Louvre

“ When, in 1642, he painted the beautiful interior at the Louvre, in which a mother tends her child in a cradle at the side of a great chimney near which her husband is sitting, the darkness of a country loft is dimly illumined by a beam from the sun that shines on the casement; and one might think the painter intended to depict the Nativity, but that there is nothing holy in all the surroundings, nothing attractive indeed except the wonderful Rembrandtesque transparency, the brown tone, and the admirable keeping of the minutest parts. ”

“ After this the moyen-age Louvre, attributable to Saint Louis and Charles V, with its great tower, its thick walls of stone and its deep-dug moats, came into being. With Francis I came a more sympathetic, a more subtle era of architectural display, a softening of outlines and an interpolation of flowering gables. It was thus that was born that noble monument known as the New Louvre, which combined all the arts and graces of a fastidious ambition. ”

“ It is strange how such high walls shut out the world. The court of the Louvre is in the very centre of the busiest quarter of Paris, thousands of persons passing and repassing constantly at the extremity of the long arched entrances, and yet, standing on the pavement of that lonely court, no living creature in sight but the motionless grenadiers at either gate, the noises without coming 45 to your ear in a subdued murmur, like the wind on the sea, and nothing visible above but the sky, resting like a ceiling on the lofty walls, the impression of utter solitude is irresistible. ”

“ This has nothing to do with the Louvre, except as showing that humanity is the same everywhere. If any other moral can be got out of it I have no objection.
All over the Louvre are statues of men who are famous in French history—those who have achieved fame in art, science, literature or war. They are here, and in stone that will last for ages ”

“ If the character of the architecture of the Hotel des Invalides accords well with the object to which that building is destined, the character of the Louvre is not less in unison with the spirit of the fine arts, to which it is consecrated. It is impossible for language to convey any adequate idea of the impression which this exquisite building awakens in the mind of a stranger. ”

“ The splendid palace of the Louvre, with its long façade of nearly half a mile, lay in the mellowest sunshine on our left; the lively river, covered with boats, and spanned with its magnificent and crowded bridges on our right; the view of the island, with its massive old structures below, and the fine gray towers of the church of Notre Dame rising, dark and gloomy, in the distance, rendered it difficult to realize anything but life and pleasure. ”

“ No other edifice in Europe contains so vast a treasure of things beautiful and rare as the great royal palace of the Louvre, whose growth we have traced in our story. From periods so remote that works of art sometimes termed ancient are in comparison but of yesterday to the productions of the generation of artists who have just passed away, we may study the varying phases of the manifestation through the ages of the artistic sense in man. ”

“ Enthusiasm and devotion knew no bounds [Pg 96] among those old craftsmen, but all is well-ordered, regular and correct. "He who mentions the Louvre to a Frenchman gives a greater pleasure than that of Méhémet-Ali when one praises the pyramids." In a way the Louvre is the most magnificent edifice in the universe; "four palaces one piled up on another, une ville entière." And when the Louvre was linked with the Tuileries in the real, what a splendour it must have been for former generations to marvel at! "La plus belle et la plus grande chose sous le soleil." ”

“ Eustache, and some other important buildings, I purposely postpone to the consideration of the Louvre and its neighbourhood, which, though later in date, form the heart and core of Renaissance Paris—the Paris of François Ier and his splendour-loving successors.
Most of the buildings we have hitherto considered are mediæval and Gothic. The Louvre introduces us at once to a new world—the world of the Renaissance. ”

“ And it is in this view that the continuance of the gallery of the Louvre was principally to be wished by the English nation—that the English artists might possess, so near their own country, so great a school for composition and design; that the imperfections of foreign schools might enlighten the views of English genius; and that the conquests of the French arms, by transferring the remains of ancient taste to these northern shores, might give greater facilities to the progress of our art, than can exist when they are restored to their legitimate possessors. ”

