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1001 Paintings at the Louvre
589 pages; 1,023 color illustrations
The Louvre's holdings of paintings are many and varied; to say they are important is an understatement. Any serious study of the major movements of European painting must include the paintings incorporated here. Likewise, even the most casual, pleasurable amble through the universal favorites of art will include works such as the Mona Lisa which are housed in the Louvre. It is that combination of the scholarly and the celebrated which draws millions of visitors to the Louvre every year, and which makes 1001 Paintings at the Louvre: From Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century a volume of compelling content. Select European works on paper and decorative arts are brought in to expand the dialogue of painterly technique and applications; and, opening the book as piquant aperitif, paintings of Egyptian, Greek and Assyrian antiquity join choice Islamic manuscripts in touching on both the diversity of the museum's collections, and the lineaments of earlier and very different visual traditions. But the primary focus of 1001 Paintings at the Louvre is on that which has formed the core of the museum's holdings from its earliest inception as a royal collection in the 1500s: the European paintings of all schools, Italian, Flemish, German, Spanish, and primarily, French. This is an excellent annotated reference to the Louvre's painting collections which, given the comprehensive nature of this venerable museum, makes 1001 Paintings at the Louvre a thorough survey of the history of Western painting as well. At nearly six hundred pages it is a lavish omnibus of important European masterworks. At its most plain and straightforward level, 1001 Paintings at the Louvre's appeal is quite simply its paintings, whose size, sumptuous color reproduction and abundance dazzle the eye with the manifest variety and expressiveness of the many European schools. With, in many cases, an entire page given over to a single picture and generally two, three or four on the facing page, the editors present these works in a manner which invites both contemplation and comparison. On a more studious level, 1001 Paintings at the Louvre offers the ability to view an artist in context with his direct regional contemporaries, something art history books strive for and in which they often fall short due to the necessity of interpolating considerable amounts of text. Though fully annotated and wonderfully representative of Western painting, 1001 Paintings at the Louvre is not an art history in the sense of a textbook; it betters many such books in the abundance of images it offers, and the choice to incorporate so many paintings into a single volume without sacrificing size or quality of image allows it to include a broad survey of paintings by many less well-known but no less important artists to complement those who have become celebrated highlights. This splendid array is in turn complemented by a rational grouping of the paintings by artistic center, then by broad chronology, then in chronological order, which assembles the material for systematic appreciation of the art in relation to its cultural and historic setting. One may thus turn to, for example, French seventeenth-century paintings, follow the progression of artists, and compare their works as distinct from the centuries before or after, or from other artistic centers of the period. The Louvre's holdings are significant and vast, but not necessarily equally distributed among the European schools of painting. French paintings represent, as might be expected, the largest segment of the Louvre's collected works, and receive the most comprehensive treatment. The particularly volatile political ferment of late eighteenth-century France receives special attention in individual sections divided between the Revolution and the First Empire, and the Restoration. Paintings by artists such as Jacques-Louise David, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, and Hubert Robert are broken across these sections, a nice reflection on how their roles, styles, and subject matter shifted in response to the changing exigencies of the French political situation. Italian paintings form a close second in number and incorporate the Louvre's significant body of sixteenth-century works, many of them original acquisitions by Francis, I, King of France, whose royal collections were the initial core of that which would become the Louvre museum. Fifteenth- to seventeenth-century Flemish and Dutch paintings form the third largest chapter, following the vital moments in Netherlands painting and linking them with the turmoil of the Reformation, which separated the Netherlands into Calvinism and Catholicism. Chapters on Spanish, Germanic/Northern School, and British paintings are more modest, but still contain works representative of important moments in the development of Western art in each of these areas. Over 450 artists are illustrated, their names a thunderous roll call of the masters: Bosch, Bruegel, Caravaggio, Chardin, da Vinci, David, Delacroix, Durer, Fragonard, Fuseli, Greuze, Memling, Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Turner, to name only a brief few. Multiple works are featured for artists of significant contribution, or those whose body of work is particularly well represented in the museum's collection. Each painting is annotated with the artist's basic biographical data, the work's title, medium and dimensions, and a description of its provenance. The majority also include more detailed annotations. The Louvre's own curators, renowned scholars in their field, as well as other Louvre staff contributed the majority of the writing in this volume, and their essays preceding the major groupings and thumbnail annotations for individual works touch on various aspects pertaining to the art, including social or political context, the means by which the painting entered into the collection, the achievements for which the artist is known, and other topics which lend interest and understanding into placing the paintings contextually in history as well as within the museum's range of acquisitions. This is straightforward writing, factual