Hall full of mirrors

The first time I was in the Louvre (about six years ago), we went to see the famous La Joconde, Mona Lisa, or whatever name you call her (or him?)
The Louvre is full of Clichés, by that I mean works that have so much cultural clutter it is hard to see them clearly, and this one is exceptionally hard.
In a lecture I heard about the Louvre by someone who works there, I learnt about 80% of the crowd at a given moment is in the halls of the Mona Lisa, and Venus du Milo.
Furthermore - you can't get near the painting (there is a guard), and it is covered with a double vitrine, so the only thing you get to see is its real size, which is no surprise as well, since you know Leonardo traveled with it all the time, so it couldn't be huge.
Still, being in the presence of the real thing (assuming this is not a copy, while the real one is deep in the safes of the Louvre) has its impact...

The stuff I am interested in is the process of visiting it, people (me included) came to see it so they can say they did (to themselves, to others), to mark a V on the must-sees.

Nowadays, this ritual is supported by the ever-accessible photography, and since the purpose of a photo is to mark the event, and not document the richness of the work (you can see the work in meticulous proximity on the web), a simple phone-camera may do the trick as well.

And since art is about reproduction of a reproduction, I was fascinated by the details of this process.

I've been doing some past-surfing lately, so I dag these from the archive, I hope you like them...

*Note - these photos are not the originals, but merely copies :)

And Mine:

And finally, the girl didn't have a camera (don't worry, she has one now...)

And just so you see the full picture: look here.

Marble to Paper

Yesterday I took my group to draw in the Louvre.

First Sunday of the month is free admission, which means long lines (unless you know alternative entrances) and lots of people (unless you know alternative halls)

Luckily I read the text in parentheses, so entrance was fast and the hall we were in wasn't crowded.
(They say 80% of the crowd in the Louvre is around the Mona-Lisa, Venus de Milo etc., so the rest is quite spacious)

This was the first time I took the time, in between challenging my group members,  to draw as well. (mainly since I promised the boy to draw a statue of Achiles fighting a snake (or something...)

 

  

Following are two different attempts to deal with a sad-postured statue.

just straight lines

just dark spots

 Followed by Neptune fighting a sea-beast (Hypocampus, is it?)

Front

Back

* this is a pencils that is an aquarells, which allows drawing, and than smearing it with the finger and some spit. exciting stuff! :)

 
And I just found a page of other drawing of this one (in case you don't understand what you see...) : here

And a general view, with the horses of Marley (Statues taken from Marley-le-Roi, and put in the Louvre when they created this new section of it)

 

The statue shows a slave trying to tame a horse, (if you want, you can see it here)

And a small story about the roof - it is a relatively new hall, and the glass roof is designed to pass a constant amount of light, so it stores the light if it is too much and emits it when it gets darker.

As this was told to me by the boy, I am sure every word is true!

BTW - if you want to see our group's work - take a look here.

Till nextime! 

me.