The Wanderer Who Saw
The Louvre, Paris · A royal palace that became a museum · Glass Pyramid by I. M. Pei, opened March 29, 1989
One bright morning, the little wanderer came to a palace so big it had its own glass pyramid. "A museum lives here," he whispered.
Down under the pyramid, light poured through the glass like a waterfall. "Walk slowly," a guard said softly. "Let your eyes go first."
Mona Lisa · Leonardo da Vinci, painted about 1503-1519 · Louvre, Salle des Etats
A lady smiled at him from long ago. Her smile never changed, yet the longer he looked, the more it seemed to.
Winged Victory of Samothrace · Greek sculptor, about 190 BC · Louvre, Daru staircase
At the top of a grand stair, a stone woman with wings stood on the front of a ship. More than two thousand years old, and her robes still seemed to blow in the wind.
The Seated Scribe · Ancient Egypt, Old Kingdom, about 2675-2545 BC · Louvre, Egyptian Antiquities
A scribe sat with a scroll on his lap, his eyes made of shining crystal. He had been waiting for visitors for more than four thousand years.
A great red stone cat lay in a hall the color of sand. The Great Sphinx of Tanis is thousands of years old - experts say between about 3,900 and 4,600 years - carved in Egypt from a single block of granite.
Code of Hammurabi · Babylon, about 1750 BC · Louvre, Near Eastern Antiquities
This tall black stone was covered in tiny wedges of writing. It holds the laws of a king, carved so everyone could read them.
Winged Bull of Khorsabad · Assyria, about 721-705 BC · Louvre, Sargon II's palace court
Two giant winged bulls with human faces once guarded a king's palace gate. The wanderer walked between their huge legs, feeling very small and very safe.
The Wedding Feast at Cana · Paolo Veronese, 1562-1563 · Louvre, Salle des Etats
This painting is so big it fills a whole wall. Veronese painted a hundred guests at one great feast, and the wanderer found a musician in the middle.
The Raft of the Medusa · Theodore Gericault, 1818-1819 · Louvre, Paris
On a stormy sea, brave sailors waved a cloth at a tiny ship far away. The wanderer held his breath and hoped with them.
Liberty Leading the People · Eugene Delacroix, 1830 · Louvre, Paris
A woman held a flag high as the crowd followed her through the smoke. Delacroix painted a day in Paris that people remembered.
The Coronation of Napoleon · Jacques-Louis David, 1806-1807 · Louvre, Paris
It took David two years to paint this giant ceremony, with hundreds of faces. "You could walk right into it," the wanderer said.
The Lacemaker · Johannes Vermeer, about 1669-1670 · Louvre, Richelieu wing
Some paintings are big, and some are tiny. This one is small enough to need tiptoes. A girl bent over her red and white threads, so quiet and so still.
Pierrot · Jean-Antoine Watteau, about 1718-1719 · Louvre, Sully wing
A sad clown in white stood tall in front of his friends. Nobody knows exactly why Watteau painted him, so the wanderer imagined his own story.
A man leaned over his desk, touching a globe of the stars. Johannes Vermeer painted The Astronomer in 1668, and the Louvre keeps it.
Then came a hall of gold, with a ceiling full of painted sky. The Galerie d'Apollon was decorated from 1662 for King Louis XIV, who was called the Sun King.
Red velvet, crystal chandeliers and gold everywhere. These grand rooms were the Napoleon III Apartments, built in the 1850s and 1860s.
The Medieval Louvre · Fortress begun by King Philippe Auguste, about 1190 · Louvre, Paris
Down below, he found thick stone walls and a round tower. Before it was a museum, and before it was a palace, the Louvre was a castle.
The Marly Horses · Guillaume Coustou, 1745 · Louvre, Cour Marly, Richelieu wing
In a courtyard under a glass roof, two marble horses reared up, held by their grooms. Once they stood in a king's park. Now the sunlight visits them.
His feet were tired. Beside him on the bench, a child was drawing, copying a painting one careful line at a time.
Then the wanderer turned to the window. The garden outside, in the golden light, looked just like a painting.
On the steps, he took out his little notebook and drew a single green leaf. It was not a masterpiece. It was his.
He walked home with the sky above him painted pink, orange and violet. Every artist in that palace had done the same thing: they had stopped, and looked.
"The world is a museum," he whispered, "and everyone who looks slowly gets in free."