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| Enjoying History and Art in The Louvre Museum |
Today, The Jones have visited The Louvre. They were driving from the hotel to the museum by their own van while they read two more chapters of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The Grandma has prepared a funny day in one of the most beautiful and important museums of the world.
They have travelled across the History, from Egypt to the Middle Age, the Catharism, the Jews and the Templar Knights; from the 17th century with William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes to the Contemporary Age with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Dan Brown and the Masons with their concept of utopic cities. All stories have had a linchpin: the transmission of culture from generation to generation, expressed in the most part of these cases with the symbol of a Rose.
The family has visited every room of the museum paying a lot of attention to every explanation of the local guides and asking as questions as they have wanted.
They are preparing a great party for next April, 23, the festivity of Saint George and they have bought different books to give to the rest of the family.
The Grandma has chosen a classic one: Marcel Proust's In the search of lost time, one of the best French authors of the universal literature. It's normal. She's 94 and she is thinking about the long past and the short future.
Today, April 20, she has been a little nostalgic remembering a beautiful letter that an old friend from Valladolid wrote her in a day like today, twenty eight years ago, a letter that she never answered...
More information: In the search of lost time by Marcel Proust
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy,
they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
Marcel Proust
The Louvre is the world's largest art museum and a historic monument in Paris. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement. Approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. In 2017, the Louvre was the world's most visited art museum, receiving 8.1 million visitors.
More information: Le Louvre Museum
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| The Jones are seeing the Mona Lisa in The Louvre |
The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum.
Due to the urban expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and, in 1546, was converted by Francis I into the main residence of the French Kings. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace.
In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture.
More information: Memolition
In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years. During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces.
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| The Jones are visiting the Louvre |
The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801.
The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum was renamed Musée Napoléon, but after Napoleon's abdication many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic.
More information: Golden Number
The collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.
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| Claudia Jones, Owlie and The Nike of Samothrace |
It has been claimed by some that the glass panes in the Louvre Pyramid number exactly 666, the number of the beast, often associated with Satan.
Dominique Stezepfandt's book François Mitterrand, Grand Architecte de l'Univers declares that the pyramid is dedicated to a power described as the Beast in the Book of Revelation. The entire structure is based on the number 6. Elementary arithmetic allows for easy counting of the panes: each of the three sides of the pyramid without an entrance has 18 triangular panes and 17 rows of rhombic ones arranged in a triangle, thus giving 673 panes total.
Dominique Stezepfandt's book François Mitterrand, Grand Architecte de l'Univers declares that the pyramid is dedicated to a power described as the Beast in the Book of Revelation. The entire structure is based on the number 6. Elementary arithmetic allows for easy counting of the panes: each of the three sides of the pyramid without an entrance has 18 triangular panes and 17 rows of rhombic ones arranged in a triangle, thus giving 673 panes total.
More information: History
The myth resurfaced in 2003, when Dan Brown incorporated it in his best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code, in which the protagonist reflects that this pyramid, at President Mitterrand's explicit demand, had been constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass -a bizarre request that had always been a hot topic among conspiracy buffs who claimed 666 was the number of Satan. However, the French President never specified the number of panes to be used in the pyramid.
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes,
but in having new eyes.
Marcel Proust
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