the Louvre

I was last at the Louvre before I. M. Pei built the pyramid entry. Critics’ remarks aside, it’s spectacular. I arrived at the opening of the doors, in order to have plenty of time to hightail it to see the Mona Lisa, a viewing I had missed the first time I was there because Mona was out for cleaning or having her teeth polished or something along those lines. This time, there she was, although arriving early was not early enough. It took me almost ten minutes to work my way up to seeing her portrait close enough to realize that it wasn’t as small as everyone says; it’s a life size portrait, and while there are huge signs on either side of the wall saying something to the effect of ‘don’t take a flash photo’ everyone must’ve been illiterate because photo cameras were shooting up like the 4th of July. Having accomplished my mission (“hey Mona, looking good”), I moved on to the other wings of the museum.

Everything was in its place: the Boticellis were beautiful, as were the other Italians’ works. You have to hand it to the Italians; their women are pink and round and pretty as the day is long, cavorting happily in the great outdoors. The Flemish, on the other hand, were really a gruesome bunch. Their art didn’t depict joy as much as it depicted cold relationships, unhappy indoor domestic scenes, lurid deaths and diabolically evil destruction, most often in the name of the Lord. That guy sure got a lot of bad press from the Flems. I wondered about the nature of the disconsolate artistry and supposed lousy wine and too little sunshine could have that doleful effect on an artist. The Flems really needed to get out more.

I moved on and found happier frames in different wings and while I admired the works, recalling a few lectures on art history and/or art appreciation, such as Michaelangelo’s midnight forays to the morgue to dissect the dead so that he could draw a more life like resemblance of the human body, I noticed a certain redundancy; a lot of the art had to do with very manly men slaying dragons, evil goblins, other men and/or violating the occasional sacrificial virgin. Likewise, I noticed that while these strapping young men were all outfitted with weaponry of every ilk, leather knife belts, plates of armor, long swords, feathered helmets, gladiator boots, etc., they weren't wearing much in the way of textile fabric underneath their warrior accoutrements. I could only assume that their particular army was not issuing uniforms or mom didn’t check to see that they were appropriately outfitted before they left the house. And then there were the resplendent ladies, who all appeared to be on their way to, at or departing from, a toga party. So much, or so little, filmy gauze covered these fair damsels’ sumptuous frames. After a few more wings of Rubenesque ladies and studmuffin men, I decided that moderation in all things applied; it was time to leave. To amuse myself, as I found my way to the door, I photographed  the works that depicted men copping a feel of young ladies’ breasts. Such is the timelessness of the universe, whether it’s a teenage boy in a modern movie theater or a stalwart gladiator in the sanguinary fields, some things never change.