Art goes to the street: The Louvre in Montevideo

“Images of the Louvre, Six Centuries of European Painting” is an outdoors exhibit that will be held from February 11th through May 11th, at the Rambla de Montevideo; the Louvre Museum itself, as well as the French Embassy and municipal authorities are the sponsors for this event.

The exhibit features high-resolution digital reproductions the same size as the originals housed at the Louvre. In those cases when the size of the painting exceeds the space allocated for each art piece, measuring at 4’10” by just over 6 feet, the decision was made to keep to the original dimensions of these extra large pieces and to show their details, while at the same time reproducing on one corner a small copy of the whole painting. This way, viewers can study minute details such as brush strokes, and in some cases canvas weaves or even marks of the passing of time on medieval wood pieces.

Experts at the museum specially prepared the explanation texts accompanying each work of art exhibited. Under each painting, together with the title,  the year and the artist, and in barely two hundred words, the painting is placed within its historical and artistic context, and its main characteristics are highlighted. On the subject of these summaries, Marie Catherine Sahut, Chief of the Paintings Department at the Louvre Museum, declared that the exhibit by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, previously presented on the same stage, “proved that very precise texts can be included to provide pretty complex information, and further, that people do read them.”