Down the Via Dolorosa
(The title will make sense in a bit. It's not nearly as fatalistically prophetic as it seems.)
(Steven suggested we title this "Louvre me tender." I didn't throw anything at him only because he was driving at the time.)
December 5th at this point. We're in this weird stage of both "I can't believe it's so late." and "We're going home soon!" Five weeks is long, especially when you never hang your hat for more than 3 days. Good, but long.
As I read reviews of the Louvre Museum, one of them said, "You leave the museum feeling shell-shocked".
"What?", though I. "How ridiculous! "
What a silly, naive tourist I was.
The nice thing about going - well, anywhere in Europe - in November is that, if you can stand the cold, NOTHING is crowded. So many reviews lectured us to pre-buy tickets to this exhibit, that church, this museum, that set of ruins so as to avoid waiting for hours in order to buy tickets. In November, though, we waited about 2 customers. The queue to buy metro tickets was longer than the museum ticket line.
I know the big draw at the Louvre is the Mona Lisa. And, of course, you do have to see it while there, but there's so much better art that we meandered slowly through on our way.
Since we've done a lot of study of Da Vinci, the younger girls have a particular appreciation of his work. They were ecstatic to see the original of John the Baptist as well as the meeting of St. John and the Child Jesus.
Irene - our little artist - loved seeing the shadows and color plays in so many of the different styles of portrait.
Rebecca - our little cynic - appreciated the room of French portraits filled with propaganda shots of THE GLORIOUS NAPOLEON!!!
And Karina - our little egotist - enjoyed finding self-portraits and comparing them to how *she* would paint her own self-portrait. (She also hoped that she'd have food in her self-portrait. Because she was hungry.)
I'll admit, it did bust my buttons a bit when each of my kids separately saw the Mona Lisa and said, "It's less impressive than everyone says. Da Vinci's [each child had a different preference] was better."
The Louvre, for what it's worth, is HUGE.
After the portraits, we went to the Egyptian room. I've seen (albeit incredibly smaller) Egyptian exhibits before, but I was struck again with the sheer immensity of human history.
Again, the thing I enjoyed most was the kids' observations about the artists. Did they want to do this? Or was this a forced profession. Who taught them? How many times did they have to start these ornate carvings anew because of a mistake? Sympathy for the poor kid who messes up the god's head and is punished for it.
Karina wondered if the people painting the sarcophagi were ever as hungry as she was. Because she was staaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrving!
We also discussed archaeology and why so many artifacts have been destroyed over time: what is beauty and how is it recognized and what blinds us to seeing it? (Eg, the tomb robbers both in antiquity and modern day only wanted what could be sold for profit, early archaeologists only wanted big, flashy, kingly discoveries, not the mundane beauty of everyday life.)
By the time we finished up with the Egyptian rooms, we were all feeling overwhelmed. I suddenly understood what they meant by shell-shocked. But, gosh darn it, we must keep on! (Karina, by the way, was hungry. In case we had forgotten.) There's Islamic art! Eastern sculpture! Must! See!!!
Wandering through the Persian room, we came across this from collonade of King Darius (of Daniel and the Lion's Den fame).
Karina wondered if the lions were as hungry as she was. They couldn't have been. Because otherwise they would have eaten Daniel after all.
At that point, we all admitted that we felt a bit like a goose being fattened for fois gras. There's only so much you can do and we had done it. But you can't possibly go to the Louvre without seeing the Venus de Milo. Unfortunately, the museum is HUGE, so we had to drag ourselves up and down several more sets of stairs and through several more halls. I realized as we were walking that we were face to face with some of the most amazing art in the world and we're just so gluttonously overstuffed that we couldn't appreciate it at all. It was quite a realization as to what gluttony really does to the soul.
They were, of course, as unimpressed by the Venus de Milo as they were with the Mona Lisa.
But since they could each give an example of which sculptures they preferred and why (The fact that Karina's favorite sculpture is Giambologna's Rape of the Sabines kind of cracks me up.), I was willing to forgive their blase attitudes.
Now on to the title:
We originally had other plans for Friday (more about that tomorrow), but at the last minute decided to switch around our Friday and Saturday. One of the biggest regrets/frustrations we've had during this trip is the amount of non-prepared that we've been. "We should have downloaded a map/guide/review/etc" was repeated far too many times. In hopes of avoiding this, I was researching Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle on Thursday night.
