Day 6 - the Louvre (faces and bodies) [August 23, 2024]

[Ed Note: this post is one I started more than a year ago, and forgot to post.  It is part 4 of a report on my day at the Louvre!]

Nourished and rested up from the food break (i don't think you really CAN do a trip to the Louvre without accounting for the need to recharge), I returned to my wanderings.  I spent a bit longer in my exploration of portraiture, back in the 15th and 16th centuries in Northern Europe.  

I love the seriousness of face in this portrait done by Hans Holbein the Younger of Sir Henry Wyatt (counseller to Henry VIII).  I like to think that his facial expression makes visible the internal discomfort he must have felt about his King's very bad domestic behaviour in terms of divorcing or offing his wives?  I also like it that the date of the painting is 1535-1537.  Artistic production takes time!  :-) 

Also, there is this portait by/of Albrecht Dürer.  In my mind, I mostly associated him with printmaking and woodblock prints.  He was another of these people with fluency across media.  This is one of his first self-portraits, apparently sent as a gift to his betrothed.  Much to be said about how to read it (and the layers of interpretation in thistle), but for sure it shows his skill in fabric and skin.  

Plus, he was quite the beauty!  So visible in a closeup! (and there is something I like about his attention to his beauty)

direct but enigmatic gaze?

Something equally lovely in the "Portrait of Caspar von Köckeritz" by Lucas Cranach the Elder.  It is hard to really capture the feel of being in front of the paintings (the glass always disrupts the view in a photo), but that didn't stop me from trying to take photos!  :-) I kept reminding myself that there are lovely closeups of most paintings out on the Louvre website, in this case here: https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010065502

As I thought about my experience of spending time with these two beautiful portraits, I wondered if I found it a bit more 'comfortable' standing in front of Cranach painting than the Dürer one one precisely because he is NOT looking directly at the viewer!  :-). 

Close by was another portrait by Lucas Cranach the Elder.  

This one was of John Frederick the Magnanimous, Crown Prince of Saxony (1503-1554).

I don't know too much about this chap.  Not sure why and how he was held to be 'magnanimous'.  But the internet does say that during his life, he had the largest library in all of Germany.  So that is something!

At some point, I realized the day was getting away from me.  I had really enjoyed myself in the less crowded Richlieu Wing, but knew it was time to branch out to other parts of the museum, to re-visit some works of art I had loved on other visits. 

With gratitude to that Nintendo DS audioguide map, I starting searching  to find a relatively short pathway to the sculptuary!   Off I went.  There were lots of steps to take, crowds to move past, and several missteps, but I finally got there. 

How can artists create something so soft looking from something as hard as stone?  Nicholas Cordier's "Three Graces" is a perfect example.   

Hard not to want to just reach and out touch them (or imagine being the person braiding their hair!

I kept wandering until I found another one of my favourites, Sleeping Hermaphrodite (the son of Hermes and Aphrodite).  

I saw this sculpture for the first time on a trip to the museum with Arta and Bonnie, way back in 2014. [ed note:  a blog post from 2014 reports that we were the last ones to hand in our audio-guides and leave the museum!  Some things just don't change.]

In any event, it is such a fantastic piece of androgynous gender-blending trans beauty. 

 

The thing about sculptures is that they require you to 'move'.  There is just no way to engage with the amazing object before you other than to keep moving to see how it opens up new vistas of amazingness to you as you continue to move around it (uh....is that like a metaphor for life or something?).  Anyways, I did try doing that with my camera to see if I could remind myself of all the angles.  Here is 20 seconds or so: https://youtu.be/t1Y1ivF7lxk

[Editor note:  flash forward a year.... when i was wandering around the internet reading more about the sculpture, I came across this fun 8 minute 'gallery talk' dealing with a 3d printed version of the scultpure that is at Museum of Antiquities at the University of Saskatchewan!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAT665gevgU]

Finally, I came to the conclusion that my energies were finally fully depleted, and that it was time to head back home.   I stopped for a few parting selfies up through the glass pyramid in the central hall, capturing the late afternoon clouds.   And then called it a day!

[Editor note:   Here are links to the other 3 posts (from back in 2024) summarizing my full day of dousing myself in different parts of the Louvre.  Too much?!   Hardly!   The accounts are for those who, like me, start when the doors open, and are the last ones kicked out at the end of the day!]

1. The Richlieu Wing (the first 4 paintings) [featuring Duncan?]

https://larchhaven.blogspot.com/2024/08/paris-day-6-louvre-richlieu-wing-first.html

2.  The Richlieu Wing (a lot more paintings!)

https://larchhaven.blogspot.com/2024/08/paris-day-6-still-in-richelieu-wing.html

3. "And it just keeps going (Northern Europe, 15th and 16th C"

https://larchhaven.blogspot.com/2024/08/paris-day-6-louvre-and-it-just-keeps.html