The excitement is palpable! Paris restaurants, which until now only had permission to serve customers on their terraces or sell takeout food, were finally able to fully reopen on Monday. That momentous event, along with the reopening this week of … Read More
The king of France lost his head in 1793, and with him were lost all but one of the crowns that had sat on the heads of his Ancien Régime predecessors. What is left of the crown jewels of France … Read More
If you have not yet bought a ticket for the Leonardo da Vinci show at the Louvre, you will probably miss out on it. If you have, you are in for a treat. Although Leonardo is so familiar to us … Read More
It’s a story of acquisitiveness comparable to that of William Randolph Hearst, who is said to have owned a quarter of the world’s art at one point and whose life was immortalized in Orson Welles’s film Citizen Kane. A fascinating … Read More
In a letter covered in daubs of paint of many colors, the 29-year-old Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) asked his art supplier to urgently send him paints that were “more liquid than the colors prepared for everyone else,” revealing both his passion for his … Read More
Say what you will about megalomaniac dictators and authoritarian states, but without them much of the great art we revere would not exist. An exhibition at the Louvre, “Théâtre du Pouvoir” (“Power Plays”) amply demonstrates with works from French collections … Read More
Photo of the Week Lovers watch the Seine rise. Photo: Audrey O’Reilly © JR-ART.NET © JR-ART.NET Favorite
Photo of the Week Artist JR’s trompe-l’œil magic has made the Louvre Pyramid disappear. Through June 27. © JR-ART.NET © JR-ART.NET © JR-ART.NET Favorite
Bad news for my mother: I’m a pornographer. Or at least that’s what Google says. But, mainly for the benefit of my mom, I can explain. In January 2012, I wrote a C’est Ironique about the sometimes-delicate dilemma of choosing … Read More
The Godly Side of French Baroque Painting “The Holy Family on the Steps” (1648). © The Cleveland Museum of Art The Louvre’s remarkable exhibition of works by the French master Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) invokes divine inspiration as its theme. There … Read More
