Baroque in the Louvre

My grandfather lived in Paris for as long as I can remember. So, I had unique opportunities to visit him a handful of times before his death. He was a mere 20-minute walk from the Notre Dame and another few minutes to the Louvre. So I’ve spent a fair amount of time in both these places and visited nearly every day that I was there. My favourite part of the Louvre, with all the paintings, the statues…. was the ceiling. I think I have more pictures of the ceiling of the building than the actual art shown in it. Now it’s a little harder to give credit where credit is due as for the most part since these sculptures and paintings were just pieces of the building rather than ‘art’ I have a hard time finding titles or artists names. That I apologise for but it beautiful. I didn’t know this sort of lavish decorating had a name but baroque it is, in all it’s glitzy fashion.

*note – these are not the pictures I took. It would be far too easy if I could actually find them. I’m sure they are ‘somewhere safe’. If you click on any image it should take you to the original source.*

                                                                           

The history of the Louvre is a long one. Starting in the 12th century with King Philippe Auguste up until Neapolitan. A few changes being made even after this. Originally designed as a fortress, thus it’s rectangular shape. It went through many Kings (Watch out for that sneaky Medici name!) who used it as a fortress, a palace, or sometimes both. Adding on to the building as it suits them sometimes for practical reasons and sometimes for vanity.

The beginning of it’s move from fortress to palace starts with King Charles V who was the first of French royalty to use it for housing. As it needed to be fit for a king his main attention was to beautify the inside of the new palace including adding a magnificent staircase.

King Francois I destroyed several of the old medieval style buildings to construct newer renaissance style buildings.Today the only part of the original building is called the Salle Basse dating about 1230.

I think in my research about the Louvre my favourite bit was that with King Henery IV came new construction on the Louvre including a massive hallway connecting the royal apartments inside the Louvre to the Tuileries palace (which was taken down in 1883) but having the same architect design and construct the massive nearly 1,500 foot long passageway would prove to be too boring. Louis Metezeau and Jacques II Androuet du Cerceau would start the work at opposite ends to break up the monotony of the building.

As each King (or Queen) added their own touches through it reflected not only their personal style but the style of the time. Unlike today where often we only get to change temporary things like drapes, they had at their request teams of people to tear down, build, or redesign whole buildings. Even though it wasn’t until 1793 that the Louvre was a natural housing for the artistic treasures of France it is hard to argue that the baroque style wasn’t plentiful in the interior design. The walls are a lavish display of power and wealth and although frequently religious in nature they also draw heavily from the symbolism of ancient Rome and Greece.

 

 

References

Bonfante-Warren, Alexandra. “History of The Louvre — Part 3 of 5: The Renaissance.” The Louvre Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 2000. Web. 15 Sept. 2016.

Colla, Phillip. “Ceiling Art, Musee Du Louvre, Paris.” Natural History Photography Blog. Oceanlight.com, 02 Jan. 2013. Web. 15 Sept. 2016.

“Galerie D’Apollon.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 20 July 2015. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

“History of The Louvre from Fortress to Palace Then to the Louvre Museum in Paris.” History Of The Louvre From Fortress To Palace To Museum In Paris. Www.eutouring.com, n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2016.

“Louvre Palace.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Aug. 2016. Web. 15 Sept. 2016.

“Louvre Museum Official Website.” Louvre Museum Official Website. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

“Inside the Louvre.” CNN. Cable News Network, 2016. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

The Ill-Matched Lovers.

Ill-Matched Lovers by Quentin Matsys c. 1520/1525

 

“A rover—short, old, and freeWith purse running over with gold,
Took a Venusberg lass for a spree
Who took clients like him in her hold.
That lass has her loose, lowly wiles,
Undoing his purse with its glut
While showing a face full of smiles
Like the grin of a flat halibut.”

~Anonymous, Dutch origin

 

This painting is very interesting to me on several different levels. The first being obvious, the man is fondling her chest and she is taking the opportunity to relieve him of his money with the help of an accomplice. What I find most interesting though is her face. While looking for more information I found several references to her face suggesting that she is enjoying the touching but I have to disagree. With a closer look at her face…

To me, she seems like she knows what she is doing but she is tired. This doesn’t read to me as a face that is experiencing pleasure but instead like a waitress who always smiles at the customers even though she has worked a 12-hour shift and just wants to be done with it.

I like how the light contrasts in this painting, with the brightest light shown on her. Almost as if she is in a spot light. Other common works at the time took the idea of halos, either obvious ones or more obtuse ones to show their saintly-ness. She obviously isn’t a saint and unlike the chiaroscuro use of light where you have a single light source that determines the darkness or lightness of the subjects that doesn’t seem to be the case here either.  Is she highlighted to make you aware of her thievery? It’s hard to feel sympathy for the man who obviously is trying to be the one who is taking advantage of the women.  Perhaps it is to show that she is, in fact just in her act? Maybe she is just paler and I am reading into things.

I feel this is an excellent example of humanism in renaissance art. While the shift to move away from the almost exclusive religious basis of art in the time was in full swing some sought to not only paint more realistic scenes but even controversial ones. Humanism wanted to portray actual people, doing actual things. to see things as they are both the bad and the good.  britannica.com states,

“Humanism and Italian art were similar in giving paramount attention to human experience, both in its everyday immediacy and in its positive or negative extremes.”

As artists moved away from religious figures and even the need for the divine in their art they looked to express what they saw. What was actually happening in this world and to  mirror these images back to the world.

While trying to find more information about this painting I also discovered a few other similar ones by  Lucas The Younger Cranach  &  Lucas The Elder Cranach – I had a hard time finding more information on both the Lucas’ versions (more than 40 versions of this scene!) I had little luck discovering which painting might be the ‘original’ as it seems there was a cultural understanding about this sort of scene. The earliest date I could find did seem to indicate Matsys had gotten their first. If you would like to know more about the Cranach versions of ‘The ill-matched Lovers’ I found a good blog by Jenny Brownrigg that you can find here where she analyzes 6 of these paintings. I think it can safely be said that many of her comments about posture, lighting, and appearance of the couples can also be applied to this painting.

This painting definitely has all the marks of humanism. Its realistic features (his face is the obvious one but also the lines in her face showing she is young but also tired) It is a realistic setting with a subject matter that is  certainly true to the time.

 

References

Ill-Matched Marriage. Wikipedia, 4 July 2015. Web.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ill-Matched_Marriage

Quentin Massys (artist). National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2015. Web. http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.52622.html

Chiaroscuro. Wikipedia, 1 Sept. 2016. Web. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiaroscuro

HUMANISM AND THE VISUAL ARTS. Encyclopedia Britannica, 2016. Web. https://www.britannica.com/topic/humanism/Humanism-and-the-visual-arts