Robert is in the Cour Napoleon, the courtyard of the Louvre Museum. In the 1980s, the main entrance was relocated and topped by an almost 70-feet-high glass pyramid designed by architect I.M. Pei. It caused controversy at the time and still does because it contrasts sharply with the classical design of the surrounding buildings. Regardless, it has become inextricably and famously associated with the Louvre Museum. The smaller pyramids function as skylights for the lobby below. Below the Louvre is an elaborate shopping mall with marbled floors and walls, the inverted glass pyramid and an entrance to the Louvre Museum.
Robert and glass pyramids in the Cour Napoleon of the Louvre Museum
The Place du Carrousel
The central feature is the Arc deTriomphe du Carrousel, built to celebrate the victories of Napoleon, with bas-relief sculptures of his battles by Jean Joseph Espercieux.
Looking back at the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel toward the Louvre and glass pyramid
Map of the Tuileries Garden
The garden is located between the Louvre Museum and the Place de la Concorde in the first arrondissement of Paris. Created by Catherine de Medicis as the garden of the Tuileries Palace in 1564, it was first opened to the public in 1667, and became a public park after the French Revolution in 1789.
Pomone, the Roman goddess of fruit trees, gardens and orchards
Flore, the Roman goddess of flowers
L'Ete, summer
Baigneuse se coiffant, bather fixing her hair
Venus
La Nymphe, the nymph
Three Maillol Sculptures
The Three Graces
La Montagne, The Mountain
La Baigneuse a la draperie, bather with draped cloth
La Riviere, The River, the personification of a powerful current of moving water
L'Air
La somme des hypothèses, 2011, by Vincent Mauger
A FIAC (Contemporary Art Fair) installation juxtaposed with a classical sculpture of the goddess Diana the Huntress
“The wooden elements that constitute La somme des hypothèses, evokes an explosion that seems to indefinitely extend into space.”*
(I have taken the descriptions of the FIAC art installations from the FIAC web site. If you want the complete description, go to www.fiac.com)
Nymph, by Leveque
Modern art sculpture and small basin to one side of the main “Allee” or pathway
La Misere, Misery by Jean Baptiste Hugues (1905)
A semi-circular bank with flowers around large basin
FIAC Sculpture Le Cri, l’Ecrit, 2007 by Fabrice Hyber
Le cri, l’écrit (The scream, the writing) features a vertical section of three chain links inserted in a stone of which the last one remains open. It is similar to the sculpture commissioned for the commemoration of the abolition of slavery.”*
Opposite side of the sculpture
The large basin and fountain, around which are sculptures from mythology. If you look closely, you can see in the background the obelisk of the Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysees.
FIAC Sculpture Poems for Earthlings, 2011 by Adrian Villar Rojas
“Inspired by contemporary literature, classical culture, science fiction and comic strips, his work deals with the theme of the end of humanity : what will remain after the end of the world, after the end of art ? Inscribed in a time-line conceived as a loop, Poems for Earthlings appears as a ruin, the remains of a future civilization (length 98 yards.)Like other monumental sculptures by Adrián Villar Rojas, this ephemeral work is destined for destruction.”*
This cylinder is really big and really long. We had no idea what it was doing there, especially perched on the edge of the basin, as it was.
Cassandra placing herself under Athena’s protection
by Aimé Miller, (1877)
Theseus combatting the Minotaur
by Etienne Jules Ramey (1821)
FIAC Sculpture MEN, 2006-2007 by Antony Gormley
“The artist revives the image of man in his sculptures through a deep exploration of the body as a place of memory and transformation. He uses his own body as subject, tool and material. “* There are three sculptures of men in a row, spaced rather far apart. I was finally beginning to recognize the art installations "hors les murs," (outside the walls) of the Contemporary Art Fair. These sculptures of men were situated in the middle of a pathway, not set apart or behind glass, and it was an unusual experience to be up-close-and-personal with a sculpture, or rather, with three of them.
These are the three sculptures of men seen from the opposite direction, looking toward the large basin and main Allee (pathway)
The Centaur abducting Dejanire
by Laurent Honore Marquests
Alexander Doing Battle
by Charles Leboeuf (1836)
Cincinnatus, as part of the semi-circle surrounding the basin
Sculpture of Cincinnatus
by Denis Foyatier (1834)
Apollo pursuing Daphne in the foreground, and Daphne pursued by Apollo in the background
Venus exiting her bath (known as the Venus Callipygia) is on the pedestal in front of the exedra. Her arm is a perfect resting place for a pigeon.
The Grand Couvert is the part of the garden covered with trees. It contains a number of important works of 20th century and contemporary sculpture.
L’Echiquier grand by Germaine Richier
The giant chess pieces are five bronze sculptures representing the king , the queen, the rook, the jester and the knight.
Standing Figure
by Willem de Kooning
Standing Woman
by Gaston Lachaise
The Female Musician
by Henri Laurens
Personnage III
by Etienne-Martin
Reclining Artist
The main pathway, or “Allee” looking towards the octagonal basin and the Place de la Concorde
Becky and FIAC Sculpture Miss Satin, 2006-2008, by Urs Fischer
“Due to its monumental size, the work oscillates between abstraction and figuration, somewhere in the no man’s land between specificity and universality, between concrete formal individuality and a superordinate category.”*
“Due to its monumental size, the work oscillates between abstraction and figuration, somewhere in the no man’s land between specificity and universality, between concrete formal individuality and a superordinate category.”*
FIAC Sculpture Le prix du danger 5, 2011, by Camille Henrot
“Airplane wings are the symbol of modern travel, of the boom in transportation systems and of a reduced sense of distance between societies that are far apart. They are erected like totems and pose the following question: isn’t the domination of technology in our societies a trait that we may consider to be characteristic of modernity ?” *
“Airplane wings are the symbol of modern travel, of the boom in transportation systems and of a reduced sense of distance between societies that are far apart. They are erected like totems and pose the following question: isn’t the domination of technology in our societies a trait that we may consider to be characteristic of modernity ?” *
Near the exit to the Tuileries: The Tiber River by Pierre Bourdict
The Seine and the Marne (Rivers)
The fer a cheval, the horseshoe terrace, rising above and on opposite sides of the octagonal pool
The octagonal basin is circled by statues representing mythological figures and events. You can see the 2 large sculptures on either side of the exit from the Tuileries and on both sides of the gate are sculptures called the Chevaux Ailée, Winged Horses, created by Antoine Coysevox.
In the center of the Place de la Concorde stands the 3,000 year old Obelisk of Luxor which was a gift to King Louis-Philippe in 1836 from Muhammed Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt and the Sudan. The Obelisk is inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphics exalting the reign of the pharaoh Ramses II. Further down the Champs-Elysees, beyond the obelisk, is the Arc de Triomphe.
So ends our walk through the Tuileries, from the Louvre Museum and the Cour Napoleon, past the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and through the garden of the Cour du Carrousel with the Maillol sculptures; past the large basin surrounded by sculptures from mythology and down the Allee that passes by the Grand Couvert with large contemporary sculptures; ending up at the exit past the octagonal basin and through the gate flanked by the Winged Horses.
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