{Did you know that Sainte Chapelle was originally built by King Louis to house the relics of Christ's Passion (a piece of The Cross, a nail, and the Crown of Thorns)? And that during the French Revolution, they were moved about for safekeeping, finally ending up housed at Notre Dame cathedral? Yeah, me neither. }
So as I was researching, I came across that little fact and I thought, "Huh. That's kind of cool." And then I looked at Notre Dame's website, which says that on the first Friday of the month, they have veneration of the Crown of Thorns. And December 5th was the first Friday. Which means that we could go and see the Crown of Thorns.
(No, we do not know for certain that this is actually THE Jesus' Crown of Thorn. However, the tradition of believing that this particular crown made in roughly the first century AD of reeds and thorns from a plant typical to the area that is now Israel was THE Crown has been held for the last 1800 years or so. So - I claim Hebrews 11:1.)
By the time we got out of the maze-that-is-the-Louvre, we had exactly enough time to seriously book it from the museum to Notre Dame in order to make it. So book it we did.
We got there just in time, but weren't able to fully see what was going on. And, since I don't understand French, I couldn't follow at all. But it was just amazing to realize that up there on the altar, encased in glass, decorated in gold, was THE Crown which had pierced Jesus during His Passion. THE Crown that He used to help earn my salvation. (Yes, yes, I know. No theological corrections. You know what I mean here.) Jesus who offered Himself for me and this was the Crown that my sins gave Him.
There were lots of incense and chanting and sitting and standing and Et cum spiritu tuoing and a few et in saecula saeculorums like any good Catholic ceremony. And then the priests and knights (Yup, knights. Being Catholic is so cool.) got up. At first we figured it was because the ceremony was done and they were leaving. Then with awe we realized that when they said "Veneration of the Crown of Thorns", they meant not just "look at the Crown from afar", but "actually go up and touch the Crown".
No. words.
What do you do after that? What else is there? You just go home, eat something-or-other and go to bed.
Oh, and set out shoes for tomorrow.
(Steven suggested we title this "Louvre me tender." I didn't throw anything at him only because he was driving at the time.)
December 5th at this point. We're in this weird stage of both "I can't believe it's so late." and "We're going home soon!" Five weeks is long, especially when you never hang your hat for more than 3 days. Good, but long.
As I read reviews of the Louvre Museum, one of them said, "You leave the museum feeling shell-shocked".
"What?", though I. "How ridiculous! "
What a silly, naive tourist I was.
The nice thing about going - well, anywhere in Europe - in November is that, if you can stand the cold, NOTHING is crowded. So many reviews lectured us to pre-buy tickets to this exhibit, that church, this museum, that set of ruins so as to avoid waiting for hours in order to buy tickets. In November, though, we waited about 2 customers. The queue to buy metro tickets was longer than the museum ticket line.
I know the big draw at the Louvre is the Mona Lisa. And, of course, you do have to see it while there, but there's so much better art that we meandered slowly through on our way.
At the top of the stairs upon entrance, the Winged Victory of Samothrace
We first did the galleries of European portraits.
Since we've done a lot of study of Da Vinci, the younger girls have a particular appreciation of his work. They were ecstatic to see the original of John the Baptist as well as the meeting of St. John and the Child Jesus.
Irene - our little artist - loved seeing the shadows and color plays in so many of the different styles of portrait.
Rebecca - our little cynic - appreciated the room of French portraits filled with propaganda shots of THE GLORIOUS NAPOLEON!!!
And Karina - our little egotist - enjoyed finding self-portraits and comparing them to how *she* would paint her own self-portrait. (She also hoped that she'd have food in her self-portrait. Because she was hungry.)
They all loved watching the aspiring artists who set up shop in the halls in order to copy the greats.
I'll admit, it did bust my buttons a bit when each of my kids separately saw the Mona Lisa and said, "It's less impressive than everyone says. Da Vinci's [each child had a different preference] was better."
After the portraits, we went to the Egyptian room. I've seen (albeit incredibly smaller) Egyptian exhibits before, but I was struck again with the sheer immensity of human history.
