The Louvre will remember this July 6, 2020. After weeks of empty rooms and tours cancelled, the museum has finally reopened its doors. At 9 a.m., the first visitors passed through the entrance of the Pyramid under a salvo of applause. Behind their masks, the employees of the museum could not hide their excitement and the smiles on their faces. Covid-19 forces, the masks are mandatory and it is necessary to coat the hands of a hydroalcoholic gel before entering the precincts of the museum. And Mona Lisa was entitled to the establishment of a sense of movement in his famous room. To be at the forefront of this re-opening, it also had to have booked his place. The Louvre museum has asked its visitors to choose a niche to ease their movement and to keep the distances. A priori, the success was rather the appointment because all the slots for the day were complete for several days. A total of 7 400 people for the day, unlike the 30 000 usual in the pre-coronavirus, according to the director Jean-Luc Martinez.
The huge paintings have lost nothing of their grandeur, and the statues are always looking to top their admirers. The figures in the pictures have taken over the poses and their smiles frozen. As for the guards, they found their chairs in the corner of the rooms, always with the same air las and dreamer on the face. As if nothing had changed. But the maintenance workers, themselves, do not lose their disinfectant spray. On the side of the visitors, there are those who only stay a few seconds in front of the tables and those that linger for many minutes. The artists are back with their sketch book and pencils. Every throw looks amazed at the vastness of the place and works, point their finger to the Greek heroes or the characters in the bible. Perhaps the Louvre is even more impressive after being left for weeks at home. The broad stairs of marble white, the large red walls, the golden ceilings : the museum itself seems to be put on his thirty-one for the occasion. There is also something reassuring : when everything changes, paintings, and sculptures remain the same. The winged Victory of Samothrace is still triumphant, The Freedom guide always the people and the Raft of the Medusa does not stop to take on water. Tiny in the middle of the giants, The mona lisa has not moved. The queue to admire this table always fascinating is always packed.
The mona lisa has always the same success, at the expense of social distancing. © Clarisse Portevin
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The Louvre, the mecca of the “vacation learning”
Last parisian museum to open, the Louvre has, for the moment, déconfiné 70 % of its galleries. In this maze still a bit quiet in this early morning, the echo of the wooden floors that creak echoes in the large rooms. The galleries, the less famous and almost deserted beaches give you a glimpse of the calm that prevailed during the confinement. And then the shrieks of the children, clicking cameras, laughter, exclamations. In French, but also English, Italian, German. The reopening of the borders seems to be running. Moreover, 10% of the visitors of the day are from Germany. However, usually, 70% of visitors are foreigners. But there are also the regulars, such as Florence Alfieri. In normal times, this Parisian comes here every week. No question, therefore, to miss the reopening. And she is pleased to see that the public is waiting for you.
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It will have to wait a little to discover the temporary exhibitions, which have been carried forward to the autumn. The opportunity for the permanent collection to shine a little more, especially as the Louvre will be one of the places of vacation learners. In this perspective, the museum plans to host 3 600 young people on free visits.
During the confinement, the works are still remained under the spotlight, or rather screens. Regularly, the museum has published on its website different types of content to discover its collections. The Louvre has also won close to 370 000 followers on the social networks from the containment. This brings its total number of subscribers to almost 9 million. And, as usual, The mona lisa was at the centre of attention : the application to have a ” head-to-head with The mona lisa “, a virtual reality experience, has been downloaded more than 12 000 times.