“ The Louvre, Paris, contains one of the finest art galleries in Europe, and with the Tuilleries, covers about eight acres, "forming one of the most magnificent places in the world."
In our limited experience at travel we have yet to find a single object of beauty or utility that is not the product of skill, of genius, of great labor. Every monument bears testimony of struggle, of bloodshed, of hard-earned victory; beneath every tomb that honor has erected rests the body of incarnate intelligence, fidelity, and courage. ”

“ They are all kindness to me. Whenever I wish to see any thing, I have only to speak; or to know, I have only to ask. At breakfast every morning we compare notes, and make up our list of wants. My first, of course, was the Louvre. It is close by us. Think of it. To one who has starved all a life, in vain imaginings of what art might be, to know that you are within a stone's throw of a museum full of its miracles, Greek, Assyrian, Egyptian, Roman sculptors and modern painting, all there!
I scarcely consider myself to have seen any thing of art in England. ”

“ A little more violent access of fury, a little more fiery declamation, a few more bottles of vin bleu, and the Gallery of the Louvre, with all its treasures of art, compared with which the crown jewels just sold are but pretty pebbles, the market price of which fairly enough expresses their value,--much more, rather, than their true value,--that noble gallery, with all its masterpieces from the hands of Greek sculptors and Italian painters, would have been changed in a single night into a heap of blackened stones and a pile of smoking cinders. ”

“ Let us draw the curtain on these scenes of horror, and pass rapidly from this period of fanaticism and cruelty, when the Louvre was stained by so many crimes to times more happy, when this palace became the quiet cradle of the arts and sciences, the school for talents, the arena for genius, and the asylum of artists and literati. ”

“ In order to study the Louvre aright, in short, you must be continually comparing. In a word, regard each work, first, as a representation of such-and-such a subject, falling into its proper place in the evolution of its series: second, as belonging to such-and-such a school or nationality: third, as representing such-and-such an age in the historical evolution of the art of painting: fourth, as exhibiting the individuality, the style, the characteristics, the technique, and the peculiar touch of such-and-such an individual painter. ”

“ I have seen very cultivated strangers gazing at the locks and bolts of the doors and windows at Versailles and the Galerie d’Apollon at the Louvre as if they were chefs-d’œuvre, from whose beauty they could not tear themselves away. ”

“ At the famous Louvre in Paris, they tell of a young girl who day by day wended her way to one of the galleries, where was exhibited a most splendid stature, and after an idolatrous worship, which seemed to sap and weaken with every visit the very springs of life, her soul yielding its all to this fair counterfeit, she finally closed her eyes in death, content to bear off as a last remembrance this beloved image to the invisible land. ”

“ The Louvre Musée is a vast collection of classified art, and occupies the palace of that name, any room of which will repay one's effort to see it.
Just wander about alone until some work of art compels you to stop before it. 144 Then look at your Baedeker and see if it is something noted. It tickles one's vanity to find one has selected a masterpiece without having it pointed out. ”

“ Gallery beyond gallery, hall within hall, temple within temple, new splendours opening at every step! of all the creations of luxurious art, the Museum of the Vatican may alone defy any description to do it justice, or any fancy to conceive the unimaginable variety of its treasures. When I remember that the French had the audacious and sacrilegious vanity to snatch from these glorious sanctuaries the finest specimens of art, and hide them in their villanous old gloomy Louvre, I am confounded. ”

“ Their dwelling, they called the "Louvre", and in their poor pupils, the eye of faith enabled them to discern ornaments more costly, more precious and more prized than all the splendour which art can devise and wealth purchase for the embellishment of regal palaces, for what is the value of a palace, compared with that of a soul? ”

“ The longer one lingers, the more one dreads to hear the voice of the guard who calls out the time to close, and when the spell is fairly on one who loves art, he will pass from Louvre to Luxembourg, and back again from Luxembourg to Louvre, unheeding the great, gay, bustling world that is surging up and down between. At the smaller gallery, modern art and living artists are better represented than at the Louvre. ”

