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 The
most important part of my agenda was a visit to the Louvre museum in
Paris. Louvre is a storehouse of one of the stunning collections of
art work which defies description.
From its genesis to completion, the passage of time it has spanned
is several centuries. The Seine, which is the heart and soul of
Paris, meanders its way and gently touches Louvre at one point. The
quiet flowing river is a mute witness to the successive
architectural metamorphosis from palace to museum.
Now it is an extraordinary edifice which allures
tourists to see and learn about history, science, arts, painting,
etc. Emperors and rulers have toiled to make this a granary of arts
a world museum.
Spread over a sprawling area, Louvre was one of
the principal residences of the kings and emperors of France.
Constructed after 1190 by King Philip Augustus as a defensive
fortress, by the 14th century the Palais du Louvre occasionally
served as a royal house.
 Francis
1 decided to change it to Renaissance palace and a royal estate
gradually developed. Henry IV ordered the chateau (castle) built by
Catherine de Medici in the Tuileries to be linked to the Louvre
palace by a grand gallery bordering the Seine.
Louis XIV, who resided at the Louvre till he
shifted to Versailles in 1678, completed the Court Carre – Square
Court, which was closed by the city side by a colonnade. When the
court moved to Versailles, the French monarchs lost interest in
Louvre.
 In
1793 Louvre became a full-fledged museum and preserves thousands of
artworks and legacies of past civilisations. Napoleon III completed
the unification of Tulieries and Louvre by building an Aile denon on
the river side.
There is a world famous painting which attracts
thousands of tourists who are spellbound looking at it.
We shall read about it in the next article.
(To be continued)
Usha Raja
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