Free Sunday at the Louvre

The great pyramid of I. M. Pei. Perhaps one of the best thing
about the Da Vinci Code...the whole world got to see this.

The first Sunday of each month is a "free" day at most of the National Museums in France. When I first moved here, I took advantage of these days, sometimes going to as many as three museums in one day (a bit too much, even for an extreme art lover), but the hassle of queuing, the crowds inside the museum and the general overexposure of art kind of killed my desire to venture into a gallery on these days. However, last Sunday, I decided to wait until late in the afternoon, brave the crowds as well as the horribly cold weather and head to the Louvre to see my favorite piece of art.

The crowd is almost enough to keep me away...
this is what it was like 15 minutes before closing.

I know I've blogged about this statue before because I just love it so much, but honestly, until you experience seeing it in person, nothing I can say here, or any picture, will do this piece justice. I am talking about Winged Victory of Samothrace. I don't know exactly what it is about this statue, whether it is the actual craftsmanship, the size or the placement of it (at the top of a huge marble staircase), but I am breathless every time I see it. I am especially confused because from what I understand, this statue was part of a ship, so technically it didn't begin as art. Which always makes me wonder about what people in future decades and centurieswill consider art from this time period. Will they look at the Mercedes emblem and comment on how talented we were in our primitive ways?

As I said, no picture actually does it justice. I believe this wing was
rebuilt based on a hand they found, but I could have that wrong.