Paris - 2

The Louve

Later on the same day I was at the Archeological museum, I stopped at the Louve. I had planned it that way, because this was the night the Louvre stays open late. I figured I would have a walk about, then have dinner, rest and walk some more. I could stay until 9pm. As it turns out, my brain can only take in so much in one day. My mind was exhausted by 6pm. My feet were done in too. Turns out this was a 17,000 step day. There was (as always) quite a crowd to see Mona.

There she is... way in the back!

The Louvre has so much. Of course I was obligated to see Mona Lisa.  She is enigmatic in as much as she gets soooo much attention. There is a crazy lot of art in the Louvre, but this is a major draw.  Take a good look here if you have never seen her before. I'm fairly impressed with my cell phone camera, but if you want to see better images; pretty much anything you want is available via google in super high resolution.

Mona, up close

When looking away from Mona, one sees a gigantic wall sized canvas. It is one of the largest paintings I have ever seen. It is richly colored and highly detailed. See if you can guess what it is depicting. I'll put the title in the next paragraph.

The name of this is below - see if you can figure it out

Notice the people on left in the foreground so you can get a sense of the massive scale of this image. There is so much going on! Jesus in the center of the image might throw you off. This bible story does not have Jesus in the middle of the image in my mind. Look to the lower left, There is a man and woman and she is in white. Notice in the front of the table there is someone pouring out wine. There are musicians. If you don't have it yet - notice it is a giant feast! It is the Wedding at Cana.

John the Baptist's head

Saint paintings are some of my favorites. This is John the Baptist - well, just his head, on a platter. It is dark and brooding. There are many artists whose images of John are in the Louvre. This one stands out for me because of the starkness. The rim of the platter sort does a halo effect and for me, this is a reminder of the high cost that sometimes accompanies being who God calls us to be. I do not aspire to be beheaded, but I do aspire to actually follow God and not just sort of do it.

Sebastian

St. Sebastian has an interesting story. In the time of Roman persecutions of Christians, it was found out that Sebastian was a Christian. He was imprisoned and people came to persuade him to give up the faith. Instead, he converted another 16 people to Christianity before the emperor had him bound in a field and shot with arrows "until he resembled a sea urchin". When Irene of Rome came to collect his body, she found him - not dead! So she nursed him to health. Some time later Sebastian had the opportunity to criticize the emperor, as the Emperor passed by, for doing despicable things to Christians. The emperor was shocked but recovered quickly. He ordered Sebastian to be bound and beaten with clubs until he was dead. This time the murder worked. Sebastian was really dead.

Michael defeating the devil

As you can imagine I have seen many, many images of Michael the Archangel. I'll just post this on here because I find it to be the most striking image of our beloved saint. The similarity to the statue in the gathering place at church is difficult to miss. Michael, patron of the military, please help us always fight for the good only.

Lady Liberty leading the people.

There is another kind of art which I find so interesting.  I'll call it idea art. Marianne is an allegorical figure in the painting "Liberty leading the people." She has a tricolor flag and a rifle. She is surrounded by people from many social strata and while she is striding on top of a pile of corpses, she is clearly leading the charge to liberty. A woman of the people, she is barefoot and wearing a type of cap that has been a symbol for freed slaves for more than 1000 years.

Cops buying donut equivalents in the metro in Paris

On a slightly humorous note, I was headed to the hotel on the metro and encountered these fellows shopping for dessert. Cops have the stereotype of donut eaters, because often enough they do just that. These guys all looked super fit and super serious. When the fellow closest noticed me taking a photo he asked what I was doing. I let him know I was a fan and just enjoyed that cops here are like cops back home. He laughed and replied; "we all gotta eat"  or something close to that. I have to say, walking around fearless was easy because while there are certainly bad people planning bad things out there, there are plenty of good people working hard to keep things as safe as possible. When we give in the the fear of what might happen, that's when the bad people win. Walking the streets and riding the metro in big crowds did not feel risky at all. I feel more danger in the US knowing how many people carry firearms on a regular basis. Those people might feel safer carrying, but I feel more danger from them carrying. Interesting how our actions have consequences for others even when we don't know or care.