Louvre and Paris under snow

Akkadian kings- Victory Steele of Naram-Sin

Another lovely slow morning in the Latin quarter... By 11:00, though, somehow we made it up and out of the house and onto the metro. The metro line closest to us is wonderful, because just 6 stops away are we arrive at the underground entrance to the Louvre- no need to even go outside again! Which is what we did...

At the Louvre we went straight to the French romanticism room and ogled for a while at Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, which is basically a battle cry for the people and for democracy. We did the same to Gericault's Raft of the Medusa, the monumental painting which documents the true story of the sinking of the Medusa, after which 150 people clung for two weeks to a section of the collapsed boat- and 15 survived. We admired also the monumental works of Neoclassical France (of Napoleon's time) and the rooms in which the paintings are placed (wow!). Before lunch we decided we needed to at least do it for the kids. We needed to go see La Jocund. The Mona Lisa. As much as we didn't want to- how could we not? So we followed the throngs of tourists (and the multiple signs pointing the way to her) towards Da Vinci's masterpiece. The kids looked confused (after the 5 minutes it took to get up close enough to the painting to actually see it), then we went to lunch. :-)

That- behind bullet proof glass and a hundred or so people- would the famous woman with no eyebrows.
Ingres' Grand Odalisque- French neo-classicism embodied.
David's portrait of Napoleon crowning himself.
Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People

Gericault's Raft of the Medusa

After lunch we headed into the Richelieu wing towards the Dutch masters, but got stuck instead in a massive sculpture courtyard, then got sidetracked again in the fascinating Near Eastern section. This was a section I'd been through 10 years or so before and found completely uninteresting. For the past couple years, however, I've had to teach about art and culture from the middle east and I've slowly begun to learn/ appreciate the amazing cultures that came out of the area that is currently Iraq and Iran. In fact, their cultures are so under-appreciated and misunderstood, that I'm starting to find them more interesting than Egyptian art, which is seeming a bit overdone. Anyway, we brought out our little Rick Steves guide to the Louvre and walked our way through Sumerian art with its delicate and beautiful 4,000 year old jewelry and objects, to Akkadian with the intense Victory Steele of Naram- Sin that proclaims Akkadian power and strength over the now-vanquished Sumerians. Then came the Babylonian culture with the law code of Hammurabi, one of the first written legal codes that we know about (nearly 3,500 years old), and the absolutely amazing Assyrian room where we spent at least half an hour studying the massive temple of Sargon II, which was partly transported here to the Louvre...
Sculpture courtyard...

The Barberini Faun, one the most interesting Greek works.

Babylonian Law Code of Hammurabi

Sections from the Assyrian temple of Sargon II.

Some sort of winged spirit shaking purifying water onto visitors to the king- from a pine cone!

detail from Assyrian relief carving

On the entrance to the throne room in cuneiform- basically, "I am wonderful. Bow before me."

After another visit to a sculpture courtyard (where are they all coming from and how do we stumble into something so large?) and a visit to Napoleon II's apartments, we decided to brave the Parisien snowstorm. 2 inches in one day is really, really rare here so we were excited to see what was happening outside the nice dry, cozy, warm Louvre. We took a metro near to our neighborhood, and decided to walk the 9 or 10 blocks from there.

Our feet were soaked by the 3rd block but we were immensely entertained by the gleeful snowball fights and the ladies in high heels-turned roller skates. We grabbed a quick (incredible) dinner at a little Turkish dive then went home to relax while Sven went out to get photos of Paris in winter...

Gotta love Gothic.

From Napoleon II's curio cabinet

Boy riding a turtle

Napoleon's Apartments.

walking home...

Those are some high heels! And she passed us too...

Sven's Evening Photos....

Champs Elysees

The flying buttresses of Notre Dame.

Notre Dame.