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Louvre

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

The Louvre (Musée du Louvre) in Paris, France, is the most visited and famous art museum in the world. The structure is located on the Right Bank in the 1er arrondissement between the Seine River and the Rue de Rivoli.

The structure originated as the palace during the Capetian dynasty under the reign of Philip II. The building holds some of the world's most famous works of art, such as Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, The Virgin and Child with St. Anne, Madonna of the Rocks, Jacques Louis David's Oath of the Horatii, Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People and Alexandros of Antioch's Venus de Milo. The equestrian statue of Louis XIV constitutes the starting point of the "axe historique", but the palace is not aligned on this axis.

History

Construction and architecture

Palais du Louvre

The present-day Louvre has been the result of a series of successive building projects completed over the past 800 years. The origin of the term Louvre is murky. First, Potter contends that King Philip II of France referred to the structure as L'Œuvre (French language: The Masterpiece) because it was the largest building in 13th century Paris. Second, Sauval proposes that the name references an old Anglo-Saxon term leouar meaning "castle" or "fortress". Additionally, Edwards posits that the name stems from the word rouvre meaning oak, referring to the building's location in a forest.

Regardless, a fortress style structure was built under Philip Augustus from 1190 to 1202 in order to defend Paris against Norman attacks. It is unknown whether this is the first building to be constructed on that spot, although contemporary references refer to the early Louvre as the "New Tower", which indicates there was an "Old Tower". The only portion still extant from this period is the foundation of the southeast corner. Additions were subsequently completed, notably by Charles V who in 1358 built a defensive wall around the fortress and converted the Louvre into a royal residence, although further monarchs used the structure as a prison.

Louis IX (Saint-Louis) and Francois I added a dungeon and annex, respectively. Additionally, Francois rebuilt the Louvre using plans of architect Pierre Lescot. Following Francois' death in 1547, his successor Henry II retained the architect, and the Louvre saw completion of the west and south sides alongside the addition of Jean Goujon's bas-relief sculptures. Lescot's renovations modified the Louvre from a fortress to the style of structure visible today.

In 1594 King Henry IV united the Palais du Louvre with the Palais des Tuileries, which had been constructed by Catherine de Medici. This "Grand Design" called for a Grande Galerie to built connecting to the Pavillon de Flore on the southern end and the Pavillon de Marsan to the north. To contemporaries, this edifice was one of the longest in the world. Louis XIII (1610-1643) completed the wing now called the Denon Wing in 1560.

In 1624 Le Vau Lemercier completed design of the Cour Carrée under the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, effectively quadrupling the size of the old courtyard. Progress on the building halted as Louis XIV choose Versailles as his residence. The Louvre remained unchanged until the 18th century when it began its transformation into a museum under Louis XV. However, this does not accelerate until the French Revolution.

French Revolution

The Louvre as a place for display of art, although not as a public museum, dates from the time of Francois I, however it was not until the French Revolution that the royal Louvre collection became the "Muséum central des Arts" and opened to the public as such. Historically, the notion of a public gallery intended for the display of works of art began in Paris at the Luxembourg Palace. This art museum, the first in France, was inaugurated in October 1750, following an article written by La Font de Saint-Yvenne. Saint-Yvenne voiced the first call for a public gallery, ideally in the Louvre structure. This gallery contained about 99 works which were located in the two wings of the palace. The collection, which allowed visitors of all social classes, was an enormous success, both with the French and those coming from abroad. Saint-Yvenne again criticized what he called the neglect of much of France's national artistic treasure and further requests for the Louvre as a museum began to mount. In 1780, the count of Provence and future Louis XVIII began moving works from the Luxembourg Palace to the Palais de Louvre, in response to both these requests and insinuations that the royal collection was not as grand as that of other members of the nobility.

The Marquis de Marigny and his successor, the Comte d'Angiviller then began developing the Louvre's permanent collection, which became legally authorised on May 6 1791. The museum then officially opened to the public on August 10 1793. From 1794 onwards, France's victorious revolutionary armies brought back increasing numbers of artworks from across Europe, aiming to establish it as a major European museum. Particularly significant additions to the collection were the masterpieces from Italy (including the Laocoon and his sons and the Apollo Belvedere, both from the papal collection) which arrived in Paris in July 1798 with much pomp and ceremony (a special Sèvres vase was commissioned for the occasion).

The sheer number of these statues forced the museum's curators into reorganising the displays. The building was redecorated and inaugurated in 1800, given its first director (Dominique Vivant, Baron de Denon, by Napoleon after the Egyptian campaign of 1798-1801), and renamed the "Musée Napoléon" in 1803. It continued to grow through purchases and spoliation (e.g. the forced purchase of part of the Borghese collection, handovers as part of the treaties of Tolentino and Campoformio) and was an attempt at creating a universal museum of art, with all the best sculptures - indeed, most of the art Napoleon directed his commissioners to take was sculpture rather than old-master paintings. For a short period, this allowed north Europeans to see the finest of classical sculpture without having to organise a grand tour to Italy. The collections shrank again when almost all wartime acquisitions had to be returned after Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo in 1815.

