When was the Louvre built? Rebirth of the palace into a museum

One of the most visited museums in the world with a grandiose collection of works of art, several million visitors annually pass through its halls. Getting to the Louvre is not so easy; to do this, you will have to overcome the obstacle in the form of a queue of people equally thirsty for cultural enlightenment. But the wait is worth it. The collections that are kept within the walls of the museum are simply priceless.

Where is the Louvre

The Louvre is located in the city of Paris, on the right bank of the Seine River, on one of the central streets of Rivoli. From the outside it looks like a huge palace with rich decorations, which itself has a huge cultural value in the history of French architecture.

The main entrance to the museum is in a glass pyramid, rising on the square in front of the palace, surrounded by beautiful fountains. However, there is another, lesser-known entrance. On the same level as ticket offices Pyramid is the shopping center Carousel de Louvre, from where you can also get to the artistic treasury of Paris.

Brief history of the museum

IN beginning of XII centuries, France was subject to Viking raids, plundering and devastating everything in their path. The invaders entered cities through undefended borders, forests and rivers. In order to protect the capital, located on the banks of the full-flowing Seine River, which is very convenient for aggressive maneuvers, King Philip Augustus ordered the construction of a fortified fortress-castle with a donjon tower on its right bank. The fortress served to monitor the lower reaches of the Seine, and the tower at that time was used as a repository for royal documentation. Thus began the long, eventful history of the creation of the Louvre in Paris. In the 14th century, Charles V moved to the castle, having fled his residence in Cite away from riots and popular unrest. He somewhat modifies the appearance of the fortress and turns it into royal apartments.

The next wave of transformations hit the palace during the Renaissance, when Francis I ordered the destruction of the walls of the fortress and big tower so that the castle looks like the palace residence of monarchs. During the reign of Henry II, at the direction of his august wife Catherine de Medici, a gallery was built connecting the Louvre with the Tuileries palace apartments. Throughout almost its entire history, the palace was constantly subjected to some kind of reconstruction; each monarch adjusted its external and internal appearance to his vision of beauty.

During the reign of the Sun King Louis XIV the Louvre is forgotten for a while, as the residence of the monarch moves to Versailles. The palace in the center of Paris seems unnecessary to the sun-faced man, and he even decides to destroy it. Fortunately, those around the monarch quickly found good people, who dissuaded him from this terrible idea. Therefore, the palace continued to be transformed, remaining the apartments of monarchs until the end of the Great French Revolution.

As a museum, the Louvre was opened to the public in 1793. Start museum collection was decided by Francis, who gave the gallery a dozen paintings. Napoleon also did his best for the museum, boldly taking indemnities from the defeated armies in the form of valuable works different types arts So, over time, both the collection itself and the size of the Louvre grew and increased.

Mine modern look Acquired the Louvre in 1871. Currently, it rises 4 floors above ground level and has 3 wings: the Decon wing - along the Seine River, the Richelieu wing - along the city street of Rivoli, the Sully wing - around palace yard. In 1989, modern architect Yo Ming Pei added to architectural ensemble The museum has a modern touch - several glass pyramids, the largest of which became the main entrance to the museum. The central glass pyramid of the Louvre is surrounded by several elegant fountains.

Popular collections

About 400 thousand exhibits are stored in the bowels of the Louvre, of which 35 thousand are in main exhibition. To make it easier to navigate the endless labyrinths of the museum, all exhibits are divided into categories:

• The Ancient East- includes collections of Mesopotamia, Iran and countries eastern Mediterranean. The Louvre is in second place in the world in terms of the size of its ancient oriental collection after London British Museum. The Ancient East is the real cradle of civilization; it was here that the first engineering structures, writing, and law were born. Evidence of the existence of life in the East during the Neolithic is presented in the corresponding halls of the museum;

• Ancient Rome, Greece- a significant part of world history, occupying several halls in the museum. Here you can see collections of antique marble statues, such as Venus de Milo, Borghese gladiator, ritual objects, clay vases, Greek ceramics, jewelry. This part is also divided into several categories: archaic, classical Greece, Hellenes, Romans;