and accessible. The notes on the holdings represent as well a further aspect of appreciation invited by 1001 Paintings at the Louvre: not only the history of Western painting, but the tale of how great artistic collections such as this are assembled. The Louvre ranks with the Vatican and the British Museum as among the oldest, most established, and most comprehensive art collections in the world, and its story is the story of acquisitions from past to present. With annotations touching on the entry into, and at times, exit from the collection of various paintings, 1001 Paintings at the Louvre is a reminder of the cultural complexities that have led to the establishment of the museum as the institution we know today, where masterworks are on view democratically to all. It was not always so; the earliest collections were the private province of aristocracy, and served a necessary purpose. They were gathered not just for pleasure or personal connoisseurship, but as part of aristocratic culture (to be learned, a man of letters) and as evidence of a ruler's acculturation, power, and importance, part of the vast appurtenance necessary to impress the royal or papal dignitaries whose visits might bring treaty, alliance or tribute. The collections which were eventually to become the eight Curatorial Divisions of the Louvre (seven are represented in this book; the eighth, sculpture, is beyond the scope of a volume dedicated to painting) were founded on the energy and aristocratic privilege of Francis I (ruled 1515-47), with whom the intellectual ideals of the Renaissance came to France, and as the introduction notes, the first king to collect the art of his own time. Seeking to infuse the French court with culture comparable to that of the great houses of Renaissance Italy, he invited Italian, Flemish and French painters to his royal seat (among them Leonardo da Vinci -- it was important to boast one had the brightest and the best) and established the initial collection of paintings, as well as the precedent of collection in France. For the next three hundred years, successive monarchs, particularly Louis XIV, enlarged and expanded the royal collections with their own acquisitions, and based on their own personal preferences for subject and medium. The privilege was not to remain their own. The French Revolution arising in 1789 overturned social order for all time. In the turbulence, revolutionary factions confiscated freely from aristocratic collections, adding these to the central holdings at the site of the Louvre. In its chaos the revolution destroyed as much as it confiscated; but it also introduced the idea of the museum as a place of edification for the common man, with the opening of these collections, incorporated under the name Muséum Central des Arts (one of the precursors of the Musée du Louvre), to the general public in 1793. The concept survived the fluctuations into empire and monarchy which followed (and which, especially in the case of Napoleonic conquest, continued to add to the museum's store of treasures). Today, museums maintain their collections by select acquisitioning, and benefit primarily from the generosity of loans or bequests of works from private holdings. And museums such as the Louvre stand witness to both the founding wealth of royal privilege, and the evolution into a place where anyone might come, and be enlightened by the works of the masters. Of the chapters in 1001 Paintings at the Louvre dealing with other than the European paintings, those on antiquity are piquant tastes of paintings of other times and places: brief but fascinating excursions into early Mesopotamian art, the flat, formal stylization of Egyptian tomb paintings, the earthy trompe l'oleil of Greek and Roman frescoes, the vibrant Islamic calligraphic tradition by which illustrated Persian manuscripts leap to life on the page. Of the final chapters which close the book, that on the Graphic Arts Division (long known as the Cabinet de Dessins, the Drawings Gallery) provides a lively look at rare works on paper, many not often exhibited due to their fragility. Selections feature works with painterly characteristics, including medieval manuscript illustrations, accomplished preparatory studies including two da Vinci drapery studies in brush and gray tempera, watercolors, and pastels. The portraits especially, dealing with individuals and displaying exquisite technique, are particularly engaging. The final chapter touches on painting as applied to European decorative arts from the medieval to the early modern period, primarily consisting of fine china in the form of illustrated vases, clocks, plaques, or snuff-boxes, including work by the studios of Limoges and the Sèvres Factory. Two complete indexes of contents, one by artist name, the other by the title of the work, complete this volume. As a special note, the index by artist is comprehensive in including artists simply cited by name as well as those with paintings represented; the entry for Michelangelo, for instance, indicates the essays in which he is discussed as well the twelve thumbnail entries for paintings by other artists in which he is mentioned. Visually as well as in detailed reference, this is a well-organized book. Like the Louvre itself one will find fulfillment of serious study, or the simple pleasures of still life and landscape, the drama of the Horatii, the enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa, and along with the celebrated artists their many contemporaries, whose works are as illuminating if not as well known. With over one thousand paintings, as tantalizing as the thousand-and-one Arabian nights, and touching on antiquity but with a primary focus on the classics of European painting, 1001 Paintings at the Louvre: From Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century reflects on the holdings of one of the world's largest, oldest, and most venerable museum collections, presenting the myriad works from which our heritage, indeed our very understanding, of Western art is drawn. --Katherine R. Lieber Katherine R. Lieber has edited ArtScope.net's Visual Arts reviews since 1998. Ms. Lieber is Editor and Associate Producer for ArtScope.net.
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