Visiting the Louvre Museum in Paris, France

Video Title :	Visiting the Louvre Museum in Paris, France
Description :	Visiting the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. Louvre {loov'-ruh} — a French palace and the national art museum of France. Located in Paris, the Louvre is one of the largest palaces in the world and, as a former residence of the kings of France, one of the most illustrious. It exemplifies traditional French architecture since the Renaissance, and it houses a magnificent collection of ancient and Western art. The Palace The first Louvre was a fortress built at the beginning of the 13th century by Philip II Augustus to defend the Seine below Paris against the Normans and English. It consisted of a thick cylindrical donjon (dungeon) surrounded by towered walls. This château, enlarged and embellished by Charles V in the 14th century, was sacrificed in the 16th century at the end of the reign of Francis I in order to make room for a new Renaissance structure of the same size. Only the west wing and part of the south wing of the projected palace, conceived by the architect Pierre Lescot and decorated with sculptures by Jean Goujon, were finished. In 1564 Catherine de Médicis had her architect, Philibert Delorme, build a little château in a neighboring field to the west called the Tuileries. It was then decided to create a grandiose royal residence by joining the Louvre and the Palais des Tuileries by a series of buildings. The most important is the Grande Galerie built along the Seine in the reign of Henry IV. In the 17th century Louis XIII and his minister Richelieu extended Lescot's west wing northward by adding the majestically domed Pavillon de l'Horloge (clock pavillion) by Jacques Lemercier and recreating Lescot's building beyond it. Under Louis XIV and his minister Colbert, the Cour Carrée, a great square court, was constructed by Louis Le Vau. The east façade of the east wing was later given a classical colonnade by Le Vau and Claude Perrault. The royal apartments were sumptuously decorated by Charles Le Brun and others, as the Galerie d'Apollon still bears witness. The Louvre was abandoned as a royal residence when Louis XIV moved the court to Versailles in 1682. After the Revolution of 1789, Napoleon I, later kings, and Napoleon III lived in the Tuileries. The Louvre was used for offices and a museum. Along the Rue de Rivoli, Napoleon I began a wing parallel to that of Henry IV along the Seine. Napoleon III finished the wing, thus closing the great quadrilateral. A few years later, during the uprising of the Paris Commune in 1871, the Tuileries was burned. Paradoxically, the disappearance of the Tuileries, which had originally brought about the extension of the Louvre, opened the admirable perspective that now stretches from the Arc du Carrousel west through the Tuileries Gardens and the Place de la Concorde to the Place Charles de Gaulle. In the late 1980s the Louvre embarked upon an aggressive program of renovation and expansion. When the first plans by the Chinese-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei were unveiled in 1984, they included a glass pyramid in the central courtyard that would serve as the museum's main entrance. Despite drawing protests before the fact, since its opening in 1989 the pyramid has proven remarkably effective in accommodating the large numbers of visitors, and has even become a relatively beloved landmark of the city. In November 1993, to mark its 200th anniversary, the museum unveiled the Richelieu wing in the quarters that had been vacated, grudgingly, by the Ministry of Finance in 1989. This expansion, which completed the museum's occupancy of the palace complex, added 230,000 square feet (21,390 sq meters) to the existing 325,000 square feet (30,225 sq meters) of exhibition space, and allowed it to put an additional 12,000 works of art on display in 165 new rooms. For more details visit this web: http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Paris/Museums-Paris/Louvre.shtml
Views :	6450
Rating :	4.00
Keywords, Tags :	Visiting the Louvre Museum Paris France travel tourist du lịch arts Venus de Milo Mona Lisa Victory of Samothrace
Video Length :	9 : 3

Comments :

merci for sharing this impression of hundreds off people gazing at the mona lisa. too crowded for me, anyway,you can see the mona lisa much better on the net. have downloaded several beautifull copies! dont need to go to the louvre. (better go to the moulin rouge for more lovely lisa's?) we have Karel Appel and Van Gogh overhere in The Neterlands. thanks again for this vid!

not supose to take pictures? of mona Lisa haha it depends when you go some days its not okay and others its a free for all I got pictures :)

Your video is very vivid. I plan to pay a visit in a few months, after visited first in 1977.

u are not supposed to take pictures of le mona lissa

No, thats not true. I have been there, they let you take video and pictures.(Unlike Leonardo DeVinci ceiling painting in Rome and some other areas in Europe) I'm not into art but the Louvre was totally mindblowing for me. I want to go back to see it again. If you havent been to Paris, its worth the trip. Went to 15 countries throughout Europe and over 25 cities. Liked London, Paris Rome the best.

The Louvre is prounnounced: Loov. Not the way you said it. Je habité en Paris.

That's the way people speaking French prounnounce. J'ai habité à Paris aussi.

Rofl, J'habite a paris maintenant.

It is prounnounced like that bcuz in french they don't prounnounce the last part of the word i hav bin in le louvre many times but the sacre recure chappel is nice aswell or Notredam

awsome video Tremeno video!!