• Egyptian halls of the Louvre- were opened in 1826. Gods and pyramids, Cleopatra and Tutankhamun, papyrus and mummies - in the exhibition you can trace the formation of Egyptian civilization in chronological or thematic order;

• sculptures- initially this section belonged to antiquity, but over time, works by later sculptors, from the Middle Ages to the 18th century, appeared in the museum’s arsenal. Here are the works of classics Michelangelo, Goujon, Cellini, and modern creators such as Coisevo, Coustou, Puget;

• painting- over 6,000 works by different masters, styles and techniques are contained in the Louvre, paintings occupy largest area among all other forms of art. The earliest dates back to the Middle Ages, and the latest dates back to 1848. Masterpieces that were published later than this date are collected in the Orsay Museum. IN art gallery Louvre you can find the most big names world of painting. Name any artist, and his works will definitely end up in the halls of the museum. Durer and Leonardo, Wag Gogh and Raphael, Picasso and Monet, as well as lesser-known but no less talented personalities, filled the building of the world's most famous museum.

The abduction of Gioconda

The history of the Louvre was not without egregious events. One of these was the theft of the Mona Lisa painting in 1911. This happened on the night of August 21-22. Just in time for this date, a restoration artist came to the museum to make a copy of the painting. But Gioconda was not in her usual place. Panic arose in the museum, which reached the leadership of the Louvre, then the French Government, and reached the international level. Shortly before the incident, the director of the museum confidently stated in an interview that stealing the Mona Lisa was as unrealistic as stealing the bells of Notre-Dame de Paris. And, of course, the first accusations of theft fell on his head.

For three years all of France puzzled and mourned the loss famous masterpiece Leonardo da Vinci. The best French detective Alphonse Bertillon was closely involved in the investigation, who immediately determined that the painting could only have been stolen by one of the museum staff. Everyone was interrogated again and again, but there was no result, the thief lay low and gave no reason to identify himself. At the same time, scammers have become more active all over the world, selling the pseudo-original Mona Lisa for fabulous money. It’s even scary to imagine how many millions were earned from the Louvre tragedy.

History shows that even the most well-thought-out maneuvers have their weaknesses. At the beginning of 1914, when the panic about the da Vinci painting had subsided a little, a letter came into the hands of a Florentine collector offering to buy original Mona Lisa. The wary Italian responded by offering to discuss the terms of the deal in a personal meeting. Soon a certain young man from France arrived in Florence with a thin bundle in his hands and declared that he had finally returned the masterpiece written by the true Italian da Vinci to his historical homeland. After confirming the exact authenticity of the painting, the collector called the police.

The “benefactor” who stole the masterpiece actually turned out to be an Italian Louvre employee, Vincenzo Perugia. A Florence court sentenced the thief to only 1 year in prison, given his love for his homeland and good intentions. After this incident, Mona Lisa traveled around the world for about six months. different museums Italy, and then returned to its carved frame in one of the most prominent places in the Louvre.

Louvre during the war

In several days before the start of World War II The Louvre suddenly closed to the public. Official reason- conducting repair work. The director of the museum at that time was Jacques Jaujard, who treated the precious collection of the Louvre very carefully and reverently. Feeling that he smelled something fried, he organized secret preparations within the museum’s walls for the evacuation of works of art somewhere far away from the strategic targets of German aggression. The ideal place turned out to be the chateaus of the Loire - calm rural houses and castles that should not have been affected by the bombing.

And for three days, museum workers urgently packed the most valuable exhibits, among which were Mona Lisa, statues of the Venus de Milo and the Nike of Samothrace. WITH main gallery Lurva was removed and absolutely all the paintings were taken away. The grandiose operation to save the masterpieces of world civilization was completed successfully; the exhibits, under the supervision of museum workers, moved to the basements of castles in the rear, leaving the endless halls and corridors of the Louvre empty.

In September 1940 The Germans decided to reopen the museum in order to return occupied Paris to the cultural mainstream. However, the idea failed; the Nazis plundered the remaining exhibits; they were especially interested in the collections of Middle Eastern works.

