Light

I didn't quite open the Louvre on that Saturday in Paris, but by god I closed it down. My feet did not thank me.

Over the footbridge, turn right, a ten-minutes amble through the Tuileries: Louvre. So when did they put that ferris wheel out front?

Fortunately, I got lost on the way to my beloved Écoles du Nord (Van Eyck, Vermeer), because I found myself in a miraculous temporary exhibition, which my tutelary spirits had provided: Masks, Masquerades, and Mascarons! Bliss.

There were larvae; there were gorgons; there were death masks and droll figures from commedia dell'arte. There were opulent, outrageous costume designs for the ballets danced before the Sun King (eat your heart out, Inigo Jones). There were putti shielding behind gigantic satyrs' masks. There was that iconic image of a drowned girl, much adored by morbid poets, L'Inconnue de la Seine. There was a film of the clown Grock putting on his whiteface. There was a painted confrontation of chairs (as in conveyances), each with its masked man in fantastical hag-drag, with caps of ruched and pleated linen, like so, but six foot high. It was like the love-hate mating dance of birds of more-than-paradisical splendour. There was, by Hecate, a print of a 17th century French morris dancer! dressed (said the legend) as a pilgrim fox, with a lantern and a bushy tail. And there was a photograph by Atget of a statue in the Tuileries, of Autumn as a lovely stripling, either drawing back or sheltering in his hood, and holding, with a finger hooked through its eye socket, the mask of a grim old man. His winter face? Is Autumn going to let fall his cloak of leaves, stand naked? Or swaddle in snow?

No photography allowed, but (again providentially) I'd brought a sketchbook and a pencil, and went joyously berserk. (I was desperately tempted by the Masks catalogue, but it 1) weighs about 5 pounds; 2) costs a fortune; 3) is entirely in French; 4) will doubtless be available online.)

After that I regrouped with a cup of tea and a yogurt (which came in an adorable little glass milk bottle). Onward!

I visited my dear cool Magdalene by Rogier van der Weyden, crystalline as April and as chilly, all her summer in her sleeve. (I tried to paint her forty years ago for my course in historical art technique. She's graven in my gaze.) O my, that's a lovely room! There's the Van Eyck of the Chancellor Rolin and the Virgin, with the marvellous distance; there's the Quentin Massys moneylender weighing gold, beside his cool appraising wife. In a little cabinet nearby, there's Magdalena Luther, dead at thirteen, with her preternatural gravitas, her snakes of flaxen hair; that Dürer self-portrait with the thistle and the red hat like a sea-anemone. Why didn't I remember this temptation of St Anthony? He's being menaced by a mermaid waitress, a terrific hag with a distaff and an owl on her hump; and other fabulously monstrous visions. I snapped a picture of a nun snapping a picture of Gabrielle d'Estrées pinching her sister's nipple. Then I walked a long way round through a North Dakota of Rubenses to see their Georges de la Tours, his Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds, his transcendently vermilion Adoration, and the others. Night and flame. And I worshipped at their two Vermeers (in utterly gorgeous marquetry frames): The Lacemaker and the Astronomer.

After that, I had just time to look for the Winged Victory of Samothrace. She is magnificent as ocean wind, as water, storm-glorious; and like the seaside, she is thronged. There was a cataract of sightseers, pouring both ways, up and down an endless flight of balustradeless marble stairs, as white as vertigo. I nearly got swept onto them, nearly toppled, but clung and backed away. I managed to persuade a guard that yes, I really needed to use the lift. Goddesses do dwell on perilous heights, and Nike is well worthy of the climb--but I don't like going downward. Not without a rail.

By then the museum was about to close, so I thought I'd get myself a little picnic from the cafeteria and go look in the Tuileries for that statue of Autumn.

(I can recommend the chain Paul--as found in museums and railway stations--to budget travellers in a hurry. They're sort of like Au Bon Pain only, you know, actually French. Baguette sandwich or mini-quiche, beverage, and pastry for round about 10 Euros. I do like their anglaise, which is flaky pastry filled with custard and lovely half apricots.)

But when I emerged--you don't choose your exit at closing time, the Louvre herds you--I came out into a downpour, a real duck-drowner. All that pale sand in the gardens had become the most unappetizing prison gruel, and there were light-footed African peddlers running about, crying, umbarumbarella! umbarumbarella!

And all of a sudden it was a long long way back to my nice dry hotel room, and my shoes were too full of feet.

Fell over.

Nine