Adventures in the Louvre: A Guest Post by Elaine Sciolino

Thanks to Elaine Sciolino’s razor-sharp observations, this in-depth exploration of the Louvre may even rival treading the hallowed halls yourself. From the storied past of the building, to Sciolino’s personal connection, to art history, there is so much here to enjoy. Read on for an exclusive essay from Elaine on writing Adventures in the Louvre.

I’ve been a journalist my entire professional life. I’ve covered wars, revolutions, terrorist attacks, kidnappings, murders, earthquakes. I’ve been put in prison in Syria, arrested in Poland, interrogated in Iran, shot at in Iraq. I’ve also covered fashion shows, royal weddings, food competitions, cross-dressing cabarets. I have mounted a horse in search of the Bigfoot monster in North Dakota and dined on lamb testicles with members of an all-male organ meats club in Paris.   

But the Louvre? I started thinking about the Louvre when I was stuck at home in Paris during the pandemic. Most of France was closed tight, so one day, with nothing to do, I decided to reorganize my books. I found two luscious volumes on the paintings of the Louvre published in 1913 that I had once bought from a bookseller along the Seine. The pages were speckled with brown mold and smelled faintly of ripe vanilla. But each painting was photographed in radiant color.  

I was seduced. These books were a century-old version of how to fall in love with the Louvre, that impossible museum – too big and too crowded! Art historians and tour guides had written millions of words about it, but there had never been a book by a reporter. Voila! I found the perfect subject for a book!

Right from the beginning, I decided to treat the Louvre as a living, breathing character, not just a collection of stones that was a fortress, then a palace, and then a museum that has undergone 20-some renovations over the centuries and is still impossible to master. I was determined to reveal its mysteries and tell its stories. Why are there so few Crown Jewels, I wanted to know. How do the window washers clean the glass panes of the Pyramid? What are the paintings more beautiful than the Mona Lisa? Is there a secret way to beat the long lines?  

The research was tougher than I could have imagined. The Louvre is the most bureaucratic, toughest institution I have ever faced in France. And I was considered an outsider: not an art historian, and just as bad, perhaps, not French. When I started out, the museum circulated a confidential document that said cooperating with me on the book could be a “risk.” It banned all officials from talking to me unless I was accompanied by a designated person—my Louvre “minder.” That attitude slowed down my research for several months.

Along the way, I was endlessly surprised. I learned how to communicate not only with people, but with works of art. There is a sensual dialogue that sometimes comes when we get close enough to really see a glorious work of art, and when that work of art moves us. I discovered that we can come to the Louvre and see its treasures as a series of mirrors in which we see ourselves. And that is magic. I like nothing better than to lose myself in the Louvre – and get lost, which I always seem to do. It’s that big.