The story ended successfully, and after the end of the war, all valuable exhibits returned to their places safe and sound. In total, more than 3.5 thousand paintings, sculptures and other art objects took part in the trip. It is worth paying tribute to the director Jacques Jaujard, under whose leadership not a single exhibit was lost in the whirlpool of moving. This feat was filmed documentary“The Man Who Saved the Louvre,” telling in detail about the events of those times.

Restoration of the Louvre in 1981

Until the end of the 20th century, not the entire territory of the palace belonged to the museum. For example, the Richelieu wing housed a French government organization. In 1981, President François Mitterrand decided to make the Louvre a separate, holistic organization, embodying the earlier project of the Grand Louvre, begun by Catherine de Medici with the unification of the Louvre and the Tuileries. At the same time, restoration work began in the Louvre, the ruins of the Main Tower and other oldest parts of the palace from the time it was a castle-fortress were restored. By the end of the large-scale restoration, the central building of the palace with two side wings, like Napoleon's courtyard with a glass pyramid and fountains, belonged to the museum.

Louvre

Louvre is the most visited museum in world art. One of the most big museums world with the most valuable collection of works. The museum is located in the historical center of Paris, in the former residence of the kings of France - the Louvre Palace (French palais du Louvre). After the French Revolution, the palace was opened to the public (August 10, 1793), effectively becoming a museum. The Louvre contains exhibits from various eras from all over the world, which are formed according to separate thematic collections: civilizations ancient east, ancient Egypt, antiquity (ancient Greece, Etruria, Rome), sculpture, fine art and painting, graphic art, applied art, art of the Islamic East (created in 2003).

art represented in the Louvre by one of the most valuable collections (more than 6,000 paintings). They are formed according to periods from the Middle Ages to the mid-19th century. The Louvre's collection of paintings contains only works created before 1848. Replenishment of the collection with new works is also limited to this date. This is a museum format. Works of art, created after 1848, were transferred to the Orsay Museum (located on the opposite bank of the Seine, opposite the Louvre) in 1986. The Orsay exhibition was created from
meetings European painting from 1849 to 1910. And all the works contemporary art(after 1910) transferred to French State Museum contemporary art (Georges Pompidou).

From 1985 to 1989, the Louvre underwent reorganization and reconstruction, as a result of which the Glass Pyramid was built in the Louvre courtyard (serves as the main entrance to the museum). The construction of the pyramid was heavily criticized and caused much controversy. But at present, the Louvre pyramid has already become one of the symbols of Paris.

Official website of the Louvre

Constant assaults on the Louvre required the continuation of the endless restoration of the palace. By the end of the 1880s, the Louvre constituted a single palace complex. The remains of the Tuileries Palace are dismantled (now it is an unusually empty place with a lawn) and the Louvre takes on the final form that we can see today (plus a small creative bonus from restless descendants in the form of a glass pyramid).

Since childhood, I have associated the Louvre with the novels of Dumas - after all, Constance served there. Later the image of the legendary Mona Lisa was added. The Louvre is the old royal residence and magnificent museum. The history of the building is no less interesting than the museum itself. The first building on the territory of the modern Louvre was built during the time of the French king Philip Augustus. The king, before leaving for the crusade, decided to strengthen his capital from possible invasions and built a fortress wall around Paris. The Louvre fortress was part of the fortifications of Philip Augustus; it protected the city from the west. The remains of the fortress can still be seen at the base of the Louvre, as well as in front of the entrance to the Louvre from the Louvre-Rivoli metro station, from shopping center Carousel.
The first king who made the Louvre his residence was Charles V. Under him, the fortress walls around Paris were rebuilt, and the fortress was inside the walls, then Charles rebuilt the fortress into a palace. Further development The Louvre is associated with Francis I. This king was a great lover of the arts. Francis decided to make the Louvre his main residence. The palace was built in the Renaissance style by the architect Pierre Lesko. The Lescaut wing to the left of the exit from the Square Court to the Napoleon Court is the oldest building of the modern Louvre that has reached us. The fruit of Lescaut's labors is considered a masterpiece of the French Renaissance.