Louvre Pyramid

The central courtyard of the museum, on the axis of the Champs-Élysées, is occupied by the Louvre Pyramid, which serves as the main entrance to the museum.

The Louvre Pyramid is a glass pyramid commissioned by then French president François Mitterrand and designed by I. M. Pei a Chinese-American architect. The construction work on the pyramid base and underground lobby was carried out by Dumez: it was inaugurated in 1989. This was the first renovation of the Grand Louvre Project. The Carre Gallery, where the Mona Lisa was exhibited, was also renovated. The pyramid covers the Louvre entresol and forms part of the new entrance into the museum.

Le Louvre-Lens

Main article: Louvre-Lens

Since many of the works in the Louvre are viewed only in distinct departments — for example, French Painting, Near Eastern Art or Sculpture — established some 200 years ago, it was decided that a satellite building would be created outside of Paris, to experiment with other museological displays and to allow for a larger visitorship outside the confines of the Paris Palace. Sourced from the Louvre's core holdings, and not from long-lost or stored works in the basement of the Louvre, as widely thought, the new satellite will show works side-by-side, cross-referenced and juxtaposed from all periods and cultures, creating an entirely new experience for the museum visitor. The project completion is planned for late 2010; the building will be capable of receiving between 500 and 600 major works, with a core gallery dedicated to the human figure over several millennia. This new building should receive about 500,000 visitors per year. There were originally six city candidates for this project: Amiens, Arras, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Lens, and Valenciennes. On November 29, 2004, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin chose Lens, Pas-de-Calais to be the site of the new Louvre building. Le Louvre-Lens was the name chosen for the museum.

The new satellite museum, funded by the local regional government, the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, will have 22,000 m2 of usable space built on two levels, with semi-permanent exhibition space covering at least 5000 m2. There will also be space set aside for rotating temporary exhibitions. The project will also feature a multi-purpose theatre and visitable conservation spaces. The building is comprised of a series of low-lying volumes clad in glass and stainless steel in the middle of a 60 acres former mining site, largely reclaimed by nature. The estimated cost for this building is 70 million euro, or 96.6 million US dollars (at July 2007). The new satellite building was selected after an international architectural competition in 2005. The architectural joint-venture team of SANAA of Tokyo and the New York-based IMREY CULBERT LP were awarded the project on September 26, 2005.

Access

The Louvre can be accessed by the Palais Royal — Musée du Louvre Métro station. The station is named after the nearby Palais Royal and the Louvre. Until the 1990s its name was Palais Royal; it was renamed when a new access was built from the station to the underground portions of the redeveloped Louvre museum.

Management

Long managed by the French state under the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the Louvre has recently acquired powers of self-management as an Établissement Public Autonome (Government-Owned Corporation) in order better to manage its growth.

Directors

The director of the Louvre has in the past been known as its "Conservateur", and is now known as its "président directeur général". These have included:


Departments & collections

The Musée du Louvre's collections number over 380,000 objects, though not one of the world's largest collections, arguably one of the finest.

The Louvre displays 35,000 works of art drawn from eight curatorial departments, displayed in over 60,600 m2 of exhibition space dedicated to the permanent collections. According to the most recent Annual Report, published in 2005, the museum's holdings are as follows:

  • Near Eastern Antiquities
  • Egyptian Antiquities
  • Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities
  • Islamic Art
  • Sculptures
  • Decorative Arts
  • Paintings
  • Prints and Drawings

  • 100,000
  • 50,000
  • 45,000
  • 10,000
  • 6,550
  • 20,704
  • 11,900
  • 183,500

The hallmark of the museum's collection is its 11,900 paintings (6,000 on permanent display and 5,900 in deposit), representing the second largest holding of western pictorial art in the world, after the State Hermitage, Russia. There are large holdings from such artists as Fragonard, Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian, Van Dyck, Poussin, and David. Among the well-known sculptures in the collection are the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo.

The collection of Prints and Drawings was significantly supplemented with the donation of Baron Edmond de Rothschild's (1845 – 1934) collection in 1935, containing more than 40,000 engravings, nearly 3,000 drawings and 500 illustrated books.

Besides art, the Louvre displays a host of other exhibits, including archaeology, sculptures and objets d'art. The permanent galleries showcase large holdings of furniture; the most spectacular item was the Bureau du Roi, completed by Jean Henri Riesener in the 18th century, now returned to the Palace of Versailles.

Notable paintings

13th to 15th century


Louvre Abu Dhabi

In March 2007, the Louvre announced that a Louvre museum would be completed by 2012 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The thirty-year agreement, signed by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Sheik Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, will prompt the construction of a Louvre museum in downtown Abu Dhabi in exchange for $1.3 billion USD. It has been noted that the museum will showcase work from multiple French museums, including the Louvre, the Georges Pompidou Center, the Musée d'Orsay and Versailles. However, Donnedieu de Vabres stated at the announcement that the Paris Louvre would not sell any of its 35,000-piece collection, on display.

See also

Gallery

Medieval Fortress

Paintings

Sculptures

References

External links



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Last updated on Thursday March 13, 2008 at 04:25:21 PDT (GMT -0700)
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