I know, I know. I started this blog with a promise that I would avoid the tried and true museums, and then it’s only day 4 before I’m hitting the Louvre. But I went because a friend asked me to check out a special exhibition on Titian and Tintoretto, which closes today. And because I’m a good friend, I went. However, because I’m not a perfect friend, I promptly abandoned the “Big Ts” plan when I found out that there was a two hour long line to get into the exhibition. And I thought that Europe-Disney was outside of Paris…
The lobby of the Louvre – a huge, underground space – was filled not only with this special exhibition line, but also with what seemed like every tourist in Paris, mostly wandering helplessly or running around with small infants screaming “Where baby changing room?!?” at museum guards. I decided to find the least-visited section of the museum, and hit gold with “objects d’arte.” Just me and 500 tapestries, baby. The best object was an Italian Renaissance-era birth salver (or “plate,” for those of us without a compulsive need to use the fancy word). First of all, birth plates make me happy. They are wooden platters which were given as “congrats on your new baby!” gifts during the Renaissance – only they were given pretty much immediately after birth. Some of them are painted with gift-giving scenes: the new mom, still in bed, looking like crap; the new baby, getting its first bath from the maids; and all the mom’s friends, busting down the door to come fondle the infant with hands that haven’t been washed in twenty-seven years. Just what I want if I ever give birth (please, sweet Jesus, no): all my friends coming to visit.
Anyway… this particular birth plate is painted with the “Triumph of Venus,” meaning a very-nude Venus, ancient goddess of love, floating above some of great male lovers of history (sorry – Paris is the only one I can remember), with golden rays shooting out of her cooch and landing on all of their faces. For the art historians: the painter has adopted the iconography of the reception of the stigmata by St. Francis. For the rest of us: it looks like she has Jedi pee.
But while I’m laughing to myself about birth plates, I had to notice that the prevailing emotional state exhibited by the visitor to the Louvre is misery. I think many people go there because it’s something that you’re supposed to do, but then don’t know what to do when they get there, besides reverently admiring Great Works of Art. Which, honestly, is something you can do for a half-hour, tops. So here’s my list of suggestions for ways to amuse yourself at the Louvre (or any museum) when your capacity for aesthetic reverence needs a recharge:
- People-watch. My favorite people-watching games are “You Wore What Shoes?” and “Who’s the Most Miserable?” – i.e., the grandfather who collapses onto every bench he can find with a big sigh, or the 13-year-old boy burdened both by his parents and an unfortunate mustache?
- DIY Tour Guide. Gather round, for I am about to tell you the secret of art history, which I learned only after long years of PhD program toil: we make up probably 90% of the crap we say. You, too, can explain an artist’s choice of medium/ subject matter/ color by reference to his or her troubled relations with estranged family/ confused sexual orientation/ reaction to political and social turmoil of the period. Appoint one group member the official guide for a room, and award points based on authoritativeness or ridiculousness. Bonus: the Louvre is decorated with many allegorical paintings on the ceilings – it’s always way, way more fun to make up what these should be symbolizing than read about what they actually do.
- Look for hidden penises. Artists have usually always been the goofy, out-there members of society, and they must have gotten pretty bored painting portraits of dukes or their three thousandth scene of a saint’s life, because damn, there are a lot of bulges in togas/ robes/ hot pants (or whatever you call what dudes wore in the 18th century). Look for them. Really. Although this game can be socially awkward - all of my friends are now used to saying “Very nice, yes, I see the hidden penis, too. Sure, it’s there. Yes, I believe you.”
- Play “I bet you can’t find ten horses!” My go-to solution to the problem of wanting to tear children limb-from-limb is to ask them to find ten whatevers in the room, so I can engage in some reverential admiring of Great Works of Art while they run about exhausting their competitive and pattern-recognition-loving selves. If they can’t find at least ten horses, dogs, birds, or funny people with wings in whatever room you’re in, you may have accidentally entered a McDonald’s instead of a museum. Bonus: in the Louvre “objects d’arte” section, you can easily increase the required number of dogs and horses per room to 1,000.
More museum-going activities later. Now I’m going to go to sleep and dream about the tapestry featuring a waist-high elephant being slain by hunters with another elephant in the background being gored by a unicorn. Ah, the middle ages…
