In 2022, almost eight million people visited the famed Louvre Museum in Paris. I wasn’t one of them; the closest I got was an online tour.
During 2020, when many of us were holed up at home, lots of museums upped their online presence with more and better virtual tours, ranging from slideshows of still images to 360-degree immersive videos. While it’s not the equivalent of being there, there’s something to be said for being able to quasi-visit from the comfort of your living room — especially if it’s some place you know you’ll never likely actually go (as is the case with the Louvre, for me).
The Louvre is one of the (if not the) best-known and most-visited museums in the world; its eight million visitors in 2022 was still below pre-pandemic levels. And, of course, it houses one of the (if not the) most famous paintings in the world: the Mona Lisa. It was obviously worth a (virtual) visit.
I’d previously visited a couple of other art museums online and, in both cases, I started out on the museums’ websites, but ended up on YouTube, finding that some of the videos posted there — even when not officially sanctioned by the museums — actually offered the experience I was looking for. The same held true for the Louvre.
A YouTuber named Tom Scott offered a five-minute video showcasing just one work of art — not the Mona Lisa, as you might expect, but the painting positioned directly across from her. It’s the largest painting in the Louvre, weighing (with frame) one and a half tons. It’s called “The Wedding Feast at Cana” and it was painted in 1562-63 by an artist with whom I wasn’t familiar: Paolo Veronese. It portrays Jesus’ first miracle (turning water into wine), but what makes the painting particularly interesting is that the miracle was portrayed in 16th century Venice surroundings.
For a totally different experience, I watched a second YouTube video, 11 minutes long, that showed broad shots of areas within the museum, along with close-ups of some of the works of art. This video had no narration, but conveyed a serene experience, with the crowd noise muted and soft background music playing instead.
Then, I hunkered down for an hour-long video tour, which offered, I felt, a pretty realistic approximation of what a visit to the Louvre would actually be like. The videographer (who never appeared on camera) walked through the museum (or, rather, parts of it) at an average pace, among the crowds, seldom lingering at any one painting or sculpture, and never providing any narration. The “tour” included some of the more inauspicious areas of the museum — common areas near a restaurant and auditorium, stairways and nondescript hallways — which, combined with the fact that there was no narration or background music; instead, just the ambient noise of the crowd — again, made the experience feel even more real.
The part of this video that stood out to me was when the videographer entered the area surrounding the Mona Lisa. Despite having a pretty fair understanding (I thought) of just how famous this painting is, I was unprepared for the mass of people crammed together, trying to get a glimpse of it. From what I’ve learned, the museum has begun managing the crowds better by having them wait single file in a line; still, the average visitor, once he or she manages to inch forward before coming face to face with Mona Lisa, has about 30 seconds to stand and admire the painting before moving on.
In recent years, a virtual reality experience, titled “Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass” was created, allowing museum visitors to don a VR headset for a seven-minute presentation, taking them inside the world of the painting and allowing them to see a full-bodied Mona Lisa moving and gesturing. The good news is that now, by going on either the museum’s website or YouTube, even without a VR headset, you, too, can get a glimpse inside this world. Watching snippets of Mona Lisa “move,” I’m not sure how I felt about it — on one hand, I was impressed with the technology; on the other, I wasn’t sure if it added to, or detracted from, the painting; I’d have to give that some more thought.
I don’t know that an online museum tour would work for everyone. I guess some people might argue that if you can’t be there in person, why bother? But, I’d have to say that my “visit” to the Louvre was absolutely worthwhile. Even though I’d never dare to compare it with a live visit, I do believe I now have a “feel” for what the museum is like. I have no doubt that I’ll do other online tours in the future. But, as is the case with the Louvre and the others I’ve done so far, I’ll continue to personalize my tours by stringing together YouTube videos that create the experience that works best for me.
We now live in a world that allows us to broaden our horizons from our living room — why not take advantage of it?