Then another wing was built, which completely copied the Lescaut pavilion. Under Henry IV, a long gallery was erected along the shore - now it is hidden from the view of the visitor. Under Louis XIII, the central Pavilion of the Hours was built.

Louis XIV did not like Paris. Even as a child, he had to flee from a city engulfed in an uprising. The king made Versailles his main residence.

However, he also built in the capital. Under Louis, the eastern façade of the Louvre was built. This facade by the architect Perrault is still considered a masterpiece of classicism and served as a model for many architects. In particular, in St. Petersburg, the arch of the main headquarters was built in the image and likeness.

After royal court moved to Versailles, work was suspended and only continued in the 19th century.

The courtyard of the Louvre, in the center of which there is a pyramid, is called the Courtyard of Napoleon.

Construction of the courtyard was completed in mid-19th V. In general, the architects repeated the style of the Lescaut and Clock pavilions. However, columns, arcades and statues of the great men of France were added. Among the statues there are monuments to: Abelard, Voltaire, Poussin, Rabelais, Richelieu, Mazarin, Descartes, etc.

The glass pyramid was built already in the 20th century. There are still debates about it, some consider it a masterpiece, and others consider it blasphemy. Go to Paris and form your own opinion. As for me, I think that the pyramid fits perfectly into the ensemble of the Louvre and does not look at all like something foreign.

The story of how the Louvre grew

History of the Louvre Museum.

The revolutionary government ordered the creation of a museum in the royal residence. The decree was issued in 1793. In fact, the museum did not arise out of nowhere. Louis XVI was already concerned about the creation of the museum; he created a special commission that took an inventory of the royal collection.
The museum was based on the royal collection of paintings, which Francis I began to collect. The royal collection included works by Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Italian, Flemish and Dutch masters. The collection of the future museum also includes antiquities collected by Henry IV.
During the First Republic, the collection was replenished with works of art taken from aristocrats and the church. Then the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte marched across Europe, confiscating works of art as war trophies.
Many of the confiscated works then had to be returned, but the Louvre Museum never closed and continued to collect a collection that eventually became one of the largest and most interesting in the world.
The Egyptian department of the Louvre was collected by the great Jean Francois Champollion. And in 1843, Paul Emil Botta carried out excavations in Horsbad, his findings formed the basis of the Assyrian exposition. Subsequently, the museum was constantly replenished with new works of art and antiquity.

How to navigate the Louvre

Main entrance to the Louvre carried out through a glass pyramid. There are ticket offices, cloakrooms and shops here. During the season, queues form to enter the Louvre. The Louvre is divided into three parts: the Richelieu wing, the Sully wing and the Denon wing, all of which can be accessed from the main entrance under the pyramid. It is better to study the layout of the Louvre in advance so as not to waste time on long transitions. For example, the Mona Lisa is in the Danon wing. Scheme of the Louvre.

Louvre Museum in Paris is an architectural monument and richest museum, which has no equal in the diversity and completeness of its collections, their artistic and historical value.

Initially, the Louvre was a royal palace (1546-19 centuries, architects P. Lescault, Levo, C. Perrot, etc.; sculptural decoration by J. Goujon, interior design by S. Lebrun, etc.), built on the site of the castle.

Where the name Louvre came from is not entirely clear. The most famous version is that the name is related to the word “Loup” - “Wolf”. It’s as if special dogs for hunting wolves – “Louvriers” – were kept and bred here. Other researchers use the Old Saxon word “Lower” for comparison. In addition, 12th-century texts mention the village of Louvres, located north of the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis, so the name was not rare or unusual.

King Philip Augustus, a worthy opponent of the famous English king Richard the Lionheart, was a major fortifier. During his reign, many fortresses were built in France based on the model of the capital. The Paris castle had a square layout, there was a tower at each corner, and a powerful citadel thirty meters high rose in the center. The walls were surrounded by a moat. The citadel served simultaneously as the main fortification of the fortress, an arsenal, a safe where the main valuables of the kingdom were kept, an archive where documents were jealously preserved, and a prison for important prisoners. By the way, both documents and prisoners could be equated to valuables - a considerable price could be obtained for them...

