Thursday, November 22, 2012

Paris - Day Five, Part Two

Links to all posts in this series:
Paris - Day One
Paris - Day Two
Paris - Day Three, Part One
Paris - Day Three, Part Two
Paris - Day Four
Paris - Day Five, Part One
Paris - Day Five, Part Two

This will be a brief post about the final few hours we spent in Paris last September. After spending some time with Monet's Water Lilies, we took one last opportunity to stop at the Louvre. This is Venus de Milo, a Greek sculpture that dates from the first or second century before the time of Christ:


This is Diana, the Huntress:


This is a painting by Renoir. I saw quite a few of his paintings at D'Orsey and in the Louvre and fell in love with his work. He and Monet are definitely my favorite French painters. Not that I know much about art - just sayin'.


This is a painting of Cardinal Richelieu that you may remember from your history textbooks. One of the things that struck me about many of these paintings is that they are often huge. This one is close to life-sized, if not exactly so.


There is a section of the Louvre that houses tombs of some long-dead important dignitaries.


There are also a couple of really nice atrium-like courtyards that house sculptures.



I think I mentioned in an earlier post that the Louvre contains impressive galleries of Egyptian and Mesopotamian art.


Just look at the detailed carving on these images and remember that they were created with primitive tools. I think you'll agree that the results are stunning.



Here's a man copying a sculpture in his notebook. This is a common sight at many galleries across Paris.


Here's Dave looking at a sculpture. This gives you a sense of the scale of some of these works.


Since the Louvre closed early in the evening (5:30, I think), we only got to spend an hour or so before finding a place to eat and returning to our hotel for our last sleep in Paris. The next morning, Thursday, saw us rising bright and early to catch a bus to Gare Nord, where we caught the Thalys train to Amsterdam. Our Paris adventure was over, but another adventure lay ahead. Come back later to learn more about our travels in Amsterdam.

2 comments:

Barbara said...

what impressive pieces of art!

Evie said...

Barb, the Louvre is absolutely, stunningly amazing. I can't believe how little we actually saw.