This is what 5,000 years looks like, folks.
Five. Thousand. Years.
Again, the thing I enjoyed most was the kids' observations about the artists. Did they want to do this? Or was this a forced profession. Who taught them? How many times did they have to start these ornate carvings anew because of a mistake? Sympathy for the poor kid who messes up the god's head and is punished for it.
Karina wondered if the people painting the sarcophagi were ever as hungry as she was. Because she was staaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrving!
We also discussed archaeology and why so many artifacts have been destroyed over time: what is beauty and how is it recognized and what blinds us to seeing it? (Eg, the tomb robbers both in antiquity and modern day only wanted what could be sold for profit, early archaeologists only wanted big, flashy, kingly discoveries, not the mundane beauty of everyday life.)
Digging the 'stache. And it's not even Movember.
By the time we finished up with the Egyptian rooms, we were all feeling overwhelmed. I suddenly understood what they meant by shell-shocked. But, gosh darn it, we must keep on! (Karina, by the way, was hungry. In case we had forgotten.) There's Islamic art! Eastern sculpture! Must! See!!!
Karina wondered if the lions were as hungry as she was. They couldn't have been. Because otherwise they would have eaten Daniel after all.
At that point, we all admitted that we felt a bit like a goose being fattened for fois gras. There's only so much you can do and we had done it. But you can't possibly go to the Louvre without seeing the Venus de Milo. Unfortunately, the museum is HUGE, so we had to drag ourselves up and down several more sets of stairs and through several more halls. I realized as we were walking that we were face to face with some of the most amazing art in the world and we're just so gluttonously overstuffed that we couldn't appreciate it at all. It was quite a realization as to what gluttony really does to the soul.
They were, of course, as unimpressed by the Venus de Milo as they were with the Mona Lisa.
Now on to the title:
We originally had other plans for Friday (more about that tomorrow), but at the last minute decided to switch around our Friday and Saturday. One of the biggest regrets/frustrations we've had during this trip is the amount of non-prepared that we've been. "We should have downloaded a map/guide/review/etc" was repeated far too many times. In hopes of avoiding this, I was researching Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle on Thursday night.
{Did you know that Sainte Chapelle was originally built by King Louis to house the relics of Christ's Passion (a piece of The Cross, a nail, and the Crown of Thorns)? And that during the French Revolution, they were moved about for safekeeping, finally ending up housed at Notre Dame cathedral? Yeah, me neither. }
So as I was researching, I came across that little fact and I thought, "Huh. That's kind of cool." And then I looked at Notre Dame's website, which says that on the first Friday of the month, they have veneration of the Crown of Thorns. And December 5th was the first Friday. Which means that we could go and see the Crown of Thorns.
(No, we do not know for certain that this is actually THE Jesus' Crown of Thorn. However, the tradition of believing that this particular crown made in roughly the first century AD of reeds and thorns from a plant typical to the area that is now Israel was THE Crown has been held for the last 1800 years or so. So - I claim Hebrews 11:1.)
By the time we got out of the maze-that-is-the-Louvre, we had exactly enough time to seriously book it from the museum to Notre Dame in order to make it. So book it we did.
(With a slight pause to get Karina a crepe from a street vendor. Because, if you recall, she was hungry.)
We got there just in time, but weren't able to fully see what was going on. And, since I don't understand French, I couldn't follow at all. But it was just amazing to realize that up there on the altar, encased in glass, decorated in gold, was THE Crown which had pierced Jesus during His Passion. THE Crown that He used to help earn my salvation. (Yes, yes, I know. No theological corrections. You know what I mean here.) Jesus who offered Himself for me and this was the Crown that my sins gave Him.
There were lots of incense and chanting and sitting and standing and Et cum spiritu tuoing and a few et in saecula saeculorums like any good Catholic ceremony. And then the priests and knights (Yup, knights. Being Catholic is so cool.) got up. At first we figured it was because the ceremony was done and they were leaving. Then with awe we realized that when they said "Veneration of the Crown of Thorns", they meant not just "look at the Crown from afar", but "actually go up and touch the Crown".
What do you do after that? What else is there? You just go home, eat something-or-other and go to bed.
Oh, and set out shoes for tomorrow.
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