors will look for them according to their preferences. The next choice reflects my own preferences, but each one is an indisputable masterpiece, demonstrating the quality of the rubble bleak in all areas.
1. Akhenaten bust (1352–1335BC)
Over 3,000 years ago, this sandstone fragment reminds me of Modigliani and Cubist sculptures, as its wonderfully elongated face and whiskers, almond eyes and lips are so vibrant and boldly abstracted. Masu. In response to the protest, Pharaoh Akenaten introduced the worship of the sun god only – and ordered an exciting, newly stylized art to express it. For me, this hermosquito, semi-geometric figure with her arms crossing her chest and an ambiguous expression — full of lofty, questions, inner resolve — is the Louvre’s most enigmatic character. Room 638, Level 1, Surry Wing
2. Ramasso (720–705BC)
Natural light floods the glass roof, and Korsabad is home to excavated ruins of a city built by King Sargon II of Assyrian near what is now Mosul. It is a stunningly stepped, spacious, unforgettable evocation of the courtyard of Sargon’s enormous palace guarded by these magnificent hybrid beasts. Combining the protective powers of various animals, the lamas has the bull’s body and ears, the Eagles’ wings and the human face with fierce wide eyebrows, but with a merciless smile. Expressive sculptures, drastically repeating fur, feathers and hair, drawing omitted shapes, absorbing life and monumentality. Room 229, Level 0, Richelieu Wing
3. Borge’s Centaur (AD100–200)
The white marble sculpture, primarily a Roman copy of the original Greek, has been shining in the arched Sale de Cariatides since the 17th century. Among many playful creatures, within the Grizzle Centaur, his human head tweaked at a sudden angle, teasing the Cupid riding on his back. Room 348, Level 0, Surry Wing
4.
Northern Renaissance paintings tend to be overlooked by the Louvre. Last year, the special exhibition dedicated to this infinitely seductive and mystical painting attracted a welcome limelight. In that strange contrast, the secular, weathered, charismatic prime minister is depicted boldly on the same scale as Our Lady. The exquisitely miniaturized and idealized Burgundy city is located far away. The Italian loggia is donated to a strangely small, secret garden. The world of medieval lighting is incredible at the dawn of Flanders naturalism. Room 818, Level 2, Richelieu Wing
5. “Virgins and Children with Four Angels,” 1464–69 by Agostino di Duccio
Duccio’s finely smeared marble salvation shows that he stands out from his general debt to Donatello – the joys of naturalism, dynamism, the spatial fantasy – and himself. Donatello, an unvisited gallery, has a wealth of individuals, engrossed in the sculptures of Madonna and children by slightly younger contemporaries of the great Florence pioneers, but less moving than Duscio. Room 160, Level-1, Denon Wing
6. “Dessert Table” (1640) by Jan Davidsz de Heem
The velvet curtains are tidyed out, embossed bronze chalice with magnificent sloping fruit platters, bird lids and elaborately curved goblets, posing like actors in Dejeem’s gorgeous 2-meter tabletop theatre I’ll take it. Material accuracy belongs to the Dutch still painting tradition. Carefully constructed confusion – half-cut pie, spilling grapes, a messy cloth – gives a baroque thrill of luxury abandonment and richness. The famous cubist version of Matisse (1915, MOMA) of this painting pays homage to the architectural structures of De Hemes. De Heem’s paintings are currently on tour at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge until April. Room 840, Level 2, Richelieu Wing (from April)
7. Pushin by “The Four Seasons” (1660-64)
On the second floor of Richelieu Wing, I usually find myself alone with Poussins. Their emotional influences unfold slowly and are especially rigorous in this perfect rendering of nature’s power, splendor and variety. A perfectly balanced light and shaded “spring” is set in the morning. Midday Ripe Corn Blocks Announce “Summer”. Evening casts a shadow on the “Autumn” grape harvest and makes that hint into the wild of bacchic. Then there is the devastation and the shock of death of a creepy moonlight “winter” – still a classic painting, but showing romanticism far ahead. Room 825, Level 2, Richelieu Wing
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Wato invented the Fete Galante and contributed idyllic idyllics to the noble outdoor parties. Simple elegance – supple, serpentine figures, rustling silk dresses, rhythmic choreography, airy environments – evokes and transcends ancient privileges. Vulnerability, melancholy, temporary. This was Monet’s favorite work at the Louvre. Room 917, Level 2, Surry Wing
9. Chardine by “Strawberry Basket” (1761)
Louvre’s latest purchase was achieved through a donation from Bernard Arnault of LVMH and 10,000 personal contributions, and proved to Charudin the beloved emblem of French painting and cultural identity. Strawberry pyramids, their luscious reds are reflected in the glass of water, with cherry on the right and silver accents of balanced colours and scattered flowers, light of apparent simplicity, harmony of colour, transparent of poetry This is an exceptional example of sexuality. . This year I will be attending Chardin Room. Room 920, Level 2, Surry Wing (confirmed)
10. “The Women of Algiers” (1834)
At Sales Rouge, visitors have not missed a photo of the huge romantic statement. The (relatively) small gem here is the most beautiful painting of Dela Croix, which has recently been cleaned, sparkling with its complexity of colour and flexible strokes. Every inch of “Algiers Women” is the surface of sensuality and seduction. Embroidered costumes, sparkly earrings, anklets, pearls, pale pink roses with dark hair, pale pink roses casually thrown on a patterned rug – but these gorgeously decorated women are sober, we I am indifferent to this. Cezanne said that the painting “gets in her eyes like a glass of wine… And she gets drunk right away.” Room 700, Level 1, Denon Wing
What is your favorite artwork at the Louvre? Please let me know in the comments below. Follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @ftglobetrotter
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