Sunday,
January 14, 2007
The Louvre- French Institution, Not French
Culture - No Match for
The
ANNOTICO Report
French
museum directors, curators, docents and patrons, as well as artists, educators
and plain ol French citizens. have petitioned the French
government to stop "loaning out" French National treasures.
This all is
totally disingenuous, and totally incorrect.
The Musie du Louvre houses 35,000 works of art drawn from EIGHT
departments, displayed in over 60,000 square meters of exhibition space
dedicated to the permanent collections.
Those Eight Departments are
(1) Near Eastern Antiquities (Pre Islamic) (2) Islamic Art (3) Egyptian
Antiquities (4) Roman, Etruscan, and Greek Antiquities (5) Sculptures (6)
Decorative Arts [jewelry, tapestries, ivories, bronzes, ceramics, and
furniture] (7) Paintings (8) Prints and
Drawings.
Therefore,
Half the Departments have NOTHING to do with France, and the other half are
shared with all the rest of Europe, with
In
the article below, the editor resents the dis
inclination of the French to loan Art, and I even wonder that with
the French attitude, why the Atlantans are even
interested in using the Louvre's name, as International as the Art is.
In
fact, the naming of The Rinasccimento as The
Renaissance has misled scores of generations to believe that the French were
responsible for the revival of art, literature, and intellectual achievement
from the 14th through the 16th centuries, rather than the Italians!!!!!
Incidentally,
the beginnings of what is now The Louvre began when Frangois I began a new collection of art with 12
paintings from
Some
will attempt to tell you that The Louvre started with the library of Charles V
- installed in one of the towers of the original fortress of Philippe August -,
BUT that collection was dispersed, and Frangois I
began again when he converted the fortress to a Palace in the 16 th century
One
also must be sure to differentiate between The Louvre, the building, and it's contents, for the building under went numerous
expansions and incorporations.
Then
again, The Louvre has stature because of the patrimony of so many Countries and
Regions, plus it contains much important Italian patrimony. But is there ANY
Museum in France that exhibits just French art , and, could it come even close
to even ONE of ANY of the great Museums in Italy, let alone try to match
the Number and Quality of Content?
Fighting for Louvre
Sunday Paper -
By Stephanie Ramage
Sunday, January 14, 2007
A couple of weeks ago, the largest newspapers in
France, Le Monde and Le Figaro, began a series of op-eds
dealing with widespread criticism of the Louvre Atlanta project.
The series was prompted by an
online petition to put a stop to the loaning out of national
treasures that now bears more than 2,000 signatures of museum directors,
curators, docents and patrons, as well as artists, educators and plain ol French citizens. The petition illustrates just how
ubiquitous a misperception can become. In this case, that misperception is that
the treasures of the Louvre are French treasures. Most of them are not.
The Louvre is not so much a cultural institution as a phenomenally successful
business. In fact, if the nation of
Allow me to draw your attention to the fabulous painting Gallery of the
Louvre, by American artist Samuel Morse, which accompanies this column.
This painting, now on display at our High Muse u! m
thanks to Louvre Atlanta, shows a wall of paintings in the Louvre. I am sure
you will agree that it is exceedingly ambitious: Morse basically dared to paint
the best-known masterpieces of the Louvre in representational miniature. Pretty
clever, isnt it? Now look closely: Nearly all
the artists represented are Italian, Dutch and Spanish. Thats because the
best-known works in the Louvre are overwhelmingly
Italian, Dutch and Spanish. Yes, the Louvre houses marvelous French
masterpieces, too, but if all its non-French art were removed, this fine French
cultural institution could save some money on overhead by moving to digs a
third of the size of those it currently occupies.
That is how good the Louvre
has been at acquiring and maintaining the works of famous artists. And, thats great. Im more than happy to allow the
Louvre to do what it does best: take care of these fragile miracles. But the
Louvres greatest responsibility lies not with
Only about 25 percent of us have passports and many of those belong to rude
college students and pushy business travelers. The vast majority of
working-class Yanks harbor no illusions of ever crossing the pond. We cant
afford it. But to see average Americans standing at the High, holding
the i! r
childrens hands and explaining in reverent voices what they are seeing, is
to be profoundly humbled in the knowledge that this is exactly what the Masters
would have wanted.
I was there a few months ago. On my 40th birthday, I picked up my 10-year-old
son early from school and we went to Louvre Atlanta. There was one painting,
Rembrandts St. Matthew and the Angel, that
particularly interested me. (Rembrandt managed a transcendent intimacy in his
paintingseven today they read like personal notes.) There I was with my son,
more than three centuries after Rembrandts paint dried, looking at the painting
that Rembrandt made of his own son (the angel), thousands of miles from the
Netherlands where it had been painted. It was an astonishing moment.
The French detractors of Louvre Atlanta say that they object to the Louvre
being a storage space for items that will be used as bargaining chips in
foreign relations, but considering that
Stephanie Ramage is news editor of The Sunday
Paper.
http://www.sundaypaper.com/LEFTRIGHT/
ATLOpinion/ATLOpinionArchives/tabid/254/
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