The Spectacle of the Mona Lisa and Other Finer Things

The most likely candidate for most visited/touristic museum in Paris must surely belong to the Louvre, with the mass of crowds who assemble before it at all hours of the day. What is most strange (well, maybe, not really given the state of general tourism) is not that these masses do not seem to be in the least interested in art in general, if one can judge by what they wear and how they behave, nor that that they only flock toward what is considered to be the "highlights" of the collection, but why ever do they go to these places so far out of their usual sphere of interest.  Most likely, it is to have the dubious honor of having been somewhere, seen something, but in fact, not to have seen or experienced anything at all.

Case in point would be the Mona Lisa, by all my standards a most overrated piece. Nonetheless, swarms of people rushed up to snap a photo of this, make a comment or two and then move on to whatever else was in their guidebook.  Why, even with the older eyes which I now see this work- I saw it for the first time almost two decades ago- it had not improved one bit.  In fact, the crowds surrounding it made it even more tedious than last time, when I was by far more tolerant of such things.

The spectacle

Luckily, the Louvre has an extensive collection of work in other realms of creative endeavor. A little walk downstairs brought one face to face with some moats, and further strolling throughout the massive complex would bring one perhaps into the fun Egyptian collection.

Just as I was about to leave the museum, by which point I was absolutely fatigued, I gave the Louvre guidebook a quick look through to see if I had missed anything and lo and behold, indeed I did.  There happened to be a blue hippo in their collection and so quickly went back to Information and found where it was located (Room 23, to be precise).   As readers may know, mummies and the like hold a fascination for me, and in particular the blue faience hippos (of course, in reference to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's mascot "William").