The Musée du Louvre and it’s list of amazing art is endless and hard to know where to even start. We will help share a few pieces that you don’t want to miss on your next trip to Paris.
The Jardin du Luxembourg is filled with over 100 statues and monuments dedicated to artists. Authors and the illustrious women in French history and for a short period of time Jeanne d’Arc was one of them. Marie de Medici had the palace and garden created to remind her of growing up in Florence but most of what we see today was added long after she was gone.
In 1848 Louis Philippe commissioned twenty statues for the Luxembourg. He picked each one that went from Queen Berthe to Anne d’Autriche and included Jeanne d’Arc. The Maid of Orleans was sculpted in 1845 by Francois Rude and was placed in the south side of the garden in 1852. In 1871 she was removed for safekeeping and eventually came to live in the Louvre.
Jeanne d’Arc is normally captured in her armor and charging off to battle, but Rude decided to depict her in a dress with her armor at her feet with her right hand near her ear as she listened to the voices of the saints.
Eugène Delacroix, the leader of the Romantic movement’s most recognized painting is La Liberté guidant le people, painted in 1830 for the Salon of 1831. The painting commemorates the Paris uprising of July 1830, known as the Trois Glorieuses, that ousted King Charles X.
Liberty is the focal point of the painting, an allegorical figure rich with Greek imagery. Wearing the Phrygian cap that is worn by Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic and France. With her right hand, she is holding the tricolor flag of France and her left is a bayoneted musket. Her bare breasts signifies the birth of democracy, charity and motherhood and her free flowing dress conveys her movement as she climbs over the cobblestone barricades calling for all to stand up and fight.
Using the barricade as a pedestal, her movement evokes that of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, although the statue was discovered long after Delacroix painted this masterpiece. In the top right of the photo, the towers of Notre Dame rise from the smoke with a small tricolor flying in the wind. The painting even inspired Bartholdi when he created the Statue of Liberty, with her right arm holding up a torch instead of a flag.
Long before there was social media one had to use large format paintings to spread their propaganda. Napoleon was a master at this and when it was time for his coronation he asked Jacques Louis David to capture the event, or the way Napoleon wanted it to be told.
The Coronation of Napoleon (Le Sacre de Napoléon) is the immense painting that stretches 33 feet across the Pompei red walls of the Salle Daru in the Denon wing. Jacques-Louis David was commissioned by Napoleon himself, and didn't start the actual piece until a year later, with Napoleon making a few specific changes and additions to the painting that were a bit different from the actual event. The biggest being his mother, sitting in the balcony above him. She was not a fan of Josephine, and was still in Rome and refused to attend, Napoleon asked David to add her. The original drawing of the Pope had him sitting and looking on and the little Emperor said "I didn't bring him here to do nothing" so he was altered in the final piece to be anointing the ceremony. Also looking down from above is the artist himself, David added himself into the balcony over the Emperor's mother. There are many other little secrets hidden in this painting, including Jules Cesar. Just behind Napoleon’s shoulder, the Roman Emperor gives Napoleon the side eye as he raises his arms. Napoleon wanted to be aligned to the great Emperors before him and had David add his likeness into this snapshot of history.
Listen to the full episode to learn even more about these three pieces including the jealous sisters that tried to foil the whole thing.
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