The Louvre

The Louvre Museum is the largest museum in the world. It presents collections of western art from the Middle Ages to 1850, and the antique civilisations that have preceded and influenced this art. They are divided into 8 departments : Oriental Antiquities, Islamic Art, Egyptian Antiquities, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities and, for the modern period, Paintings, Sculptures, Art items, Prints and Drawings until 1848. In addition to these departments, the museum presents a section devoted to the history of the Louvre, including the medieval moats erected by Philippe Auguste in 1190. 21 new rooms have been dedicated to collections of Italian and Spanish paintings dating back to the XVIIth and XVIIth centuries.

History

The first royal "Château du Louvre" was founded by Philip Augustus in 1190, as a fortress to defend Paris on its west against Viking attacks. In the 14th century, Charles V turned it into a palace of the arts, but Francois I and Henri II tore it down to build a real palace. The foundations of the original fortress tower are now under the "Salle des Cariatides" (Room of the Caryatids).
The existing part of the "Château du Louvre" was begun in 1535. The architect Pierre Lescot introduced to Paris the new design vocabulary of the Renaissance, which had been developed in the châteaux of the Loire. His new wing for the old castle defined its status, as the first among the royal palaces.
During his reign (1589-1610), King Henry IV added the "Grande Galerie". More than a quarter of a mile long and one hundred feet wide, this huge addition was built along the bank of the River Seine and at the time was the longest edifice of its kind in the world. Henry IV, a promoter of the arts, invited hundreds of artists and craftsmen to live and work on the building's lower floors. This tradition continued for another 200 years until Napoleon III ended it.
Louis XIII (1610-1643) completed the Denon Wing and also built the Richelieu Wing.
Commissioned by Louis XIV, architect Claude Perrault's eastern wing (1665-1680), crowned by an uncompromising Italian balustrade along its distinctly non-French apartment roof, was a ground-breaking departure in French architecture. Perrault had translated the Roman architect Vitruvius into French. Now Perrault's rhythmical paired columns form a shadowed colonnade with a central pedimented triumphal arch entrance raised on a high, rather defensive basement, in a restrained classicizing baroque manner that has provided models for grand edifices in Europe and America for centuries. The Metropolitan Museum in New York, for one example, reflects Perrault's Louvre design.
Napoleon I built the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (Triumph Arch) in 1805 to commemorate his victories and the Jardin du Carrousel. The Louvre was still being added to by Napoleon III. The new wing of 1852-1857, by architects Visconti and Hector Lefuel, represents the Second Empire's version of Neo-baroque, full of detail and laden with sculpture. Work continued until 1876.

Visiting the Louvre

The Louvre first opened to the public as a museum on November 8, 1793, during the French Revolution.
The museum is famous for holding several of the world's most prestigious works of art, such as the Venus de Milo, the Victory of Samothrace and Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin and Child with St. Anne, Virgin of the Rocks and, of course, Mona Lisa, probably the most famous painting in the world.Works of artists like Fragonard, Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian, Poussin, and David can also be seen. Besides art, the Louvre has many other types of exhibits, including archeology, history and architecture.
The Louvre was also the main setting in the prologue and first few chapters of the Dan Brownís novel, The Da Vinci Code, and in parts of the movie.
Link Louvre.