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Le Louvre : Le palais à travers les siècles
Histoire d'un palais, histoire d'un musée, histoire de France... Au coeur de Paris et du pouvoir, quel bâtiment mieux que le Louvre peut ainsi articuler l'histoire d'un lieu à celle d'une capitale et d'une nation ? Dès le XIIIe siècle, la forteresse et sa grosse tour s'affirment comme le symbole d'une monarchie puissante. Perdant peu à peu son rôle défensif, l'austère ouvrage militaire cède bientôt la place à une riche résidence. A la Renaissance, la construction des Tuileries à proximité fait naître le projet d'une liaison entre les deux palais : c'est le Grand Dessein. De Louis XIV à Napoléon Ier, ce nouvel idéal de grandeur ne cessera d'habiter les règnes successifs. C'est finalement Napoléon III qui réalisera le rêve des Bourbons, mais pour quelques années seulement, jusqu'à l'incendie du palais des Tuileries, pris dans la tourmente de la Commune. Aujourd'hui, le palais du Louvre, indissociable de sa pyramide de verre, évolue, encore et toujours, pour répondre tout entier à sa fonction de musée. Si le Louvre est désormais l'un des musées les plus visités au monde, on oublie trop souvent l'histoire du palais dans lequel il se déploie. Pourtant, pendant plus de huit cents ans, les plus grands architectes se sont penchés sur cet édifice, avec une constance et un souci de perfection sans équivalents ailleurs en Europe sur une si longue durée. Au cours de cette grande odyssée créative, Guillaume Fonkenell sélectionne pour nous dix périodes clés détaillées chacune par de spectaculaires perspectives en reconstitution 3D. L'auteur signe avec cet ouvrage une synthèse qui se veut utile et accessible à tous sur l'histoire du Louvre à travers les siècles.
61 pages, Hardcover
Published June 1, 2017
8 people want to read
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September 17, 2021
I was looking for something lighter and faster to read than the glorious but massive Histoire du Louvre (I totally recommend it if you have a 100 bucks to spare), when I remembered I bought this at the Louvre but never picked it up: I’m glad I gave it a chance and I liked it, but I feel some things could have been done better.
First of all, I have no idea why I bought the English version of this book instead of the original French one: now I will never know if the inaccuracies I found (very few, but they’re there) are in the original text too, or if they were accidentally added during the translation process, and it bothers me to no end; anyway, it’s just some typos, nothing major, but I’m a perfectionist when it comes to published works because editors exist for a reason.
On a more positive note, I love the idea of showing how the Louvre and the Tuileries would have looked at specific points in time using 3D renderings of the buildings: it’s very effective and it helps visualising the innumerable changes the palaces went through; I also really liked the selection of photographs, drawings and paintings used to illustrate the state of rooms and facades. However, I wish there were more pictures: I get they’re expensive and they take up a lot of space but come on, it’s a richly illustrated history. Besides, this brings me to the one fault I think this book has: its length.
They wanted to create, and I quote the author, “a simple compass for getting one’s bearings”, but this book was way too short. The Louvre has a long and complex history, so it’s difficult to summarise it efficiently, but this particular summary could have been a bit longer and detailed: just 10 pages more and they could have fitted so much more information, e.g. about the architects and sculptors and decorators, whose names were given in the middle of giant info-dumps, without much context, and so many more pictures. I don’t think it’s a problem per se, I just feel someone who doesn’t know anything about the Louvre (aka the very same people this book was written for) will get a bit lost here and there, because a lot of facts are just mentioned in passing.
All things considered, I think this book is good and informative and it is worth reading, especially because it reminded me of the countless times I visited the museum.
First of all, I have no idea why I bought the English version of this book instead of the original French one: now I will never know if the inaccuracies I found (very few, but they’re there) are in the original text too, or if they were accidentally added during the translation process, and it bothers me to no end; anyway, it’s just some typos, nothing major, but I’m a perfectionist when it comes to published works because editors exist for a reason.
On a more positive note, I love the idea of showing how the Louvre and the Tuileries would have looked at specific points in time using 3D renderings of the buildings: it’s very effective and it helps visualising the innumerable changes the palaces went through; I also really liked the selection of photographs, drawings and paintings used to illustrate the state of rooms and facades. However, I wish there were more pictures: I get they’re expensive and they take up a lot of space but come on, it’s a richly illustrated history. Besides, this brings me to the one fault I think this book has: its length.
They wanted to create, and I quote the author, “a simple compass for getting one’s bearings”, but this book was way too short. The Louvre has a long and complex history, so it’s difficult to summarise it efficiently, but this particular summary could have been a bit longer and detailed: just 10 pages more and they could have fitted so much more information, e.g. about the architects and sculptors and decorators, whose names were given in the middle of giant info-dumps, without much context, and so many more pictures. I don’t think it’s a problem per se, I just feel someone who doesn’t know anything about the Louvre (aka the very same people this book was written for) will get a bit lost here and there, because a lot of facts are just mentioned in passing.
All things considered, I think this book is good and informative and it is worth reading, especially because it reminded me of the countless times I visited the museum.
Displaying 1 of 1 review