An update + Fandom Snowflake 10

[dhampyresa]

I did go to the Medieval Morocco exhibit on Sunday, even though it required getting up early to be able to do it and do the rest of the things I had to do that day, but it was super worth it!

I'd never seen the Tuileries so empty (or the Louvre, either) or so early and you know, I still think the Tuileries at dusk are the best Tuileries, but the Tuileries in early morning light is also pretty great. The way the city is structured means that in morning the sun shines out from behind the Pyramid, which is beuatiful, but at sunset the light spills down the Champs-Elisées and past the Obélisque and has this gorgeous golden colour as though the world is born anew like a phoenix and I understand, finally, why they call Paris the City of Light.

Doing the whole exhibit (and I do mean the whole exhibit: reading all the cards for all the items and listening to all the audioguide) took about 2 hours and was a great experience. It's a shame we weren't allowed to take pictures, because there are SO MANY pictures I wanted to share. It was all so so fascinating and I'm really glad I went.

Then I was going to go the Phoenician and Punic Antiquities in the Oriental Antiquities wing and go right into Egyptian Antiquities, but I got lost (because they'd closed the Phoenician rooms) and ended p seeing the Code of Hammurabi.

And then I went through a door and left Mesopotamia for "French Sculpture of the 18th and 19th century", because that makes perfect sense. This was the point where I gave up trying to understand how this museum is arranged and admitted that I was lost.

So I did what I aways do when I'm lost in the Louvre: find the Winged Victory of Samothrace and reorient from there. Since I'd ran out of time though, that meant, this times, exiting.

Some pictures of the permanent exhibit, under the cut.

About the light in the Tuileries, please compare Hannibal at sunset in July to Hannibal at daybreak in January.

My second favourite work of art at the Louvre is right next to the Code of Hammurabi and is this bronze sculture of a lion.



Then, like I said, right next door is French sculpture of the 18th/19th, including "Mercury putting on his heels":



("Mercure attachant ses talonnières", which I suppose could also be translated as "Mercury putting on his shoes", but I like the image of Mercury in heels. He would look ~*fabulous*~.)

Oh, hey, look who showed up again! (That's Caesar next to him, because the Louvre, man, the Louvre, idk how it works.) (They also face each other in the Tuileries, btw.)


My very favourite thing on display at the Louvre is the Winged Victory of Samothrace, though. Not only is it gorgeous and speaks to me on a deep, personal level (I find it extraordinarily inspiring), but it is also set up admirably, ike so:



Oh, hell, have a close-up, because this statue is just awe-inspiring.


Someone remind me to make a post about the Louvre Medieval Morocco exhibit as it relates to the desert dorks at some point, okay?







Day 10

Stretch yourself a little and try something new. Go play in a new fandom or with a new pairing. Try working in a new medium. Or check out some fanworks that are new to you. (The recs from Day 1 might be a good place to start!) Leave a comment in this post saying you did it.


I'm going to count the Hannibal Barca/Scipio Africanus primer for this one, because I've never posted a primer before.

(And if that doesn't count, I am also watching HBo's Rome, which is a new fandom to me AND Agent Carter, which is a new fandom for everybody! I've only seen up to episode 2 of each, though.)

Comments

[akamine_chan]

Thanks for sharing the pictures from the Louvre. *is still mad envious*

[dhampyresa]

You're welcome!

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

That lion sculpture is both kind of scary and weirdly adorable. :P

Ooh, how are you liking Agent Carter?

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

It's so adorable and that's why I love it so!

I'm really liking Agent Carter so far!

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

And this is where I confess my great love for classic musicals.

I cannot see Winged Victory, a gorgeous statue, without thinking of Audrey Hepburn doing this.

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

You got me on that one. I did not expect that.

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

My head, it's a strange place to live. :D

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

That does not look like a lion. That looks like a very surprised frog.

