We'll pick up somewhere in the middle of the review (starting with Nike, then to Venus) entitled, The Louvre:
"The Winged Victory: Nike of Samothrace; from the first moment I saw this sculpture in class a few years ago, I knew if nothing else, I had to see this piece in real life. The contraposto of her body is so convincing, especially the way the fabric of her dress pulls in the "wind" across her midriff. This must have taken enormous talent and time. The fact that she used to be on a boat says that she commemorates a naval victory. I could only imagine how impressive she would have been then. Would the ship she road on have taken away from her glory? Or was the ship merely the pedestal of her throne? What did her head and arms look like? Would I still like the piece as much if these things were not missing? All difficult questions to answer. If she was complete, I don't think she would be as much of an intrigue to people. They would analyze her and move right along to the next piece. At least that is what I assume would happen because that is exactly what to other fully preserved pieces of interest. A great example of that is the Mona Lisa.
We saw Venus de Milo shortly after our session with Nike. Personally, from what I had seen Venus was not that impressive. When I saw her in person, she still was not that impressive. In fact, she looked quite different than her photos. Her face up close look much more manly. Perhaps they've edited all the photos of her to make her a bit prettier. She reminded me of the Mona Lisa. All this hype for nothing really. A he/she mystery-well, no mystery I suppose since she is nude. Perhaps people enjoy her arms, but they aren't there either... Which leads me to conclude that people who love Venus de Milo are actually suppressing their inner desire for the imprisonment or confining of the rights and power of women. They enjoy seeing the Goddess of Love, so powerful and yet so harmless (armless). She appears to be at their will and mercy and judgment. Some people wish women or other oppressed peoples were "armless," in real life too. Powerless. Okay, maybe that is a bit extreme, but we are working outside of the box today."
I thought pretty much the same things about people and those works in the Louvre (the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa, specifically) - when I went, instead of photographing the sculptures (there's enough of that in the world anyway), I actually took the angle of photographing the silly absurdity of the hundreds of people rushing through the museum to see an actually less than impressive piece of art. The Mona Lisa especially. That was very lackluster, and the obsession was almost humorous. There were hundreds of incredible paintings everywhere in that museum with much finer detail, artists with greater technical skill, much more amazing style - and they were ignored as tourists and Frenchmen alike had their faces buried in the map, finding the quickest way to the most famous.
ReplyDeleteSilly humans!