It is only when thanks to the back of Adventures in the Louvre: how to fall in love with the largest museum in the worldWith sections entitled “The Allure”, “Romance” and “Be Mine”, that the author Elaine Sciolino declares that she has not written it as an art in art, but as a journalist, for tourists who see visiting the museum as “an obligation rather than a joy”.
To be fair, the title alone should have warned me that this book is not for art historians, or perhaps even art lovers. The first New York Times The journalism skills of the head of the Paris office were clearly devoted to unprecedented access to the Louvre as a civilian and by teasing the content of his staff and his associates. Many sequences through the book are built around Sciolino's experientated meetings and interactions, such as the labyrinstan underground passages used by the museum safety team, including an air raid shelter, or the witness of the catering at the top of the scaffolding. But the lack of historical rigor of the art of the author – even the verification of the basic facts of what is told – is excruciating. She comments, for example, that the “wedding in cana” of Veronese (1562-153), having been looted by Napoleon, was “so degraded on arrival that the French restaurateurs had to cut it in half and connect it”. No: the release was a common practice at the time for the works acquired, and it had to be Cut in half because it's so big. Elsewhere, the sections with a wide -eyed eyes are devoted to the La Louvre point conservation service and the print and drawing rooms where you can ask to manage the works, the author apparently ignoring that most large institutions also have installations such as standard.
Frustration is aggravated by the perpetuation of several insane myths: the need to enhance art only according to the “beautiful”, the obsession with Leonardo's “Mona Lisa” and the need to find a shortcut to understand a subject by identifying his counterpart or his loose popular association. She perpetually surrounds the works mentioned by their appearances in pop culture – yes, she even quotes Dan Brown The Da Vinci code (2003) – and devotes entire chapters to the gift shop (“an irresistible purchase for me is the collection of the museum of four bulk teas in cylindrical boxes, each of a different color”); Specters; and the “Apeshit” (2018) Video clip Beyoncé turned there. We are told that Beyoncé “Aime Le Louvre” and “Jay-Z co-owned a French champagne domain With the luxury giant LVMH. »»
Sciolino also tries to respond to the mental enigma of each museum visitor: why did I have to see the “Mona Lisa”, although you don't really understand what is so good? It rightly underlines the contradictory position of the Louvre both to deplore their maintenance of painting while promoting and always enjoying. However, it seems determined to appreciate it despite its culturally granted access, as most tourists do it naturally: “We have looked at (…) Believe me, believe in me,” she said to me. There was no crowd – there was no noise, no rush, no media threw between us. We connected. For a fugitive moment, “Mona Lisa”. came to live. I dare say that any paint would be under the same conditions, if you wanted it.
Some of the most striking ideas come from SCIOLINO exploration of the neglected sectors of the museum, including Persian and Islamic Art, as well as artists and women and queer subjects. So far, she has been the Louvre champion, even telling us what other Parisian entertainment we can do when closed on Tuesday, or gushing on her outpost, the Louvre-Lens, under the head of the “museum with a conscience”. However, it is unusually critical of the display of the Louvre National Recovery Museums (MNR) Collection comprising articles with Nazi foot whose owners have not yet been identified, relegated to a small room in the Richelieu wing, some deemed important to be dispersed throughout the main collection. They are often only delimited by a small “MNR” label on their plates. The display and restitution efforts, she maintains, are dull. “It is obsessive to see a paint stolen from someone's dining room suspended from the Louvre, but even more disturbing are the” decorative arts “,” she writes. “They did not just hang on to the walls but were manipulated, affected, perhaps every day, by human beings who have become victims of the holocaust.”
For art historians, the manufacture of this book can be the most interesting thing on this subject. In an episode of The angle of art podcastSciolino revealed that she had insisted on publishing independently, despite the Louvre initially suggesting that this goes through their official publisher. By granting access, she said, the museum also demanded that each interview be monitored by a riding hood. Sciolino maintains that covering the Louvre was more difficult than its previous CIA reports in Washington, so impenetrable was his bureaucracy. It is therefore curious that his account is so in his pocket. Has access to the detriment of critical teachers? One wonders if “the largest museum in the world” was annexed to the title at the request of the Louvre. The book is more like a travel guide – even the last chapter physically recommends the way to turn for an optimal visit – than the impartial report of a journalist.
Yes, I laughed tirelessly in this book; It is clearly not for me, who considers the concept of fully theoretical “beauty” when you look and enjoying art, and created each time a work of art was described as “attractive”. It has been consciously written for people who are new in art and who want a “way inside”, which is in itself a valid prosecution. However, if this way depends so much on the superficiality and populist stuffed animals, which is really this book: newcomers with the desire to engage with the history of art, or the figures and the status of visitors to the Louvre?
Adventures in the Louvre: how to fall in love with the largest museum in the world (2025) by Elaine Sciolino is published by Norton and is available online and via independent booksellers.
