Description: "The Louvre palace and museum belong to the history of poetry. Malherbe, in his most famous poem, "Consolation to Monsieur Du Pâerier", spoke of the "barriers of the Louvre". Baudelaire, in "The Swan", declares: "Also in front of this Louvre an image oppresses me. " This entire masterpiece could be read as an invocation of a palace-museum in metamorphosis in the heart of a Paris in transformation, of a 19th century that is being invented with the museum. Apollinaire was also involved in the Louvre, and many others after them"--
Review Quotes: "At its best, poetry about art, or ekphrasis if you like, makes visual recognition audible. This portrait of the largest museum in the world, by a motley and reaching group of living poets, goes a step further, capturing not just the hidden comedy of the sculptor Pierre Puget's ancien régime "Hercules at Rest"...or the sadness in Jean-Antoine Watteau's "Embarkation to Cythera"...but also all the happenstance, ritual, baggage and reverence that comes with tracking down artworks in an actual building." -- The New York Times Best Art Books of 2024
"Such a diversity of voices and styles, translated from the French, Dutch, German, Chinese, and more, surprises and entices in turn. And it's this air of unpredictability which, rather than scattering the mind, goes a long way toward upping the anthology's readability." --Eric Bies, Full Stop