Quite possibly the most famous Art museum in the world lives in Paris underneath and around the instantly recognisable glass pyramid. As well as being one the most famous museums in the world, it also holds what many consider to be the most famous painting in the world, it certainly divides opinion but I’ll come onto that later. Although the Louvre maybe the most famous, what we have to work out though, if it is the best.
Word on the street is that it takes three days to explore the Louvre in full…it is literally that big. And whilst most people who visit this will instantly head towards that painting, it’s somewhat of an understatement to suggest that’s the only thing worth looking at in this huge collection of art. I’ll start of by saying that I’m not a huge lover of looking at these collections, but I am a fan of the arts as a whole, and it’s pretty hard not to appreciate things like this as they may well be the most impressive skill sets in the world.
As well as paintings, there are also a huge collection of statues and sculptures. The Venus de Milo is a good example of that by being the most famous sculpture in the museum. Divided into creations from different eras and cultures, such as Egyptian, Greek and Roman, whilst the paintings tend to focus more on the Renaissance style. One of the coolest parts about walking round here was seeing a few local artists having their go at recreating the paintings on the wall….which they were having a pretty good go at!
So the most obvious thing to talk about is the Mona Lisa, probably the most famous painting in the world, yet so many people come back disappointed with it. The size of the portrait usually draws the largest criticism, with a lot of people saying it’s the same size as an A4 piece of paper. Is that true? No, it’s complete bollocks. The painting is in fact large than an A4 piece of paper. In fact so many people told me how small it was that it was actually bigger than I expected. Is it the most impressive painting I’ve seen though, no. Not really. I’ll be honest I would have rather see Da Vinci’s Last Supper painting, although it was hard to see through the massive crowd, four security guards and covered by a massive bulletproof glass structure.
If you can get past just wanting to see that painting to say you’ve seen it, and then maybe get over the disappointment there are so many better paintings to see here. In fact directly opposite of the Mona Lisa there is a gigantic structure that essentially covers the entire wall, it can be a bit frustrating as well to see that nobody is looking at that but rather queuing to see the portrait opposite.
For art lovers this place is a piece of heaven. I’ve spoken to a few people involved within galleries who said they have sacked off their entire holiday to spend a few days exploring everything in this massive museum. For the causal fan or just a tourist who wants to come here to see the Mona Lisa, please please please have a look at the other stuff here. I found Renaissance at school really boring but everything here is so magnificent that you really can’t not appreciate it. Whilst you won’t find anything modern here, the Louvre is something that you should have a look at, if nothing else to say you’ve been in the largest museum in the world.
Rating – 4.5 Stars
An Average Explorer 