afternoon at the Louvre

As the number of world tourists grows, the Louvre becomes increasingly crowded, just like all the other museums. (Though unlike the Musée d’Orsay and some others, the Louvre has the infrastructure and the sheer size to handle it. You can almost always get in, provided you’re willing to wait just a little while, and today there was almost no wait at all.)

Nonetheless, due to increasing crowd size, I’ve tended to stay away from the Italian paintings recently, simply because the Mona Lisa draws far too many people over to that side of the museum.

For this reason, I’ve gotten into the habit of going in the opposite direction, and up as high as I can go in the building, away from the crowds.

And that leads me to the paintings Low Countries, Germany, and France. Thus it was that I focused today on Rubens, Cranach, Dürer, and Poussin. It was a rewarding visit.