And Philip II himself lived in the royal palace on the island of Cite. The Louvre later became the royal residence. The capital was growing. At the beginning of the 13th century, one hundred and twenty thousand people lived in it, there were three hundred streets, the main ones of which were paved.

In the middle of the 14th century, King Charles V ordered to surround Paris with a new fortress wall, and the Louvre completely lost its importance in the city's defense system. The crown bearer himself moved there and transported his famous library. A special library tower appeared. It contained a thousand handwritten books collected by the king, whom his contemporaries nicknamed the Wise. This meeting later became the basis National Library France. Charles V the Wise sought to give a residential and cozy appearance to the gloomy brainchild of Philip Augustus. New wings of the palace were added, and graceful pointed roofs and flagpoles rose above the heavy battle towers.

But desolation settled here again - after the death of Charles V, and for half a century the castle stood abandoned. Kings and court preferred the Parisian palaces of Saint-Paul and Tournelle or cozy castles in the Loire Valley. Tours, the current center of the Indre and Loire departments, could in those years really snatch the palm from Paris and win the fight for the right to become the capital of France

Next important date in the history of the Louvre - 1527. King Francis I, while in desperate situation, was looking for a way to replenish the empty treasury and found it: he decided to take an indemnity from the Parisians. But to sweeten the pill, the king decided to flatter the vanity of the townspeople. He announced that he saw no other capital for beautiful France and was returning to live in Paris.

Work has begun at the Louvre. The citadel was demolished, as well as the outer fortress wall - a garden was laid out in its place. However, only twenty years later, Francis I gave the order to begin construction of a new palace on the site of the razed fortress. The further history of the Louvre can - if desired - be reduced to which king, which architect added what, what was rebuilt, and what was demolished. Every monarch did this without fail, and at least with this he entered the history of France. Great French revolution, for example, really turned out to be a revolution for the Louvre - it was it that turned it into a museum. The Jacobins decided to establish a “Central Museum of Art” here. And during the years of the revolution and the Napoleonic wars, the Louvre collection quickly grew due to requisitions from aristocrats and confiscations during military campaigns abroad... This is how the course of history replenished the museum’s funds! The museum's collections were "good", which could not be said about the quarter adjacent to the Louvre, which became a famous Parisian nest of crime and poverty. “Every person, even if he comes to Paris for a few days, will notice the rickety facades of dozens of houses, the discouraged owners of which are not making any repairs. These buildings remain from the ancient quarter, which is gradually collapsing...” - this is how Balzac described this quarter in the novel "Cousin Betta." A couple of years passed after the book was published - and by order of Emperor Napoleon III, the “junk” was demolished, the quarter was completely destroyed, and in its place a new central courtyard of the Louvre was located - “Napoleon’s Court”. It was this courtyard, free of buildings, that was excavated by archaeologists in the last quarter of the twentieth century, and it turned out that the circle was closed. The “youngest” part of the Louvre ensemble turned out to be just above the oldest - above the foundation of that very “ordinary medieval castle”.

It must be admitted that the indefatigable “builders of the Louvre” did not stop. After excavations, the site of “Napoleon’s Court” was occupied by a very extravagant modern administrative building of the museum, and this is hardly the last extension to the palace.

In 1563, the widow of Henry II, Catherine de Medici, entrusted Philippe Delorme with the construction of a new palace. It began to be called the Tuileries, as it was located on the site of a former tile factory (tuilerie). In 1871, the Tuileries Palace burned down and was never rebuilt. Under Henry IV (reigned 1589-1610), a master plan was drawn up, as a result of which the total area of ​​the Louvre increased 4 times. Between the Louvre and the Tuileries in 1608, a gallery (420 m long) was erected along the banks of the Seine, called the Grand Gallery. It became the basis of the future museum, as it was assumed that royal collections would be housed here.

