Paris, where you find Cupid and Venus de Milo

What you need to know:

  • France has 39 sites listed in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List, spread all over picturesque towns and countryside.
  • One of the most amazing things about the Louvre is that it holds pieces of art from which powerful concepts that are known all over the world have emerged.
  • To my untrained art eye, larger reproductions look more impressive than the original masterpiece.

Paris is a beautiful city by any standard and unsurprisingly makes it to any list of most visited cities in the world, be it Forbes Magazine or Euro Monitor International.

When you arrive there, it is clean, with character and an air of historical achievement and stunning architecture. By reading plaques as you walk around the streets, you can assimilate a lot of history.

It is also referred to as the City of Lights, La VilleLumière,to celebrate the role Parisians played in the Enlightenment, but also because theirs was the first city in Europe to effectively light their streets using gas in The Middle Ages.

Today Paris is still one of the best-lit cities in the world. Its historical churches, the iconic Eiffel Tower, city bridges and the Champs-Élysées are all so well light at night that it almost feels like day at times. The Champs-Élysées is also said to be the most romantic boulevard of lights in the world.

France has 39 sites listed in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List, spread all over picturesque towns and countryside. Many of these are religious, with cathedrals and abbeys of amazing architectural design and outlay.

Then there is the Louvre, one of the largest museums in the world and certainly one of the most visited. Housed in the Louvre Palace on 49 acres in central Paris, it is a classical architectural masterpiece that has dominated the city since the twelfth century. ‘

This fortress, once the palace of King Louis XIV, has been a museum since 1793. One of the most amazing things about the Louvre is that it holds pieces of art from which powerful concepts that are known all over the world have emerged.

VENUS DE MILO

For example, many people understand the concept of Cupid and ‘his sworn kisses’ that are known to revive love. What few know is that Cupid as famed was first depicted by the sculptor Antonio Canova, in the marble masterpiece “Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss’’. This 1787 art piece, which signified the revival of the Romanticism movement, is held at the Louvre.

The Aphrodite of Milos, popularly known as Venus de Milo, is a famous marble sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of Love – Venus – and aptly named after the island of Milo where it was found, also has a place at the Louvre.

Famous religious paintings by Caravaggio, who was also known Michaelangelo Merisi (not to be confused with Michelangelo Burranoti), are proudly displayed at here too. The ‘Death of the Virgin’, marks a turning point of religious dogma for the estimated 1.2 million Catholics globally because it is the last painting that depicts the death of Mary, the mother of Jesus, before religious dogma concluded that she was assumed into heaven.

The ‘Beheading of John the Baptist’ is also on display, although it is based more on ‘the Golden Legend”, a medieval best seller, than on the biblical account of the beheading of John the Baptist.

THE MONA LISA, FINALLY

It is, nonetheless, the famous Mona Lisa that the 15 million annual visitors to the Louvre queue to see. The famous oil painting by the equally famous Italian artist Leonardo Da Vinci has been touted as the most famous and best visited work of art in the world, and even the most influential piece in art history.

Nothing prepares a visitor for the experience of actually seeing it. High in expectation and anxious to see what the rest of the world waxes about, I was shocked by the size of the portrait – it is rather small, actually, the size of the regular ‘Christ is the Owner of this House’ portrait found in many Kenyan homes.

To my untrained art eye, larger reproductions look more impressive than the original masterpiece. The woman in the picture is not strikingly beautiful and the painting seems somewhat lacking in colour, mostly a mix of hues of yellow and black. Yet the concept of the Mona Lisa remains larger than the portrait and even larger than life.

Kenya can learn much from the appeal of the Mona Lisa, this painting that has been spoken of so many times that it has become legendary. It was not painted by a Frenchman but an Italian, and was acquired by the French when it was sold to the King for a whopping four thousand gold crowns. “Turkana Boy”, a relic of world history and interest found in Kenya, has not been able to generate nearly as much hype as this painting.

But you should most definitely visit this city, an inability to appraise fine art notwithstanding. Even if the allure of the Mona Lisa evades a visitor to Paris, the wine and food will not.

Ms Thangwa works in the heritage sector, specialising in culture and enterprise. Twitter: @muthonithangwa