To Europe and Beyond #12: The Louvre - Paris, France

Save This Page

Stumble It!

So, I'd only had a couple of hours sleep, I had a blinding headache, I felt somewhat sick and ravenously hungry and I had a head so lumpy it represented a very close rendition of the Himalayas as viewed from the air.

In short, I resembled a very disagreeable figure indeed, but what could I do about it? I sure as hell wasn't going to hide myself away until the mountains on my face receded and I no longer looked like a man who'd just been twelve rounds with a bull elephant. I couldn't let my physical appearance stand in the way of artistic appreciation.

Instead, I just grabbed another enormous sandwich from a nearby deli (is it just me or is the average Parisian sandwich longer than most motor boats?) and headed for the Louvre, determined to not let anything else stand in my way.

This trip had so far been little more than a loosely affiliated collection of disasters and injurious incidents but I was sure that nothing could go too wrong in the Louvre. So it was to there that I aimed my feet, looking forward to whatever artistic flair it could offer my battered mind.

I'd first been to the Louvre when I was just a rosy cheeked cherub (Christ, who am I kidding, I was a fat, obnoxious brat) and I must admit that it had been a little lost on me then, but much water had gushed under the bridge since and I found myself entering the building with keen anticipation.

Now, in essence, the Louvre's very existence had sprung from Napoleon's Imperialistic tendencies and, if this was the result of his determined bid to conquer Europe (and a damn sight more than that if he'd had his own way) then bring back Imperialism, that's what I say.

If it hadn't been for Boney and his desire to set up a place to put his spoils of war into then the Louvre would probably not be here and, I must admit, the world would have been a much sadder, much greyer place without his thievery.

It might have been a somewhat unsavoury moment in France's past as the guillotine blades ran red and men fell to the dirt in a succession of foreign countries, and many people may have died in hideous ways and much suffering occurred but hey, at least the French have a stunning gallery to show for it.

After walking dumbfounded (and feeling incredibly small) through the grand pyramid entrance hall I was then plunged into a series of apparently unconnected and unfathomable rooms and halls and separate galleries until my head began to ache anew.

After about a quarter of an hour I decided that it was blag time. I fumbled some fake ID out of my wallet, proclaiming that I was a reporter for the BBC, and headed back to the entrance to secure my own private guide for the duration of my visit.

It worked a charm and in little more than minutes I found myself in the charming company of a friendly, middle aged attendant who apparently knew everything that had ever been known or even forgotten about both French and world art and he also knew where the hell he was going which is always a bonus, especially when accompanied by someone as directionally challenged as I am.

I wandered for the next two hours in a wonderful world all of my own. People passed by and we passed by people but they were just blurred faces. I couldn't hear them and I couldn't see them because I was lost in a world of almost spiritual reverie, a world dominated by my passion for creativity and artistic expression.

We trundled through the Egyptian Antiquities and my mouth fell open at the stunning arrays of jewellery and finely crafted sculptures, and then mooched on into the Oriental section where my guide pointed out examples of Babylonian, Phoenician and Assyrian workmanship while I, trying to ignore the discordant alcoholic residue symphony that had recently exploded to furious life inside my skull, was making a very determined effort to see straight and work out what most of the objects actually were. I think there were a couple of sandals, lots of pots and a plethora of cats but I could have been mistaken as the pixies were descending rapidly and things were going weird.

Being an experienced visitor to museums and the like I was very aware of museum burn-out (you know, where pictures and exhibits meld into one coagulated lump and your back starts to ache as though you have been hit in the kidneys by a bowling ball), but I hadn't expected it to arrive so rapidly.

Still, I was here now and there was no way I was going to brave the entrance queues again so I'd better just get on with it.

Next up were the Greco-Roman exhibits but they were a little lost on me. Don't get me wrong, I do have a love for the ancient Greek and Roman cultures but one can often find oneself saturated by their inherent articles. I mean, virtually every major city and every major museum in Christendom has sections given over to such displays and besides, it was the art I was here for, not to look at a thousand and one different broken urns and spear tips. Saying that, however, the Venus de Milo was worth the admission price alone, shame there were little bits missing.

With this in mind we then hurried on to find ourselves in the Applied Arts section of the Louvre and suddenly, amidst the sculptures and tapestries, the carvings and the various other finely honed examples of patience and dedication, my backache disappeared and my interest levels rose once more.

This was what I was here for, for Rodin's refinery and Michelangelo's somewhat overblown 'Slaves'. not for all the other crap that can often be the museum's stocking fillers or padding.

I wanted to be inspired, I wanted to know that the infuriating artistic temperament which coloured and warped and intensified every moment of my waking day was, and had been, felt by others. I needed to know that I wasn't the only one going 'tits up' with the pressures of the Muse and her daily caterwauling that I should really be doing something greater than focusing on the minutiae which comprised my daily existence.

And here, to a certain extent, I found it.

Sculptures and visual 3-D art have always been my particular bag as I find them much more expressive and much less ethereal than their oil or watercolour brethren. I like my art to speak to me, I like to be able to touch it, feel the depth, see the contours and know that it is more than a flat representation.
Again, don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for Gaugin, Renoir, Monet, Titian, Van Gogh and their paint brush contemporaries but I just have the opinion that the vast majority of them are nothing other than supremely talented copy-artists and this view (albeit a fairly harsh one but come on, my head felt as though it had a hive of bees in it) was indubitably confirmed as I fought my way through a rugby scrum of overly enthusiastic Japanese and American tourists to take a glance at the Mona Lisa.

