A former New York Times Paris bureau chief explores the Louvre, offering an intimate journey of discovery and revelation.
The Louvre is the most famous museum in the world, attracting millions of visitors every year with its masterpieces. In Adventures in the Louvre, Elaine Sciolino immerses herself in this magical space and helps us fall in love with what was once a forbidding fortress.
Exploring galleries, basements, rooftops, and gardens, Sciolino demystifies the Louvre, introducing us to her favorite artworks, both legendary and overlooked, and to the people who are the museum’s lifeblood: the curators, the artisans producing frames and engravings, the builders overseeing restorations, the firefighters protecting the aging structure.
Blending investigative journalism, travelogue, history, and memoir, Sciolino walks her readers through the museum’s front gates and immerses them in its irresistible, engrossing world of beauty and culture. Adventures in the Louvre reveals the secrets of this grand monument of Paris and basks in its timeless, seductive power.
Review
When I looked at reading this book, I will admit that I didn’t expect to get what I did. Instead of a light and breezy quick run through the Louvre highlights, Sciolino knows the Louvre and wants readers to learn to love it too despite the crowds, sketchy signage, and limits of what is allowed to be displayed there.
While many people see the Louvre as a necessary pilgrimage during a trip to Paris, others think of it as a mausoleum, a repository of dusty art objects. Its grand galleries, obscure wings, tricky labyrinths, illogical corridors, and narrow staircases can overwhelm even the most passionate art lovers.
Sciolino lives in Paris and knows this museum – well as much as anyone can as there are always nooks and crannies waiting to reveal unexpected wonders. As a journalist, she’s used to talking and connecting to people and getting them to open up. This is one of the joys of the book. She’s got the inside track to people of all levels who work there.
The very history of the building – begun about 800 years ago, then changed, rechanged, and rechanged some more over the centuries – leads to almost inevitably getting lost in it. Many who visit stampede straight to the big three – Venus de Milo, Winged Victory of Samothrace (Nike), and Mona Lisa – and then ignore or miss the magnificent things around not only these (admittedly) great works of art but anywhere else. There are other da Vinci’s close to the Mona Lisa? Who knew?
As I said, the heart and soul of the book are the interviews Sciolino does with the staffers: the curators, directors, restorationists, night guards (who’ll swear that the place is haunted), architects there to help take care of the things that are in need of constant attention, and the full-time firefighters who usually take about a year to fully learn the layout. Taken around by the fire chief, she got to go into areas few get to see and up onto the roof to get a spectacular view. All of these people are so enthusiastic and delighted to tell what they know, too. I get the feeling it’s not just “Oh, dieu, another person to take up my time” but rather “Let me show you this! And this! And here’s my favorite work of art. And you have to see this!” Or “And during a restoration, I noticed something about the statue that led me to look at a piece of marble which I realized fit perfectly onto one of Nike’s wings.”
I had to wander and get lost and forget about time. I had to come to know the works of art by making connections and starting conversations as I roamed the galleries— with experts, guards, friends, even perfect strangers.
Sciolino veers into areas of controversy – why it’s mainly naked women in the art and how few female creators have works there, the ongoing discussions about repatriation, queer representation, the view of minorities in art, and why doesn’t the Louvre have many artworks created post 1848. The Louvre has entered into an arrangement to loan its name and some artworks to Louvre-Abu Dhabi which has riled some people. She discusses the MNR artwork, the “orphans in the museum,” which are thought to have been looted from or taken under duress from Jews during WWII which were sent to the Louvre from Germany after the war and are now awaiting being reunited with the owners or relatives.
She also investigates frames and the fact that there’s a room dedicated to them, how the Glass Pyramid gets washed, why there are so few French Crown jewels there, and the long term planting project to bring more trees back to the Tuileries Garden. If you’re tired and can’t get close enough to the paintings you want to see, she lets us in on a secret. Go to the Flore wing where the Louvre’s engravings and drawing collection is, ignore a lot of signage telling you that you can’t enter, and then get the chance to be able to see the masterpieces there, right in front of you, which you can actually hold. Plus the people who work there appear to be ecstatic to show off the collection. Want to go through the museum by categories? You could try artwork with food or animals. Sciolino recounts a father and son looking at The Wedding Feast at Cana while the father asked his son what he saw. Instead of focusing on Jesus in the center of the painting, the little boy excitedly points out the two white dogs.
Should you arrive on a Tuesday and not realize the museum is closed, there’s still plenty of the Louvre directly outside of the Louvre. You can also get to a satellite museum – Louvre-Lens – by high speed rail. The museum can be rented out (base price 15,000 euros a night), which Beyoncé and Jay-Z did to make a video. And the Louvre has a particle accelerator which is dedicated to artistic investigations. Though it sounds as if you’d need months to wander around and see everything, Sciolino does show how to not only survive a visit there without losing your mind but makes it sound fun as she gives us a VIP tour. B
~Jayne
