PARIS — I did what I’d come here to do: I knocked seeing the Mona Lisa off my bucket list.
Was Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece what I’d expected?
No!
Now, friends had told me the Mona Lisa, a portrait barely bigger than a postage stamp, wasn’t much to look at. They were right. Yet crowds flocked to its home, The Louvre, to see it nonetheless, and the Sunday afternoon I went there proved no exception. I stood shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of others.
One thing I discovered about The Louvre was it was more than the Mona Lisa, the most famous portrait in the world. The museum was a treasure trove of art, and I had no way of knowing who among the European masters wasn’t included in its galleries.
Was a van Gogh there? How about an El Greco and a Rembrandt? Did The Louvre have a Michelangelo, an Edouard Manet or a Claude Monet?
I spent four hours inside The Louvre trying to find out.
I raced through the place like a whirlwind, bouncing from exhibit to exhibit. Yet I touched only a fraction of its massive collection. I did, however, spot two of da Vinci’s other works. None matched the reputation of the Mona Lisa.
I found the tour exhausting. To see so many masterpieces reminded me a bit of the first time I visited the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Rock Hall simply had too many songs that I needed to listen to — songs I hadn’t heard in years.
Surprisingly to some who know me, I found the experience, overall, unpleasant. The overwhelming size of The Louvre held little appeal. Nor did the crowds around the Mona Lisa. I’d never return there — unless I got a private tour.
But what I learned over my week in Paris was The Louvre was hardly the lone sparkling gallery for art. Like sands in the Sahara, museums dotted the city’s landscape.
Take the Musée Arts et Metiers.
On a warm summer day, I woke early one morning and headed there. I spent considerable time at Arts et Metiers, which was a motherlode of technology. I enjoyed it more than I did The Louvre.
Most of my friends know I’m a gadget guy (I wish I could fix things; I can’t), and the place was gigantic, as museums in Paris tend to be. I was in learning bliss.
From trains to planes to every mechanical object in between, Arts et Metiers took me through man’s evolution in the world of gadgetry.
Arts et Metiers wasn’t the best of the Paris museums. In my opinion, that title must go to either Musée d’Orsay or Musée Rodin. Both highlighted first-rate exhibitions of classical European art, although the Musée Rodin focused on sculptures and not on painting.
In Paris, smaller museums like the Rodin were everywhere you looked, and the Centre Pompidou illustrated that fact. In visiting museums around “the City of Lights,” Pompidou deserved more than a nod. Its collection of contemporary art rivaled international museums that boast larger footprints.
Still, Pompidou must be judged by The Louvre, the favorite of discerning art lovers. To their eyes, it must be No. 1 because of its sheer size, its superior collection and the Mona Lisa.
Seeing the latter, however, wasn’t worth my bother.
