Life's like a book...: Kelvin & I in Paris (CDG) - 04 May 2009

Yes yes!!! Unbelievably, Kelvin and I are meeting in Paris!! Of course, Kelvin always has a better luck in getting a better layover. He has 72 hrs, while me, the usual 26 hrs. Staying near the airport, makes the journey to the city a little bit expensive compared to Gulf Air's hotel (in La Defense) as 1 way costs E$8.60, which makes it E$17.20 or 1day pass = E$18.50. As the summer schedule is a bit different, and I am arriving in the morning, took the opportunity to visit Louvre Museum. Though I've been to CDG many times, everytime I took things for granted and said museum,errr...next time....Since I don't know when's my next CDG, I better see Mona Lisa this trip!!! Entrance to the Louvre is at E$9.

Right below the pyramid of Louvre....

Some of the famous works in Louvre..... I feel so cultured for one day..... :)

The Coronation of the Emperor Napoleon 1 and the Crowning of the Empress Josephine in Notre-Dame Cathedral by Jacques Louis David

It took David three years to complete this vast painting. Amidst the 150 portraits of spectators, his skillful lighting effects play up these central figures, lingering over the brilliance of a jewel, the richness of a fabric, or the softness of a velvet cushion. David was the precursor of modern-day photographers who immortalize celebrity events in magazines where luxury is supposed to feed the dreams of the public.

Odalisque by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Courtesy from Louvre Museum's webpage.....

Here, Ingres transposed the antique theme of the female nude to the Near East, a place he had traveled to only in his dreams and the pretext for the sensual image of a naked woman in a harem — hence the title, The Large Odalisque — set against an exotic background. Until the end of his life, Ingres continued to paint exotic scenes and female nudes, one of his favorite subjects — as in The Turkish Bath — drawing on influences as diverse as Raphael, the Mannerists, and Persian miniatures.

Whereas Ingres, like his master David, was a classical artist in terms of technique and his interest in antiquity, which he showed in other works, he distanced himself from this trend by giving priority to draftsmanship, pure lines, and sensual curves, distorting anatomical reality if necessary. This odalisque has three vertebrae too many. Likewise, her right breast and left leg are joined to the rest of the body in a curious fashion. In contrast to this physical deformity, the heavy blue drapery, the turban, and the nargileh are treated in an illusionistic manner.

The critics of his day, completely nonplussed by this chimerical combination, berated his singular style. On the other hand, Ingres would have a strong influence on modern artists such as Picasso, who gladly borrowed his ideas and his manner of recomposing bodies to suit his own purposes. Besides, doesn’t the somewhat cold blue and gold tonal harmony lift this image permanently out of reality into an artist’s pure fantasy?

LEONARDO DA VINCI'S WORKS.....

Below is Salai - name of Leonardo's student - in this picture his student portraying as John the Baptist

Another important work of Leonardo - Virgins of the Rock - an eerie beauty as the graceful figures kneel in adoration around the infant Christ in a wild landscape of tumbling rock and whirling water.

La belle ferronniere

Others.....

Egyptian antiquities : Tuthankhamun

Winged Victory of Samothrace

An excerpt from the Louvre Museum's webpage...
An original Greek statue probably destroyed by an earthquake, this work was found in countless pieces in 1863 on the island of Samothrace, in the northeast Aegean. The right wing is a plaster copy of the left wing, the only one to have survived. The cement base beneath its feet is also modern; the statue initially stood on the sculpted prow of the ship.

It loomed out of a hilltop sanctuary at an angle, which explains why less attention was paid to carving the right-hand side. The Victory — “Nike” in Greek — is shown as if she were just alighting on the prow of the ship to which she is bringing divine favor.

Discovered in 1950, her right hand enabled her original gesture to be restored: with her raised hand, she announces the coming event. Staged in spectacular fashion very much in keeping with Hellenistic taste, she could be seen from afar by ships approaching the island. The proportions, the rendering of the bodily forms, the manner in which the drapery flapping in the wind is handled, and the expansiveness of the highly theatrical gesture all bear witness to the search for realism in sculpture dating from this period.

After examining certain stylistic details, scholars believe that this monument might be a votive offering from the Rhodians to thank the gods for a naval victory around 190 BC, but André Malraux was delighted with the accidental mutilation of this statue, which turned it into a timeless icon of Western art — “a masterpiece of destiny.”

Aphrodite, The Venus of Milo - The Goddess of Love & Beauty, in Greek's mythology - born out of the foam of sea. She "gave birth" to Western's art's females nudes.