Today we went on a tour of the Louvre. The main piece of artwork that stuck out to me was The Winged Victory of Samothrace. I was in awe over the story of how it came to be. An archaeologist who landed in a Greek island found the sculpture in a hundred pieces and they were able to piece it back together and bring it back to France. They had to reconstruct the statue’s right wing because they couldn’t find it. I thought it was super interesting that the marble that the boat was made out of was a different type of stone that was harder because it didn’t require as many details as the bodice. I loved the detail in the clothing and the wings.

Something that stuck out to me was the repetitive theme of victory. Throughout the decor and the marble figures and paintings, victory was a common theme and I thought that was fitting considering the history of France and it’s many victories and almost-victories. 

The last thing that I thought was interesting was the theory that male models were used for the sculptures and the artists added female attributes at the end. I think that is just good representation of the time period, and I think it explains the not-so-feminine bodies of the statues which was something I always took note of when seeing these statues in person.