A Wanderer in Paris

by E. V. Lucas

It is on the first landing of the Escalier Daru, at the end of the Galerie Denon, that one of the most priceless treasures of the Louvre—one of the most splendid things in the world—is to be found: it has been before us all the way along the Galerie Denon, that avenue of noble bronzes, the first thing that caught the eye: I mean the "Winged Victory of Samothrace". Every one has seen photographs or models of this majestic and exquisite figure, but it must be studied here if one is to form a true estimate of the magical mastery of the sculptor. The Victory is headless and armless and much mutilated; but that matters little. She stands on the prow of a trireme, and for every one who sees her with any imagination must for all time be the symbol of triumphant and splendid onset. The figure no doubt weighs more than a ton—and is as light as air. The "Meteor" in a strong breeze with all her sails set and her prow foaming through the waves does not convey a more exciting idea of commanding and buoyant progress. But that comparison wholly omits the element of conquest—for this is essential Victory as well.

The statue dates from the fourth century b.c. It was not discovered until 1863, in Samothrace. Paris is fortunate indeed to possess not only the Venus of Milo but this wonder of art—both in the same building.

Before entering the picture galleries proper, let us look at two other exceedingly beautiful things also on this staircase—the two frescoes from the Villa Lemmi, but particularly No. 1297 on the left of the entrance to Gallery XVI., which represents Giovanna Tornabuoni and the Cardinal Virtues, and is by Sandro Filipepi, whom we call Botticelli. For this exquisite work alone would I willingly cross the Channel even in a gale, such is its charm. A reproduction of it will be found [opposite page 20], but it gives no impression of the soft delicacy of colouring: its gentle pinks and greens and purples, its kindly reds and chestnut browns. One should make a point of looking at these frescoes whenever one is on the staircase, which will be often.

The ordinary entrance to the picture galleries of the Louvre is through the photographic vestibule on the right of the Winged Victory as you face it, leading to the Salle Duchâtel, notable for such differing works as frescoes by Luini and two pictures by Ingres—representing the beginning and end of his long and austere career. The Luinis are delightful—very gay and, as always with this tender master, sweet—especially "The Nativity," which is reproduced [opposite page 16]. The Ingres' (which were bequeathed by the Comtesse Duchâtel after whom the room is named) are the "Œdipus solving the riddle of the Sphinx," dated 1808, when the painter was twenty-eight, and the "Spring," which some consider his masterpiece, painted in 1856. He lived to be eighty-six. English people have so few opportunities of seeing the work of this master (we have in oils only a little doubtful portrait of Malibran, very recently acquired, which hangs in the National Gallery) that he comes as a totally new craftsman to most of us; and his severity may not always please. But as a draughtsman he almost takes the breath away, and no one should miss the pencil heads, particularly a little saucy lady, from his hand in the His de la Salle collection of drawings in another part of the Louvre.

In the Salle Duchâtel is also a screen of drawings with a very beautiful head by Botticelli in it—No. 48. From the rooms we then pass to the Salon Carré (so called because it is square, and not, as I heard one American explaining to another, after the celebrated collector Carré who had left these pictures to the nation), and this is, I suppose, for its size, the most valuable gallery in the world. It is doubtful if any other combination of collections, each contributing of its choicest, could compile as remarkable a room, for the "Monna Lisa," or "La Joconde," Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of the wife of his friend Francesco del Giocondo, which is its greatest glory and perhaps the greatest glory of all Paris too, would necessarily be missing.

THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE
(Louvre)

Paris without this picture would not be the Paris that we know, or the Paris that has been since 1793 when "La Joconde" first became the nation's property—ever more to smile her inscrutable smile and exert her quiet mysterious sway, not only for kings and courtiers but for all. When all is said, it is Leonardo who gives the Louvre its special distinction as a picture gallery. Without him it would still be magnificent: with him it is priceless and sublime. For not only are there the "Monna Lisa" and (also in the Salon Carré) the sweet and beautiful "Madonna and Saint Anne," but in the next, the Grande Galerie, are his "Virgin of the Rocks," a variant of the only Leonardo in our National Gallery, and the "Bacchus" (so like the "John the Baptist") and the "John the Baptist" (so like the "Bacchus") and the portrait of the demure yet mischievous Italian lady who is supposed to be Lucrezia Crivelli, and who (in spite of the yellowing ravages of time) once seen is never forgotten.

The Louvre has all these (together with many drawings), but above all it has the Monna Lisa, of which what shall I say? I feel that I can say nothing. But here are two descriptions of the picture, or rather two descriptions of the emotions produced by the picture on two very different minds. These I may quote as expressing, between them, all. I will begin with that of Walter Pater: "As we have seen him using incidents of sacred story, not for their own sake, or as mere subjects for pictorial realisation, but as a cryptic language for fancies all his own, so now he found a vent for his thought in taking one of these languid women, and raising her, as Leda or Pomona, as Modesty or Vanity, to the seventh heaven of symbolical expression.