Inventing The Louvre Essay

906 Words2 Pages

Andrew McClellan’s Inventing the Louvre follows the key moments in creating the legacy of the Louvre museum in Paris, France. The Louvre museum was initially a fortress built by King Philip II. Before museums were even made, most artwork were only seen by kings, queens, and other major artists of the time. King Louis XIV, specifically, built a very grand palace at Versailles which included many great paintings that no one saw but himself, painters, and the servants. Inventing the Louvre follows the creation of the Louvre from the 1750’s to about 1810, during Louis XIV to the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire. The book mainly explains how many great and beautiful paintings were acquired. McClellan also tries to show that different museums …show more content…

This could be considered a strength because most people could have thought this was what the book was mainly about. McClellan explained there was a small committee who picked the paintings. Most of the paintings were from major artists of the time and their apprentices. The rest were put in a room only used for art scholars and were not allowed to be shown to the public. The placement of the pictures were determined a little differently. At first it was decided that the painting would be hung in different rooms based on who created them and where they came from. Some of this still holds true today. It was then added that smaller more detailed picture would be hung lower to the ground and the bigger more elaborate picture would be hung higher to the ceiling. They hoped that be doing this the public would be able to appreciate the paintings better. Many museums today like this idea and put in into effect in their museums.

In this book, a major theme present throughout is the collecting of major artworks. McClellan focuses mostly on how the museum was created, not about how it influences modern art museums. The book explains how the Louvre has collected artwork from different countries in Europe. As said before, these paintings were sometimes given as presents for the king or queen at the time, as a reward for a battle that

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