They're already working on doing exactly that. The construction work that the thieves hid with is to restore all the previous doors of the museum so they can start being used as entrances again to reduce the strain on the I.M. Pei pyramid, the modern entrance of the Louvre. Coupled with that, they're building the first temporary exhibit space of the museum, with an adjacent permanent exhibit space. That permanent exhibit's subject? Da Vinci and the Mona Lisa, with a special ticket to visit only that already in the plans.

In 10 years, bus full of tourists will go straight to the pyramid, then straight to the Da Vinci exhibit, take their goddamn selfie, and leave. The rest of the visitors will mostly enter through the historical entrances and never interact with those throngs of Mona Lisa lookie loos.

The Louvre is doing exactly what makes the most sense; they're not stupid, they're just not very fast, as is usual for a museum.

It makes so much sense on one level. At the same time, I worry in the long run this could have the effect of trimming the budget for less selfie-worthy exhibits. I love stuff like the Napoleon III apartments.

Nope, they're not talking about reducing access to anything existing. It's a win-win.

They're not talking about it because they have the best intentions; the problem isn't this administration, it's market forces.

When I visited the Louvre it was absolutely wild to me how many people were just there for the Mona Lisa. I took a look at it in person because of course I did, but I don't think it was anywhere close to the most interesting piece the museum has on display (I preferred the classical sculptures), nor even the best painting. It seems like such a waste for people to fawn over that one painting and pretty much ignore all the other masterpieces you can see there.

> it was absolutely wild to me how many people were just there for the Mona Lisa

> It seems like such a waste for people to fawn over that one painting and pretty much ignore all the other masterpieces you can see there

I think you're making the rather large assumption that everyone is into art in the first place, and thus find it surprising that they would fail to appreciate everything other than the Mona Lisa.

In reality, I suspect a lot of folks just weren't going to go to the museum at all otherwise. They only go to see the Mona Lisa, not because they think it's a particularly magnificent piece of art, but simply because:

(a) they don't want to look silly saying they visited Paris but didn't see the most famous painting in the world there, and/or

(b) the whole world talks about it, and they naturally want to experience whatever it is, to maybe see what all the fuss is about.

Such reasons are pretty natural, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the intrinsic merits of -- or appreciation of -- the Mona Lisa relative to whatever else is there. It could've just been a hole in the wall, and if it had been the most famous thing in the world, it would've prompted a similar reaction.

The Louvre was a royal palace, the rooms and halls are all quite stunning. It was originally built in the 12th century and expanded through the 17 century, so as historical artifacts go, it's definitely a thing on its own. It is worth visiting even if there were no art at all inside it. YMMV.

I agree!

The Mona Lisa isn't even the most interesting piece in the room it's shown in.

I think it would also be more interesting if you could really approach it and have the time to look at it like other pieces.

My memories of the Mona Lisa is of a rather small paint behind dirty glasses with a large group of japanese tourists grouped in front of it and I simply didn't have the patience to wait and I just really glanced at it while passing by.

Also like most paints of its age, it is seriously damaged, colors aren't the original one and paint is cracked. I wish there was a way to actually enjoy in person those paints as they were when they were delivered to their customers.

There was a digital reconstruction using the pigments analysis https://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/digital-restoration...

My memories of the few times I've been to the Louvre are exactly the same as yours.

Musee d'Orsay down the river is a much better museum in my opinion and the one I never skip when I'm in Paris, the Louvre I'll only go to if someone I'm with has never been and really wants to.

It's a bit of a paradox because in a way d'Orsay is much more “pop” than Louvre. I think people would generally enjoy d'Orsay more than historic focused Louvre.

I work part-time at an art gallery (not a museum) with 300 pieces from 300 artists, on two floors. The typical visitor walks through, looking but not stopping, often not bothering with upstairs. It's rare for anyone to take more than 20 minutes.

I will say, the quality of exhibition in even the biggest most popular art museums is pretty poor.

The number of times a glare on the glass obscured the work, or I've walked through a room completely befuddled about what I'm looking at until finally on my way out discovering that I entered from the "wrong" direction and they intended that I take one very specific weird meandering path through the halls, and I get no info until the end of an exhibit otherwise, is ridiculous. On top of that, I feel like I get some history and analysis per artist or per period when what I really want is per work, explaining how they painted it, what they were thinking about or referring to (since art is almost always part of a conversation), and what's notable about that specific work. I'd also probably like fewer pieces from a given artist in a row and just have more a collection of contemporaries that drew inspiration from each other in a sequence so I can see how techniques and vocabularies developed, rather than "Here's the artist room. He was very famous and used a lot of color. We have access to these for a month, so take a good look."

It's weird just how much better science museums are at exhibit building. Please, art museums, crib their notes!

Problem is most museums are visited by tourists which by the time they reach the museum already have sore feets from strolling around the city and can't stand comfortably more than a couple seconds. There are a few museums that put benches which allows to actually take the time to enjoy watching a piece but there is always someone who decides to stand in front of you.

I also which a normal entry fee would allows you to comeback several times in a period. I don't have the stamina to contemplate 300 art pieces in a row. Can I watch 300 movies in the same day or can I even listen to 300 music records while giving them my full attention in a day? Nope.

Shh—don’t tell them! Their ticket dollars count the same as yours and mine, and their preferences leave us plenty of breathing room in the sculpture gallery!

basically the story for any popular tourist destination - people go so that they can tell their friends they went, not for the actual experience. and so the most important part of the experience is doing exactly the same thing your friends did, so you can say "i did it too".

Yeah, this can lead to awkward small talk between people who like doing the big name tourist stuff and people who like doing things off the beaten path when they discover they both visited the same place and have surprisingly little experience in common.

The funny thing about the Mona Lisa is that the public only became enamoured with it after it was stolen from the Louvre and subsequently recovered, it's more famous for having been stolen than for what it actually is.

Well it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci, not exactly a nobody. That alone is enough for it to be famous. He's probably more famous than the Mona Lisa.

Of course, it was already notable enough to be featured in the Louvre, but there are tens of thousands of items on display there and half a million more in storage. There's quite a gap from that standing to becoming one of the most well known paintings in history and the Louvre's #1 attraction, probably forever.

So what you're saying is that this theft was an inside job by the museum in order to gain attention for a few more pieces of art. /s

I'm thinking "The Producers", retold as "The Docents".

Slap a copyright on that post and DM me!

You don’t understand. ITS FAMOUS!!!!!!

It’s amazing how much fame sort circuits reasoning in the human mind.

a lot of people just don’t really like museums. they’re boooooooring.

Then just don't go?

It’s already the case.

Poland does this for their Leonardo (Lady With An Ermine). It is housed in a separate room, tickets are separate and it is sometimes rotated between different museums (at least I saw her in two different ones by now). It it really helpful plus it saves money if you don't want to see it.