I love art galleries, but I seriously cannot spend more than a couple hours in it - I always get so physically uncomfortable. It's something to do with standing and shuffling, I think; I can walk for more than an hour no problem. I hate it; I can never stay as long in a museum as I'd like.

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

I think I'll call it the froglion, from now on.

The Louvre has chairs in most rooms.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA no but really, if you hadn't said, I'd have absolutely assumed it was a frog.

Oh yes, most museums and galleries I go to have couches or chairs in them, but even with that, I am always dying on my feet by the time an hour or two has elapsed. Oh well. Small chunks, frequent visits.

[taiyou_to_tsuki.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that I have no idea how big the Louvre could possibly be. I know it's enormous, but I'm having trouble conceptualising it.

I am LOVING Agent Carter!! I love having a female lead who gets to be kickass and funny and emotional and aaaahhhh. The actual plot is also great so far and the side characters are great.

(I love HBO's Rome as well, though it's been a couple of years since I last watched it... But I love it. It manages something pretty rare for historical drama, which is actually making the characters seem like they've grown up in a completely different time, and still remain sympathetic even when they're not. Also the reconstruction of Rome is insanely beautiful and well done, it's a joy to watch.)

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

The Louvre is fucking enormous. Even more insane is that apparently only 10% of the colection is on display, like what???

I love how much physical presence Peggy has and violent she gets to be. That's pretty rare to see in a female character. I am loving the side characters, especially Angie!

(It's pretty great so far, although I'm surprised at the lack of LGBT characters, especially since one of the main characters is fucking Julius Caesar. Edit: err, that fucking's an expletive. There's no actual fucking involving Caesar going on that I know of.)

[taiyou_to_tsuki.livejournal.com]

Museums like the Louvre is the reason we still find new stuff in dusty old magazines and not just archaeological sites. There are so many unpublished and insufficiently archived items in museum storage, at least where Egyptology's concerned.

Fuck yeah also I really appreciate how Peggy is allowed to be nuanced; she's a stone cold badass, but she's also allowed to be sarcastic, funny and emotional. A lot of the tropes associated with male protagonists (dead lover, the fear of ~*letting someone too close*~) work here because we have a female protagonist. Also Jarvis is <3

(Yeaaah there's definitely at least one lesbian sex scene but I honestly can't recall anything else. Which is definitely pretty odd.)

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

I know! It's kind of mindboggling! I was at a conference at the Louvre two years ago and the woman doing the speaking told us about the time she found three (3!) of her objects of study in some remote museum where they hadn't even been catalogued.

You know, I hadn't thought of it that way, but those *are* male protagonist tropes.

(Saw the lesbian sex scene, but yeah. I mean, I didn't make it up, right? Caesar is famous for not being straight? "Queen of Bythinia" and all that? "the husband of every wife and the wife of every husband"?)

[taiyou_to_tsuki.livejournal.com]

Haha yeah, when I did Ancient Society and Culture we were on a tour in the Mediterranean Museum in Stockholm and they made a point of talking about how the museum's most iconic piece, the face and part of the head of a Cypriotic Bronze Age statue, is still very poorly understood because there are few objects like it. Apparently they've had to go through the archives both here and in Cyprus by hand because the catalogues are insufficient and they still haven't found anything useful yet.

Yup, although Peggy doesn't seem to be embracing them fully (judging by how she did start to reach out to Angie after talking with Jarvis). Which works well, I think, and actually sort of highights how meandering that sort of inner conflict easily becomes in most series.

(... You know, I've never heard that he was?? But idk people seldom talk about Shakespeare being bisexual either, maybe it's just. Something people don't talk about.)

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I just boggle at previous museum people, ngl.

I feel like MCU has done pretty good avoiding manpain so far, on the whole. Which is good, because manpain is fucking boring. Like the song says: "everybody here has loved and lost, so level up and love again."

(Well, maybe "famous for being not-straight" is pushing it, but he IS famous and not-straight.)