JR and the Louvre Pyramid

30 years ago, March 29, 1989, the Louvre Pyramid, imagined by the Chinese-American architect I.M.Pei (still alive, 101 years old) was inaugurated by François Mitterrand.  The pyramid, has since, especially in the beginning, been criticized by many, loved by others (like me).

So, 30 years later, it was time for a celebration and JR got the job. JR does not only stand for Larry Hagman. It goes also for Jean René, a French photographer and graffiti artist, who works all over the globe. At the bottom of this post I have put together some of his works – ”stolen” on the net, as several other pictures in this post. 

JR already made a Pyramid installation in 2016, when he made it “disappear” – I wrote about it here. He has made several other installations in Paris. I wrote about what he did at the Paris Pantheon in 2014 here.

This time JR wanted the Pyramid to be more than visible, to somehow show what could be underground, under the top that we all normally can see. (In reality, we know that there is a commercial centre, entrances to the museum…)

During two days a some 400 volunteers, working in shifts, helped JR - cutting, spreading out sheets...

Rather late, March 29, 2019, we could see the result – on a large screen – filmed from above.

The following day, we could all walk on the decorations that had been so carefully designed and spread out all over the place. In a few days, nothing will be left - except some photos… You may actually have a doubt: Is this enormous installation, which finally could be seen only by a camera and lasted, untouched, only a few hours, the best 30th anniversary solution? One thing that I really liked though was the nice atmosphere and the smiling volunteering helpers!

JR was a good friend of the film director Agnès Varda – they made a movie together and he joined her when she received an honorary Oscar last autumn. She died at the age of 90, on this very same date – March 29, 2019.  

... and, as promised, here are some other examples of JR installations.

    

Pavillon Marsan restored.

I sometimes report on things around Paris which would need repairs, restoration, refurbishing… With all historical landmarks, it’s obvious that it’s not an easy task to keep everything in perfect shape. Sometimes some donators are around, but in most cases we also talk about tax money. So, some kind of indulgence must be there, but also admiration when you look on the results of some restoration work. I just recently reported about the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church (see post here) and here we can admire the recently restored outside of the Louvre “Pavillon Marsan”.

The “Pavillon Marsan” has some origins from the time of Louis XIV and was actually more or less part of the Tuileries Palace which stood between the “Pavillon de Flore” and the “Pavillon de Marsan”,  which was set on fire by the “Commune” in 1871 and then was demolished. (Some “pieces” from the demolished Palace were saved and can be found here and there, one example is in the Tuileries Gardens.) I talked briefly about the Palace in a post 11 years ago - in my previous blog.) Below we can see what the “Pavillon de Marsan” looked like after the fire… It was rebuilt after 1874 and it was then slightly remodeled to look like its “sister”, the “Pavillon de Flore”.   

So… let us just admire…

How to make the pyramid disappear.

Street artist and photographer JR has managed to make the Louvre pyramid (more or less) disappear. June 27 the pyramid will again be back to normal. If you are interested in JR and his work, you can go here. I can also refer to his Panthéon "faces", on which I reported here.

Visiting the “Cour Carré”, actually the older part of the present Louvre, built during the 16^th and 17^th centuries, you will get another surprise.

Eva Jospin (the daughter of former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin) has created a “panorama” with twisted mirrors outside and some kind of forest inside. The installation will remain here until August 28.  You can read about Eva Jospin here.

This made me have a closer look on the fantastic facades of the Cour Carrée, the Square Court, with all its “details” (including the chimneys). 

One can also walk out through what used to be the main entrance during the “royal times” and have a look at the outside. (You can read more about the Louvre in some of my earlier posts.)  

86 statues

During important restoration and enlargement of the Louvre during the 19th century it was decided to decorate the facades of the « Cour Napoléon » by 86 statues of “hommes illustres” (not a single woman!) Here they are! I don’t know who made the selection. There are a number of statesmen, some religious, very few military, but a large number of authors, painters, sculptors, architects… which of course is normal for a building, dedicated to the arts. 

During my absence, I thought that some of you might wish to learn something related basically to French history and art, so I made links to the biographies. (I learnt a lot while preparing this post!) 

