After decades of working as a journalist abroad, including as Paris bureau chief for The New York Times, Elaine Sciolino turns her investigative eye to the Louvre. Sciolino, who has written books on the Seine river and the Rue des Martyrs, tackles one of the city’s most recognizable attractions. Though the museum, with its masterpieces such as “The Mona Lisa” and“Venus de Milo,” draws millions of visitors each year, it can be more intimidating than inviting, Sciolino says. She aims to show how anyone can create a connection with the museum – or any museum. She introduces her favorite artworks as well as the people who keep the museum going, through interviews with curators to artisans to builders that reveal a Louvre filled with surprises. “Adventures in the Louvre” came out Tuesday, and Sciolino speaks Monday at Harvard Book Store. We interviewed her Friday; her words have been edited for length and clarity.
What made you want to write about the Louvre?
It was the pandemic, and I was stuck at home doing things like washing all my pots and pans and growing root vegetables in vases, and I started cleaning out all my books. While I was doing that, I found this great two-volume book on the Louvre from 1913. It was a gorgeous book, with color photographs of all of the beautiful paintings of the Louvre, more than a century old. I kept going through this book and I kept getting more and more inspired, and I decided I had to write about the Louvre. I thought, once Covid is over, I’m at the Louvre. So it started with an old book that I had bought from a bookseller along the Seine years ago and rediscovered. I figured, why not go to the Louvre and cover it like a reporter? I’m not an art historian, I’m not a tour guide, but I am a good reporter. So I went into the Louvre with my pen and paper, and I took notes, I saw everything I could, and I interviewed everybody I could.
What was your reaction the first time you visited, and how has your relationship to the museum developed over time?
I first visited the Louvre when I was a college student traveling around Europe one summer, but I have to confess that I don’t remember what I saw there. I found my journal from that summer, but all I wrote in the journal was “I went to the Louvre today.” That was following a long description of a lunch I had had right before, where I was able to remember and wrote down absolutely everything I ate, from the melon served with port wine to the fancy steak to the wine to the dessert, but I could not tell you one work of art. Pretty pitiful, isn’t it? At least it underscores that anybody can go. My relationship with the museum got better, that’s for sure. I live in the center of Paris, I have to pass by the Louvre often, and now having lived here over 20 years, I’ve had to go to the Louvre a million times because every time a friend or a family member comes to Paris and they haven’t seen the Louvre, I take them. So I got to know it, and I learned that with a special membership from the Friends of the Louvre, I could go in and out and not wait in line. That was what really changed my relationship with the museum, because it gave me the freedom to go in and wander.
What kinds of conversations or research went into this book?
I probably interviewed at least 200 people who work at the Louvre, including the current director, the two previous directors and every single director of every single department. I also had all the directors of each of the departments take me into the collections. I used to be an investigative reporter – I covered terrorism, Iran’s nuclear program – so I treated the Louvre as I would an investigative project. I interviewed the window washers, I interviewed the people who clean the pyramid, I interviewed the security guards who believe that there are still ghosts. I went to the Louvre at six o’clock in the morning; I went at midnight. I had a blast.
What do you hope people – visitors to Paris and readers at home – take from the book?
I hope they will get excited about looking at art. I hope they will learn to love art, even if it’s just one piece of art, and make a connection that will make them feel good about the world. We’re in a crazy world right now, and we need all the brilliant distractions we can possibly get. That’s what looking at art is all about. It’s finding beauty, it’s finding inspiration. It’s being able to see a work of art in a new way – to make contact with the works of art that you see, or even just one piece, and let yourself go and experience beauty and hurt and pleasure. It’s giving yourself the freedom to just be; to look at a piece of art like an idiot and say I’m not an art historian, but I can look at this piece of art and be moved. You have to let yourself have the freedom to do that kind of thing, and that means you have to get beyond the “Mona Lisa” and the big works of art at a place like the Louvre or the Met. You have to really just wander around and find your bliss, which we often don’t do in life because we’re “too busy.” The best way to see the Louvre is to not be busy.
For a book about a museum that’s full of paintings, how did you choose the cover image?
I originally thought that I had to do something with one of the marble statues. I thought about “Winged Victory of Samothrace” because she’s got the most beautiful belly button in the world. We were going to do her belly, but then I got all these images back and they looked cold and white and stark. Then I threw in a couple of paintings, and one of the ones I threw in was “La Grande Odalisque,” which is what ended up being the cover. The assistant to my editor loved it so much that she said that is your cover, you’ve got to do it. Let’s play with it, I thought, and I got the great art director to do that “tattoo” of text on her back. It turned out beautifully. It was kind of a collaboration for us all. I think it’s the most beautiful cover of all of my books.
Elaine Sciolino reads from “Adventures in the Louvre” at 7 p.m. Monday at Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square, Cambridge. Free.
The feature image for this post (but not the image seen above) was added to in a digital retouching process. The far right and left of the frame are not real. The author was photographed and her image is untouched and real.
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