GF - Genuss + Feinsinn Edition Turkiye for connaisseurs Summer/Fall 2015

Inaugurated in 1989 as a part of a renovation plan, the glass
pyramid greeted us at the main entrance. We have told that the
French don’t appreciate this addition on the grounds that it impairs
the museum’s quality. The main entrance was too crowded so we
used another entrance.
The impressive ancient era
The museum was very crowded. It felt walking on İstiklal Avenue
at rush hour. Regarding to our plan, our first stop was The Nike of
Samothrace, the most widely known work of Hellenistic sculpture.
It was a breathtaking beauty. In 1863, M. Champoiseau found the
statue in the Aegean Sea, broken into several pieces.
As all parts couldn’t found, The Nike of Samothrace exhibited
headless, footless, and armless in Louvre since 1894. It is predicted
that the figure carved by a Rhodesian sculptor for the honour of
a Greek naval victory. Our admiration increased so much more by
examining the details of her dress. The Nike’s wings which intensely
naturalistic gives you the feeling that the goddess flew in the skies
of Paris at nights and return to her home in the morning. Another
attractive woman of The Louvre, “Venus” a.k.a the love goddess
Aphrodite’s statue is in the ancient Greek section, too.
Created sometime between 130 and 100 BC, brought to the
museum in the 19th century from the Milos Island, Venus de Milo
still continues to mesmerize the ones looking at her eyes.
To reach the Mona Lisa
After saying goodbye to ancient Greek, we headed to our next
destination: Leonardo da Vinci’s delicate, ironical Mona Lisa. Thanks
to a group of Japanese tourists, we managed to reach the painting.
Suffered by influx of visitors, there she was; the Mona Lisa…
When you first saw her, you just stand there and stare at her for a
while. It took four years for Leonardo da Vinci to finish this mysterious
woman’s portrait. Not only the painting but the story behind it was
thrilling as well. No precise information other than rumors about the
woman’s identity. Mona Lisa accompanied by The Wedding at Cana,
the largest painting of The Louvre Museum. Paolo Veronese painted
it in 1563. It depicts the Wedding Feast at Cana, a miracle story from
the Bible. It was Jesus’s first miracle. Jesus turning the water into wine
at a wedding feast. The most important kings and queens of the era
even Suleiman the Magnificent were among the guests of the feast.
Jesus and his mother Mary are seated in the middle of the table.
The portrayal of an accident
We left Mona Lisa and The Wedding at Cana on their own to saw
a piece that impressed me so much: The Raft of the Medusa.
Considered one of the icons of French romanticism, it’s been painted
by the French artist Théodore Géricault in 1819. Géricault inspired
from a well known maritime incident at his times. He interviewed
one of the survivors and to strengthen the expression of the scene,
he went to morgues to examine of the flesh of the dead.
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GF Turkiye