Now, whilst the Mona Lisa is indeed a wonderfully articulated piece of work I don't really think that it has a great deal to say about anything. Simply put, it is a picture of a woman (and not a very beautiful one at that) with a somewhat indecipherable look upon her face and nothing else.

It is not social comment, it holds no spiritual, philosophical, ethical or moral message and it fails, on every level apart from quality of composition, to speak to the listener's heart. It is quite simply a painting which has, from the notoriety of it's creator, achieved an undoubtedly overblown and undeserved reputation and, in all honesty, it's very presence in the Louvre takes away the gloss from a host of other more deserved works of art.

Take my advice and spare her nothing more than a momentary glance and then head off in search of works by the likes of Botticelli, Mantegna and Veronese and believe me when I say that exhibits such as the 'Marriage at Cana' and the 'Cruxifixion' are much more worthy of attention.

Though I don't particularly like religious art, I would still much prefer to view The Tears of St Peter or The Last Supper than look at the miserable visage of some unsmiling tart on any given day as, though the biblical import is somewhat lost on an agnostic hellbound such as myself, they still hold within their brush strokes a message for the community at large.

If art is not instructional or if it does not speak directly on important issues to the soul of the viewer then it should at least be interesting, it should at least grab one's interest and captivate it for a few seconds and, if it does neither of these then we should consign it to the mental bin marked 'bag of shite'. Ok, so I may be a bit of an artistic heathen at times but I really do think that I have a very good take on art in that I hold onto no preconceived notions and do not give it any undeserved respect and, if I don't like it then I don't beat myself up too much about it.

I've seen some of the most respected pieces of artwork on the planet. Some I've liked, some I've disliked but I have viewed all of them with the same criteria, this being a) what does it say, b) what does it say to me on a personal level, and c) is it any bloody good.

If it doesn't cut the mustard on parts a and b and if it then spectacularly falls short on part c then I just discard it and get on with the rest of my life.

It is, my friends, only art after all and one should always remember that, at any given time, there about a billion other more important events going on in the world than your conception of the art you are looking at. There are wars and there is famine, death, pestilence, plague and suffering, births and marriages, strife, drought and disease so, in context, the quality of a painting or a sculpture or a brooch or necklace isn't really that important in the scheme of things, is it?

Think about that the next time you walk around a gallery, stroking your goatee beard and giving off loads of appreciative 'hmmms' and 'aahhhs' and, at some point within the next ten minutes, you will probably find yourself doing what I did which was, in essence, to make my peace with the art world and head for the nearest bar with it firmly in mind to get as pissed as a human being possibly can.

Still, no sooner was I firmly ensconced in a booth with a chilled Stella Artois and yet another torpedo length sandwich (by now I should like to add that it had occurred to me that I should be eating something other than sandwiches all the time, just think of those complex carbohydrates girls, straight to the hips in no time at all) then it occurred to me that my artistic reflections were probably being a little coloured by the events of the night before.

There seemed to be trouble flaring up inside me between what I so wished the world to be (and what some artists would have you believe the world was like) and what the world was really like.

You had a girl, Monique, as pretty as you could find and seemingly of a good heart, more perfectly sculpted than any Michelangelo who had been twisted and, in effect, made ugly by the realities of the physical and actual world like an oil painting of a summer's day covered in dog shit (if you pardon my colloquialism). She seemed innocent and na�ve yet she was lowering herself to make ends meet and to try and better herself.

Her anticipation of what life would be like, all champagne and glamorous photo shoots and what life was actually like, being, in effect, a whore living in a dingy flat, were two very different worlds and I feel that it is to the guilt and detriment of many an artist and many a poet that life can be like this.
This isn't to say that I don't blame the politicians (hell, you know me, I'll take any opportunity to blame the politicians for anything) and that I also don't blame us ourselves (as human beings) for expiating certain myths on the true nature of existence because I realise that all life is to blame for the current state we are in.

This trip of mine was changing by the second. I had initially set out to put everything that was wrong or unhappy inside me to one side so that I may see the shining rays of spiritual dawn but I now realised that the only way that I could do this was to fully embrace the world and it's ways and accept that, quite frankly, shit happens and it happens more often than not.

Now, this may seem like a pessimistic attitude to adopt but perhaps pessimism must be broken through if optimism is ever to be encountered. If we accept the shit then won't the good times seem ever so much greater? If we notice the flaws of ourselves and others and accept our failings as a race then surely we can begin to see where we are going wrong and perhaps then we can begin to put things right. I mean, you can't fix your car without knowing what is broken, can you?

However, once a-bloody-gain, I digress so I will finish up that sandwich and wash it down with the Stella before I realise that it is still only late afternoon and I can still manage to fit a little more sightseeing in before I head for my bed and a much needed and much deserved good night's sleep.

You may have all noticed by now that my moods tend to shift around quite a bit but don't worry, I've come to accept that my moods swing from side-to-side faster than a ship's chandelier in heavy seas and I have also come to accept that, somewhere along the line, I have gone quite mad so it bothers me no longer. Sure, I railed against it for a while (especially when I was in therapy) but once you get used to the fact that you are starring in your own version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest then life gets a shitload easier to handle.


Save This Page | Stumble It!