Sunday, January 14, 2007

The Louvre- French Institution, Not French Culture - No Match for Italy's Museums

The ANNOTICO Report

 

France spends billions of dollars each year in promoting The Louvre, it claims reflects its own heritage. 

 

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 Italy having the greatest prominence, despite the French chauvinistic tendency.

 

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 ITALY. These included works by Titian, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci, the most famous being the  Mona Lisa. The royal collection grew and by the reign of Louis XIII, numbered roughly 200 pieces. Henri II, and Catherine de Midicis continued to enlarge the collection, as did others. When Louis XIV died in 1715, there were 2,500 pieces of art and objects. Until the Revolution, this collection was strictly for the private pleasure of the Court. Finally, the idea of a museum (originating with Louis XVI) was realized on 10 August 1793, when the Musie de la Ripublique opened to the public.

 

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 Atlanta

Sunday Paper - Atlanta,GA,USA
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 France were itself a corporation, the Louvre would be its absolutely amazing Mergers and Acquisitions Department (with much of its foundation laid by the always-acquiring kings of France).

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 France, as if these were French treasures (after all, the French murdered the royal family responsible for bringing them much of the art that is now at the High), but to the artists themselves. Would Raphael (Sanzio), Rembrandt Van Rijn and Diego Velasquez have wanted their art admired by Americans too financially strapped to afford the flight to Paris? Youd better believe it.

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 France spends billions of d o! llars each year in promoting what it has come to claim as its own heritage, this seems a bit disingenuous. A project like Louvre Atlanta is the kind of diplomacy that lasts for centuries, the kind that is planted in the hearts of children and grows with them to bear the fruit of statesmanship. At the very least, it may imbue them with a desire to visit Frances most successful business: the Louvre.

Stephanie Ramage is news editor of The Sunday Paper.

 

The ANNOTICO Reports

Can be Viewed, and are Archived at:

Italia USA: http://www.ItaliaUSA.com (Formerly Italy at St Louis)

Annotico Email: annotico@earthlink.net