“ That’s where art grows. Artville is Paris’ other name. It’s all there, Rue—the Loove, the palaces, the Latin Quarter, the statues, the churches, and all like that.”
“What is the Louvre like?” she asked, tremulously, determined to be brave. ”

“ Louvre?"
"The Louvre!—the lion's den!"
"The safest place on earth. See here, Monsieur Broussel. I owe you my life; give me a chance to make some return. Can you trust me enough to put yourself in my hands? I will not fail you. It is not Le Brusquet the King's jester, but Nicholas d'Ayen, Sieur de Besme, of the Quercy, who pledges his word." ”

“ The Louvre! Every letter-writer goes into ecstasies [261] over it, is struck with wonder at its vastness, and luxuriates in the inspection of its priceless treasures. The completion of the connection of the Louvre with the Tuilleries, made by Louis Napoleon, gives a grand enclosed space, surrounded on all sides by the magnificent buildings of this great gallery of fine arts and the royal palaces.
At one end, dividing the court-yard of the Louvre from that of the Tuileries, rises the triumphal Arc du Carrousel, erected by Napoleon in 1806, surmounted with its car of victory and bronze horses ”

“ The garden 387 in stormy light with a high-lying avenue spanned by a rainbow—the motive which he developed for the well-known picture in the Louvre—is found again and again in several pastels, which progress from a simple to a more complicated treatment of the theme. Everything is transparent and delicate, full of air and light, and the air and light are themselves full of magic and melting charm. ”

“ Of these the Louvre has a very rich collection, occupying many apartments, and comprising sketches by Annibale Caracci, Claude, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Michel Angelo, Rubens, Rembrandt, and almost all the other great masters, whether French, Italian, Dutch, or whatever else; the earliest drawings of their great pictures, when they had the glory of their pristine idea directly before their minds' eye,— that idea which inevitably became overlaid with their own handling of it in the finished painting. ”

“ The moderns are chiefly intent on giving certain lines and colours, the mask or material face of painting, and leave out the immortal part of it. Thus a modern Exhibition Room (whether French or English) 112has a great deal of shew and glitter, and a smell of paint in it. In the Louvre we are thrown back into the presence of our own best thoughts and feelings, the highest acts and emanations of the mind of man breathe from the walls, shadowy tears and sighs there keep vigils, and the air within it is divine! ”

“ It is not possible in a chapter, a book or a five-foot shelf to limn all that is even of cursory interest. The well-known, the little-known and the comparatively unknown mingle in varying proportions, according to the individual mood or attitude. To some the appeal will lie in the vastness of the fabric, to others in the varied casts of characters which have played upon its stage, still others will be impressed with the dramatic incidents, and many more will retain only present-day memories of what they have themselves seen. The Louvre is a study of a lifetime. ”

“ If England has no grand National Gallery like the French Louvre, she has works of art that would fill fifty Louvres, collected and treasured in these quiet private halls, embosomed in green parks and plantations, from one end of the land to the other. ”

“ He went forth, satisfied that the Louvre was a fine gallery of Art, that Art was a very fine thing, that painters and sculptors ought to be encouraged, and that he had been looking at many things which were worthy a man's consideration. ”

“ The establishment itself is a dazzle of decoration, a little corner of the Louvre. There is no shouting or swearing, but a pleasing hum. The calls of messieurs and the replies of garçons resolve themselves into a confused lulling sound. ”

“ The Great Gallery and Saloon of the Louvre are solely appropriated to the exhibition of pictures of the old masters of the Italian, Flemish, and French schools; and the Gallery of Apollo to that of their drawings; while a suite of lofty apartments has been purposely fitted up in this palace for the reception of original antiques, in lieu of those copies of them before-mentioned. In other rooms, adjoining to the Great Gallery, are exhibited, as formerly, that is during one month every year, the productions of living painters, sculptors, architects, and draughtsmen. ”