Paris-Day 4

Paris-day 4

We had to go to the Louvre.  I couldn’t go to Paris and not go to the Louvre.  I wanted to see Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People.  I wanted to see Nike of Samothrace.  I wanted to spend a rainy day all curled up in a big ol’ museum.  In the biggest ol’ museum.  So Katy and I got up really early and braved the pouring rain to the Louvre.  Joey met up with us later; he’s not quite as crazy as Katy and I.

So we are walking into the Louvre and I’m bursting with excitement.  I am in shock that I’m about to go into the Louvre.  That I’m in Paris and I’m about to go into the Louvre.  It finally hit me that, oh my goodness, I’m actually over here!  So I was freaking out before we even got in the place.  Katy and I get in there and decide, okay, we should go see the Mona Lisa and just get it over with.  So we orient ourselves on the map and head up some stairs, and there she is, Nike of Samothrace, Winged Victory.  Okay, so maybe I cried a little bit.  But it was beautiful!  It was so emotional and impressive and intense!  And so old! 

Seeing Winged Victory like that really set the tone for the rest of the day.  After we took some time with here, I can’t deal with it anymore and have to see Liberty Leading the People.  We walk into this huge room, filled with huge paintings, and people, and there she is , Liberty Leading the People.  I cried, I’ll admit it.  It was so amazing to see this painting that I had studied so closely.  The colors, the way the paint was applied, oh my god it was beautiful.  The realness of it, the emotion, the drama….and it was right there in front of me.  I was able to experience it in a completely new way, by being so close to it.  It was invigorating.   I wanted to pick up a brush so badly in that moment; oh it was a glorious feeling.  To actually want to paint, to actually be inspired by something, to actually be moved by beauty…..! 

The other paintings in the room were impressive, and massive.  All of Delacroix’s paintings are stunning.  I’m just in love with him.   The way he handle’s color really appeals to me.  And to see the Napoleons Coronation and Raft of the Medusa….oh my gosh both of them are HUGE.  Larger than life, you are inside the painting.  It’s wild! 

After my little sob-fest and excitement over the large-scale French painting room, we went to see the Mona Lisa.  On the way to see her we passed some really beautiful da Vinci’s that no one was looking at.  And we saw Caravaggio’s Death of the Virgin, which was stunning and upsetting.  No one was looking at these paintings though!  They were all crowded around the Mona Lisa, pushing each other and freaking out and taking tons of photos.  It was, in all honesty, more fun to look at the people looking at the Mona Lisa. 

After all of the morning excitement Katy and I are hungry, so we treated ourselves to our first meal out in Paris, at the Museum café!  We sat and stared out the window, watching the rain and the people outside the Louvre. 

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur to me.  We saw so much!  Napoleon’s quarters are maintained there, like they were back in the day.  They were opulent, over the top, and in all honesty, ridiculously silly.  I actually walked into a room at one point, my jaw dropped and I couldn’t say anything but, “this is silly!”, while next to me a French woman was remarking, “Magnifique!”.  I think that sums op the difference between the Puritan-inspired American mind set and the French. 

The most wonderful thing about the Louvre is that it’s a palace and a museum.  So I was in a palace, which was awesome and played into my girliness, and I was in a museum, which played into my nerdiness.  It was so fun!  It was just fun to be in this beautiful huge palace and to see all of this art and artifacts.  It was also beautiful, exciting and inspiring…but most importantly it was fun!

By the end of the day, the sun had come out.  The three of us had decided to all split up and meet up a bit later, so we could then go and catch our plane.  I decided to go say goodbye to all the Delacroix’s, and then I went and sat in this beautiful sculpture atrium.  I listened to coldplay and drew and looked at the beautiful, sunny room around me.  I was listening to a song I particularly liked, staring at the way the light was coming in through the windows in the ceiling, when it all sort of struck me.  I was so content and moved and filled with happiness because of all of the beauty I had seen and experienced that day.  And it all made sense for me then; there is a point and a meaning to painting:  it’s the beauty of the process, of the paint itself, of the painting, of the seeing of paintings, the beauty is the point.  Beauty has meaning.  I don’t even know how to explain what I felt, I just felt so happy in that moment, all I could do was smile.  It was such a perfect day….

 

Emily