The Louvre, built as a castle-fortress, by the decision of Charles V from 1317 was turned into the residence of the French kings. The values accumulated over the centuries within its walls allowed the interim government of the French Republic to open the doors of the palace in 1793 for the people, laying the foundation for the creation of one of the largest museums in the world.
The Louvre, whose paintings brought him worldwide fame, occupies a worthy place among the treasures of painting, such as the Prado, the Hermitage, and the London National Gallery. The Louvre Museum occupies the 3rd place in the world in terms of the occupied space, which hosts about 400,000 exhibits. But the value of the museum is characterized not only by the total number of paintings, but also by the presence in the collection of world masterpieces.
The Louvre Museum, whose paintings have made it the most popular museum, is primarily indebted to this Leonardo da Vinci Gioconda, who is considered a magician, a superman, a genius because of the power of talent in many fields of science, culture, and art. He created only 14 paintings (the authorship of the 15th is disputed), but this did not prevent him from becoming a genius of painting.
Mecca of fine art "The Louvre" (Leonardo da Vinci's paintings are presented here in the amount of four priceless copies - "Gioconda", "John the Baptist", "Madonna in the Grotto", "Maria with the Baby and Saint Anna") is known to any more or less educated person on the ground. And there is no connoisseur who would not know what the Louvre Museum is, the paintings that are in it.
“Gioconda”, covered with unprecedented glory, shrouded in legends, not letting dozens of specialists sleep who have been debating about it for hundreds of years, subjected, like no other canvas in the world, to thefts and attempts, was created by the master during 1514-1515. She is considered the founder of all subsequent development of painting.
The following three canvases are written in biblical subjects and relate to the late period of Leonardo's work. "Mary with the Baby and Saint Anne," written during 1483-1487, is the prototype of the painting "Mary in the Rocks," of which two were created. One of them is in the Louvre, the other in the London National Gallery.
An unusual outburst of interest in this particular artist and his paintings was the publication in 2003 of Dan Brown's novel “The Da Vinci Code”, followed by its adaptation, which appeared on world screens in 2006. Few people in the civilized world who did not read this book or not watching the movie. Thus, the modern bestseller contributed to the popularization of genius among contemporaries, slaves of pop culture. One cannot but see the peculiar continuity of generations. The famous paintings of the Louvre by Leonardo da Vinci brush gained a second life, although, in fact, they are immortal.
The fact that modern youth associates the name “Leonardo” only with “Ninja Turtles” has been repeatedly asserted. And we can only rejoice that the Louvre, whose paintings have always had millions of fans, has increased the number of people who want to see the places where the novel unfolds with their own eyes. This is a very effective method of attracting various segments of the population to high art.