Report on six (6) pieces of art work of the Louvre Museum
The aim of this essay is to present you with a detailed description of six (6) different pieces of art work which are to be found and seen in the Louvre Museum. A description of these art works along with a brief background informative on their creation, their artists as well as their thesis in the field of art, are to be analyzed in this essay.
In addition, the thoughts of me while observing them and seeing them in the Museum, the personal reflections, along with the portraying of the feelings generated within myself, which followed the experience of looking at these art works and admiring them, are to be drawn in the paper.
The six (6) art works are Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci, the Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione by Raphael, Christ on the Cross by Domenikos Theotokopoulos, David and Goliath by Daniele da Volterra, The Young Martyr by Paul Delaroche and The Sermon of St. Stephen at Jerusalem by Vittore Carroccio.
All the above mentioned art works are in Louvre, the museum in Paris, which I have recently visited. The paper will focus on the reflections generated by these particular art works. And it is this feeling of these art works talking to one’s soul in their unique own way that proves the power of art. Art is a worldwide common language for all people regardless their cultural background, their education, their social status, their religion. Works of art no matter their time of creation can always open paths of communication between artists of any time period and their admirers or critics living in any era. Art is what beats time and this is what the message given through this paper is all about.
On April 6 2005, Mona Lisa was moved to a new location within the Salle des Etats of Louvre. Findings show that about six (6) million people view the painting at the Louvre each year and I have been one of these six (6) million.
Even if I did not know the background of Mona Lisa painting in terms of how and why Leonardo decided to paint this portrait, there is one thing anyone can know for sure when found in front of this ambiguous smile. Ii is a smile carved in one’s mind, creating a mixture of feelings. It is as if I suddenly entered the maze of feelings, not wanting to find my way out. There was this overwhelming feeling of intimacy which flooded my soul. This woman, because no opinion on the portrait being a man like many critics have concluded crossed my mind, spoke to me, reminding me of the beauty and mystery entailed in a female being.
There is always a question hanging in one’s mind when observing a person without him / her knowing it. A question on what this person is thinking. This question turned itself in something different the moment I laid eyes on Mona Lisa. I only knew that whatever it was the woman had in mind, this was something I was so jealous of. Mona Lisa seems so absorbed in her thoughts and this kind of absorption was what has accompanied me ever since. I think I spend my every day looking for such an absorption. I do not know if Leonardo Da Vinci had ever felt this kind of self-content that his work portrays but I do know that it is so difficult to capture it in a frame of a painting, within the drawing of characteristics and a specific combination of colors. It is so difficult that no artist can do it unless he / she has envisioned such a feeling.
Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione
Looking at the portrait of Castiglione I inhaled the love that the artist, Raphael, had for his friend, the diplomat and humanist Baldassare Castiglione. His look is a look giving me an inexplicable feeling of confirmation that everything is going to go well. Baldassare’s look was what drew me to the ocean of peace. He has got such a peaceful look, as if he knows that our world can be a world of happiness, peace and quiet. I stared at his eyes and I felt I left behind me all the stress and noise of my daily life. It is not peculiar that this painting is considered to be a representative one of the great portraits created during the Renaissance.
Christ on the Cross
It can be said that Christ on the Cross talks to everyone despite his / her religious beliefs. This painting covers its viewers’ existence in the veil of fear and dread towards the evil surrounding our sky. The sky under which we live is nothing else but dark clouds. And within this darkness Jesus turns his eyes upwards, waiting for his dad’s miracle to be lifted up in the light, leaving this darkness all behind him. This is what flooded my soul upon my seeing this painting. An existence, that is Christ, experiences all the magnitude of human’s soul to be able to keep on looking for light, to keep on seeking the true way out of the darkness and ugliness. It is this magnitude that all of a sudden made me reminded me that the true power is what we hold in us, in our deeper layers of our soul and no darkness can ever make us quit on life itself. Life here, or life after death.
David and Goliath
The two sided painting consists a rare case of a painting, painted on both sides which depicts its theme from two different angles. Standing in the middle of a corridor and not hung on a wall of the museum, the painting takes you so many years backwards. I see the strength and weakness fighting face to face. I can see that and I feel nothing but fear. Fear for all fake weaknesses we humans may be afraid of having, or for all strengths we have been brought up to believe that we own. But what David and Goliath mostly gave me is this dreadfully piece of knowledge that maybe our own self may never be able to stop this incessant fight between his / her fears, weaknesses and worries and his / her strengths. It is as if Goliath and David stopped being historical figures and turned into the two sides of the double edged knife that a human’s soul is.
The Young Martyr
The passage to the mystic door leading to the other, unknown life, is what came to me when I saw that painting of this young woman floating in the river, which is Tiber according to the information given on the painting. Her hands crossed in an effort to relax, to ask for forgiveness, to surrender herself at what she expects to be much better that the martyred life she has had here on Earth. The water of the river is moving in front of my eyes and I am thinking on how I can follow her in her trip. If only she could open her eyes and give me a hint. Is she happy now that she is floating dead on the chilly river water? Or would she prefer to have found a way to be young and careless here on Earth?
The Sermon of St. Stephen at Jerusalem
This oil painting awakens me at the sight of such a beautiful, alive and full of Eastern essences city. This is Jerusalem, but it is Jerusalem as envisioned by the artist himself. It is a city full of colors, traditions, modern images, multiculturalism. It is like any city ought to be today in the era of globalization. A place where one can see everything. And up in the middle, there is the Sermon. And they are all gathered around his feet listening to his words. Whose words could draw such a crowd sitting around his / her feet listening to words that can make them find their lost meanings in life?
Works cited
Carroccio Vittore, The Sermon of St. Stephen at Jerusalem (1514)
Delaroche, Paul The Young Martyr (1855)
Raphael, The Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (1514-1515)
Theotokopoulos, Dominikos Christ on the Cross (1578)
Vinci, Da Leonardo, Mona Lisa (1503-1517)
Volterra, De Daniele David and Goliath (1555)
