Vertigo

Vertigo

In walking through the Louvre, one always comes upon surprising perspectives. Here, on the Richelieu wing’s monumental escalators—not the most harmonious thing about the Grand Louvre—one’s eyes suddenly plunge vertiginously into the Cour Puget, a magnificent covered space that holds the seventeenth- to nineteenth-century outdoor sculptures. One of these days I will speak at greater length about what a wonderful idea it was to cover these courtyards, turning them into a grand setting for the royal sculptures. For now, I only want to marvel at the contrast between the escalator, which would be more at home in an airport or shopping mall, and the unexpected vision of the whiteness of the walls, the whiteness of the sculptures, the whiteness of the stone. “The secret blackness of milk is accessible only through its whiteness,” as a poet once said (I forget which one).