Louvre
From Paris Hotels Reviews
The Louvre – catch-all term for the palace and the museum it houses – cuts a grand Classical swathe right through the centre of the city, its stately ranks of carved pilasters, arches and pediments stretching west along the right bank of the Seine from the Ile de la Cité towards the Voie Triomphale. When Francọis Mitterrand added a futuristic steel-and-glass pyramid bang in the middle of its courtyard in the late 1980’s, he was making a statement; the Louvre was to be transformed from a dusty dinosaur into a modern, inspiring and accessible wonder of the world.
A cultural edifice as monumental and venerable as the Louvre no doubt needed a big broom to sweep away the cobwebs, but in opening up new wings to the public the state was only continuing a tradition started two hundred years earlier, when the French Revolution threw open the doors of the royal palace to the citizens of the new republic. And as architectural patron, Mitterrand was simply following in the footsteps of Francọis I, Catherine de Médicis, Louis XIV, Napoleon and all the other French rulers who have knocked down, rebuilt, extended or altered the palace. Even if you don’t venture inside, the sheer bravado of the architectural ensemble is thrilling.
The palace is now almost entirely given over to the Musee du Louvre, one of the world’s great museums, covering the finest European painting, sculpture and objects d’art from the Middle Ages to the beginning of Impressionism, plus an unrivalled collection of antiquities from Egypt, the Middle East, Greece and Rome. Giant in scale and stature, the French collection is nothing less than the gold standard of the nation’s artistic tradition.
Quite separate from the Louvre proper, but still within the palace, are three design museum under the aegis of Les Arts Decoratifs, dedicated to fashion and textile, decorative arts and advertising.