Peter Abelard, Jacques Amyot, Gérard Audran, Saint Bernard, Nicolas Boileau, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Louis Bourdalou, Libéral Bruant

Comte de Buffon, Jean Bullant, Giovanni Domenico Cassini, Pierre Chambiche, André Chénier, Clodion, Jacques Cœur, Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Nicolas de Condorcet, Pierre Corneille, Jean Cousin, Nicolas Coustou, Antoine Coysevox, Henri François d’Aguesseau, Charles de Brosse, Philippe de Champagne

Philippe de Commines, Jacques Auguste de Thou, Grégoire de Tours, Philibert de l’Orme, René Descartes, Androuet de Cerceau, Etienne Dupérac, François Fénelon

Esprit Fléchier, Jean Froissart, Ange-Jacques Gabriel, Jean Goujon, André Grétry, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean de Joinville, Jean-Balthazar Keller

Jean de la Fontaine, François de le Rochefoucauld, Jean de La Bruyère, Jérome Lalande, Antoine Lavoisier, Charles Le Brun, Népomucène Lemercier, André Lenôtre

Jean Le Pautre, Pierre Lescot, Charles Alexandre Lesueur, Michel de l’Hopital, Claude Lorrain, Marquis de Louvois, François de Malherbe, Jules Hardouin Mansart

Abel-François Poisson (de Marigny), Jean-Babtiste Massillon, Cardinal Mazarin, Eudes de Mézeray, Pierre Mignard, Mathieu Molé, Molière, Michel de Montaigne

Montesquieu, Bernard Palissy, Denis Papin, Ambroise Paré, Blaise Pascal, Charles Perrault, Germain Pilon, Nicolas Poussin

Pierre Puget, François Rabelais, Jean Racine, Jean-François Regnard, Cardinal Richelieu, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jacques Sarazin

Claude de Saint Simon, Suger, Duc de Sully, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Le Prestre de Vauban, Voltaire. 

The Louvre bis

Normally I don’t make any posts on Sundays, but yesterday was again the 15th, meaning time for the mid-month theme “subways”. I thought therefore I could make it easy for me today by just posting some photos which I took on the way home after a nice meeting Saturday evening. Furthermore I felt that some night shots were missing to my recent post about the Louvre. Here are some.

I took a few more on the way. I guess you will recognise the buildings.

The Louvre

After almost 500 posts (almost two years), mostly about different sites in Paris, I have managed to hardly speak about the Louvre. There are many good and complete web sites about the Louvre, what you can find in the museum... (e.g. this official one), so the need to make a post is quite limited. However, I felt that I “must” write something! I think I will show you how to reach the Palace / Museum, which as such is easy – you can’t miss it – but there are different ways.

The present large buildings were preceded by an earlier fortress from around 1200, demolished and replaced as from the 17th century. The Louvre Palace was constantly enlarged until the 19th century. It was more or less used by the royal family until Louis XIV moved to Versailles in 1674. It became a museum in 1793. Napoleon III had his apartments in the northern Richelieu wing, later occupied by the Ministry of Finance. Since the 1990’s, all buildings are consecrated to museum activities. We must of course also remember that what somehow completed the whole complex, the 16th century Tuileries Palace (see previous post) was demolished in the 1880’s after having been set on fire by the Paris Commune in 1871. (There is now a discussion about rebuilding it.)

So how do you access the Louvre? I will mention a few ways – you can see a general map at the bottom of the post.

Of the present Louvre buildings, the oldest ones are around the Cour Carrée (Square Court) and the original official entrance of the Palace is on its east side, where you can face the old church Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois (see previous post). The large cobble stone paved court is surrounded by 17th century buildings, generously decorated. Another obvious way to approach the Palace is via the Tuileries Gardens (see previous posts), possibly passing under Carrousel Arch of Triumph, erected by Napoleon I. (Regarding the Carrousel, see previous post about the guillotine.) From here you will have a view of what is called the “historical axis”, from the Louvre via Place de la Concorde, the Champs Elysées, the “real” Arch of Triumph, La Défense. On top of this Arch of Triumph you can see a quadriga preceded by horses, originally taken from the Saint Mark Basilica in Venice in 1798, but returned a few decades later and replaced. (The horses you see on my Venice photo are replicas. The originals which were taken by the Venetians from Constantinople in 1204 and may date from the 4th century are today to be seen inside the Basilica.)
Other possibilities to enter are via different porches, coming from Rue de Rivoli on the northern side of the Palace or via the Pont des Arts (see previous post) or the Pont du Carrousel (see previous post).

You will somehow end up at the large Cour Napoléon in the middle of which you have the Pyramid (by I.M. Pei) from 1989. This is one way to enter the underground, created simultaneously. From the lobby downstairs you have today a much more comfortable and weather protected way to enter the museum and also a wide and nice shopping area, restaurants, auditoriums. You can also discover some traces of the Tuileries Palace foundations and some 14th century moats. Here, under the Carrousel is also the smaller inverted pyramid referred to in the Da Vinci Code. However, the famous Rose Line does not pass here, goingather through the Cour Carrée (see previous post). You can of course use the metro to reach the Louvre. There is the traditional Guimard (see previous posts) designed station “Louvre Rivoli”, which is decorated with items (mostly copies) from the museum or the “Palais Royal – Louvre” station (with its different entrance design, see previous post) which gives direct access to the underground facilities.