The Art History Blog

A view of the central courtyard from the Richelieu Wing (much quieter than the famous Denon Wing, where the Mona Lisa is housed), and the famous I. M. Pei designed pyramid.

Want to take a different sort of virtual tour of the Louvre? Check out their website.

Contrapposto, classical beauty, Greek drapery… it’s all there.  The statue is really quite big, and there are always at least 35 tourists around snapping pictures of her.

Konica Minolta has reconstructed the Venus de Milo digitally, and it’s pretty stunning.  Check it out here.

As you enter the famous Denon Wing, where all the greats of Renaissance art are housed, you’re greeted with the huge Winged Victory.  Another larger than life statue; you can feel the wind that blows her toga and wings back.

She’s actually really small, and you can barely get close enough to see her elusive smile.  Right around the corner, though, is Giorgione’s Pastoral Symphony…which you could breathe on, if you like.

My professor had warned us she was really dirty, but I found the painting pretty bright (maybe that’s because my expectations were so low.

True story: my English teacher in high school touched the Mona Lisa before it was under glass. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that anecdote.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know this is one of my favorite paintings.  Check out what I wrote about it last year.  You can only imagine how much I freaked out when walking through this room…

It was smaller than I’d imagined, but still quite formidable.

Really big!  At least life size, if not larger.  The figure on the bottom right, which Gericault added on hanging day for the Paris Salon, literally tumbles out towards you as if it’s going to fall onto your lap. Fittingly creepy, as it’s a corpse.

The famous French Revolution picture is a lot smaller than I’d imagined — not quite the monumental size of, say, Raft of the Medusa — but the smoky haziness really emerges as you go past.

Again, if you’re a longtime TAHB reader, you probably know how much I love Vermeer — a whole lot.  This painting, probably a later work, is tiny and precious, and even though it doesn’t have that special quality that Vermeer’s works in the Rijksmuseum possess, any work by Vermeer can take your breath away.

Want to see all of Vermeer’s paintings, in scale, side by side? Click here.

The d’Orsay is huge, has basically every important 19th century and 20th century masterpiece, and is housed in a former train station.

We started at the top and worked our way down — thus also going backwards, but cleverly beating the crowds (I highly recommend that tactic!).

Monet’s paintings were small, but not surprisingly so: big enough to immerse yourself in, but small enough to feel as if the scene is all yours.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Monet’s earlier work hangs downstairs — much larger than his later works.

The famous courtesan follows in a long history — from Giorgione to Titian — and Manet’s “muddy” style, as critics like to say, is astounding in person.