In the second half of the 17th century. In the Louvre, large-scale work was undertaken to bring the appearance of the palace closer to the architecture of the Baroque era. One of the main creators of this style, L. Bernini, was invited to Paris from Rome for this purpose. However, the project he proposed was considered too pompous. The work was entrusted to French architects. C. Perrault (1613-1688) built the famous eastern colonnade in the classicism style, which was preferred in France. P. Levo (1612-1670) created a number of interiors, incl. the Augustan Hall, designed to house the royal collections antique statues, weapons, medals. After a fire in 1661, Levo recreated the Apollo gallery, the decoration and painting of which was carried out by C. Lebrun. Based on his drawings, picturesque panels for lampshades, wall cladding, reliefs, even locks and handles were made - everything, down to the smallest detail.

In 1674, Louis XIV decided to make Versailles his residence. Work at the Louvre was suspended, and many rooms remained unfinished for a long time.

Due to the fact that the Louvre lost its significance as a royal residence, various institutions gradually began to occupy it. Here premises were allocated for artists' workshops and for tenants. The Louvre was home to the furniture maker Boulle, the famous decorator Beren, and the sculptor Giradon, who housed his own collection in the Louvre, which even included an Egyptian mummy.

Louvre... This unusual, but very beautiful and sonorous word is the name of one of the largest and popular museums in the world. It presents an incredible amount of history, art, culture and creativity. different people who lived in different time periods. Every year thousands of tourists from all over our planet come to the Louvre to see all its beauty and attractions with their own eyes. We will touch on the issue of the uniqueness of the Louvre, but first we’ll talk a little about the history of this museum.

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A Brief History of the Louvre

Representing one of the most remarkable public buildings Paris, the Louvre is notable not only for the jewelry stored there, but also for its history and architecture.

The building called the Louvre is located in the first arrondissement of Paris on the right bank of the Seine. The name "Louvre" originates from the huge forest area "Wolf Forest" located here in previous centuries, in which lived great amount wolf packs. Here stood the castle of the kings of France. One of them, King Charles V, made these places part of the capital, and the castle his palace.

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Even later, another king of France, Francis I, ordered the castle to be destroyed and a new, larger palace to be built in its place, which was carried out in 1741. The construction of the new castle began from the southwestern corner of the present “Old Louvre” and corresponded to all the trends of the era French Renaissance. The project was designed and led by the French sculptor and architect Pierre Lescot. The construction of the castle took place in several stages and continued until 1857, and, in addition to changing the old parts of the palace, new ones were added to it.

After Pierre Lescaut, the main builders of the Louvre were Baptiste Andruet Ducerseau (during the reign of Henry IV), Jacques Lemercier (during the reign of Louis XIII), Louis Leveau (during the reign of Louis XIV), Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine, and later Louis Visconti and Hector Lefuel (during the reign of Napoleon III). In the process of external and interior decoration Each of the architects was guided by his own preferences and followed the direction of architecture that was characteristic of his era. For this reason, the individual elements of the building do not combine harmoniously. But, despite this, all together they form the most unique, largest, noble and luxurious building not only in France alone, but throughout Europe.

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Museums and collections of the Louvre

As for museums, there are more than a dozen of them in the Louvre:

• Museum of Painting
• Museum original drawings famous artists
• Museum of Sculptures of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
• Museum of Contemporary Sculpture
• Museum of Ancient Marble
• Museum of Etruscan and Greek Vases
• Museum of Egyptian Antiquities
• Museum of Assyrian and Phoenician Antiquities
• Museum of Ancient Bronze
• Museum of works applied arts Middle Ages and Renaissance
• Museum of Gems, Enamels and Jewelry
• Maritime Museum
• Ethnographical museum
• Museum of Engraved Copper Plates

And all the exhibits of the Louvre are divided into the following collections:

• Graphic art
• art
• Art objects
• Sculptures
• Art of Islam
• Ancient Greece, Etruria and Ancient Rome
• Ancient Egypt

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Louvre in our time

Today, the Louvre is the most popular museum in the world. Last year alone, over 10 million people visited it, and this figure is constantly growing. Moreover, the majority of visitors to the Louvre are foreigners (about 70%). The lion's share of those who want to visit the Louvre comes from countries such as the UK, USA, China and Brazil. There are much fewer tourists from Russia than from other countries. We would like to wish you to visit the Louvre, because, as they say, “it’s better to see once than to hear a hundred times.”

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