Musée du Louvre

This museum holds one of the largest collections of historic and artistic material in the world, and our visit there last week Monday marked the beginning of one of our busiest weeks in Paris. At the museum, we were asked to view certain emblematic pieces, like the Mona Lisa or Winged Victory, but also to find a piece that had particular meaning and share it with others in the group. I found four pieces that particularly stood out to me, and they are shown below:

Philosophe aux Lunettes (Philosopher with Glasses)
Giordano, 1660

Nothring grand or philosophical here - I'm just amused to see an ancient Roman philosopher wearing sunglasses, which he definitely seems to be wearing.

Statue of Athena, 2nd Century AD/CE

Athena has always been one of the more interesting members of the Greek pantheon for me, and when I saw this statue, it seemed evident that it is old enough to inspire the image of Athena that has become lodged in the common consciousness. As a deity of wisdom and war, Athena played a significant role in many of the Greek myths that I read in my youth and in high school literature, so seeing a statue of her carved by those who believed in her makes me feel connected to those ancient legends.

Further, in the roleplaying game that my friends and I are currently completing, my character serves Minerva, a deity who shares Athena's Roman name. After thinking like this character for a few hours a week all semester, I couldn't pass by the statue without taking a photo.

9000-Year-Old Statue

The name really says it all - this statue was the find of the day for me. It was discovered in Jordan in 1985, and has been on loan to the Louvre since its restoration. Though this is the oldest piece currently in the museum, there are no signs or placards calling it out, as there are for the other more famous works. If I hadn't happened to read the plaque near the statue's foot I could have walked right past without knowing what I had missed.

Now that we're through with context, here's what I value about the statue: As is so eloquently described in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Douglass Adams), one of the most dangerous things for any sentient creature to have is a sense of perspective. Simply put, holding an objective image of one's relationship to the size of space and time is bad for the ego in the long term. However, in brief bursts this perspective can be enlightening. At some point in the distant past, a human genetically similar to humans alive today took time out from satisfying his/her basic physical needs to create a sculpture of a human. Others may know why this person did so, or why the statue lacks arms, but the fact of the statue's creation and its preservation are what really stun me. Though I expect human achievements like the Apollo 11 landing site to last at least another 9000 years, no civilization in history has endured that long, and precious few works of human ingenuity have reached us from that distant past. This artifact's creator could not conceive of how the statue might endure, but I am amazed at the sense of perspective it gives me on the legacy of human labors.

Speaking of perspective, I feel like doing math, so here is how long 9000 years is:

• 500 times my current lifespan
• 40 times the duration since the Constitution was signed
• 18 times the duration since Columbus landed in the Caribbean
• 4.5 times the duration since the Julio-Claudian emperors began the Roman Empire
• 2.25 times the duration since the first written history of China
• 0.00000065 times the age of the Universe

Griffon Bas-Relief from the Oracle at Delphi

Like Athena, the Oracle at Delphi (a temple of Apollo, god of truth), plays a significant part in many myths - notably that of Oedipus Rex. Before visiting the Louvre, I had no direct confirmation that the Oracle was a real place that one could visit, much less that the Louvre contained its fragments. Even more so than with Athena's statue, when I stood in a room with a collection of stones from this temple I felt like I had stepped into a legend from Greece. Fascinating stuff.