The Louvre’s eternal lover Pierre Rosenberg, the Louvre’s former director-general

From 1994 to 2001 as the director-general, he continued and completed the work begun by his predecessors. Approaching his late 70s, he still works with youthful enthusiasm. Writing books, conceiving and initiating exhibitions, stimulating research, Pierre Rosenberg is a living legend of French art history. With his inevitable red scarf around his neck, he appears at every important Parisian and international art event, and as a gentleman devoted to the scholarly research of fine arts and their wide-ranging promotion, he has influenced the thinking and careers of generations of art historians for decades. The ‘Lover of the Louvre’ has spent his entire life in one of the world’s most important collections. After 40 years of service he retired from the post of director-general, but that in no way means he has severed his connections with his beloved institute. Commanding respect, he works with enthusiasm in the domain of academic research, primarily in connection with the Louvre’s collections. He keeps an eye on his successors’ strategy, from exhibition policy to acquisitions and the presentation of the institute across France and abroad. At the same time he attentively follows the events of the international museum scene with unceasing curiosity. Pierre Rosenberg spoke to MúzeumCafé in his home in Paris.

– When you retired in 2001 you announced you would no longer speak about the Louvre. Yet since then you have given numerous interviews and written a massive work about the Louvre (Dictionnaire amoureux du Louvre, Plon, 2007) which shows you are still involved with the life of the museum, just as the museum is in your life. Did you reconsider your former pledge?

The answer lies hidden in the title of the book you mention, namely ‘love’ is the guilty party. It was in vain for me to promise that I wasn’t going to speak about the Louvre, that I wouldn’t publicly either criticise or endorse the actions of my successors, that I wouldn’t organise a conference about the Louvre’s transformation, that I wouldn’t comment on Pei’s pyramid or the museum’s acquisitions policy. After 40 years of being together that’s perhaps not surprising, and I hope I am forgiven for the inconsistency.

– How and when did you get involved with the Louvre?

After I gained my diploma in law at the end of the 1950s I decided to attend the École du Louvre in order to become an art historian, since from the time I was a child I was strongly drawn to the world I experienced during our family visits to the Louvre. In 1961, after I’d got my new diploma, I won a state scholarship which helped me spend a year at Yale University. At one point I received a telegram from André Malraux informing me that I’d been appointed an assistant of the Louvre’s painting collection. Thus began my connection with the museum.

– What were your first commissions as a young person starting out?

Initially I was entrusted with technical supervision of the provincial museums. This was very instructive and useful, since I was able to see countless works, and it was thanks to that activity that my first publication appeared. Among the provincial places the museum in Rouen, for example, has an extremely rich collection and as I got to know it closely during my investigations it became one of my most loved collections. My volume introducing the museum’s French and Italian paintings was published in 1966.

– The Louvre and artists are inseparable, not only due to the museum’s exhibitions of their works but also because during the past centuries many artists lived within its walls or in its immediate neighbourhood.

Yes, and it wasn’t simply by chance. For example, Nicolas Poussin and the Louvre cannot be separated. When Louis XIII wanted to commission him to decorate the Grande Galerie and therefore to return to Paris from Rome, he had a small palace built for him in the Tuileries. It was known as the Bell Pavilion and he lived there from winter 1640 to autumn 1642, but he never completed the paintings he had been asked to produce. Thus without having achieved his set goal he left the royal court. The links between Poussin and the Louvre were highlighted in 1960 when the choice was made about where to stage an exhibition about his oeuvre, since the Grande Galerie provided a home for this epoch-making display in which Poussin was presented as one of the greatest of French painters. Another of my favourite masters is Jean-Siméon Chardin who, thanks to the good grace of Louis XV, lived in the Louvre for 22 years. From 1755 he had the difficult duty every other year of planning the arrangement of the paintings for the Art Salons held in the Salon Carré. Thus it was quite practical that he lived a short distance from his place of work. I should also mention Dominique-Vivant Denon, who was the director of the first museum, the Musée Napoléon, between 1803 and 1814. As a man of many interests, Denon was a member of the scholarly body accompanying Napoleon on his expeditions to Egypt, where he not only recorded his experiences in drawings and writings, but also assisted with selecting and collecting ancient Egyptian objects. He was a talented engraver and lithographer, as well as a novelist and amateur art collector with eclectic tastes. Watteau’s famous Pierrot/Gilles came from him. The ambition of Denon, with his encyclopaedic knowledge, was to create a museum with an educational character displaying the entire history of art. Thus his interests ranged from the ‘primitive’ Italians Cimabue and Fra Angelico to contemporary German art. No wonder the First Consul appointed him to lead the museum named after him, nor that his residence was on the embankment opposite the Louvre, within walking distance of his beloved museum. I regret that the only similarity between my situation and that of these esteemed figures is that I also have lived my life close to the Louvre, in the Saint-Germain Quarter.

– The wing of the museum overlooking the Seine is named after Denon. Before the formation of the ‘Grand Louvre’, right up to 1989, its gateway functioned as the Louvre’s main entrance.

The issue of the main entrance has been of basic importance in every period and I believe that the pyramid, which currently is the only entrance, is not satisfactory and still gives cause for a lot of professional discussion. Let’s not forget that the building first of all was a royal palace and that Louis XIV sought the solution to the issue of the main entrance from architects as prestigious as Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Louis Le Vau, Pietro de Cortona, Carlo Rainaldi and Gianlorenzo Bernini. The latter, responding to a royal invitation, visited Paris in 1665 and prepared altogether four plans for alteration of the Louvre. He suggested the main approach should be from the east, such that the entrance would be from the direction of the Church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois and thus there would be a major thoroughfare from the palace all the way to the Bastille. The plan won Louis XIV’s favour and indeed the foundation stone was laid, but in the end the colonnade which stands today was constructed according to Claude Perrault’s plans between 1667 and 1673.

– Could you tell us about the ‘Grand Louvre’ conception, in the realisation of which you were one of those who played a major role?

It’s a very complex matter, but in reality the bringing into being of the ‘Grand Louvre’ represents the most important change in the life of the museum during the past 30 years. In truth, prior to François Mitterrand’s first presidency in 1981-88, the Louvre had suffered from a lack of space for decades, since the wing facing the Rue de Richelieu was occupied by the Ministry of Economy. It was Jack Lang, the education minister, who took up, dusted off and placed before the president the 1927 comprehensive, but until then unrealised plan of the museum’s former director, Henri Verne. Among Verne’s suggestions was the idea that the Richelieu wing should be transformed for museum purposes to rationalise the positioning of the grouped painting and archaeological collections, and to ensure a fitting place for the Asian and Impressionist collections with the founding of independent institutes – the later Musée Guimet and Musée d’Orsay.

– As regards the early 1980s, how do you remember that period?

At that time I was head curator of the Department of Painting and since the 1970s I’d been primarily studying 17-18th century Italian and French painting and graphic art, organising exhibitions in France and abroad. In 1977 I was invited to Princeton University as a visiting professor to lecture about my research. I was continuously working on the oeuvres of the period’s most outstanding artists – including Jean Restout, Georges de la Tour, Nicolas Poussin and Jean-Siméon Chardin. In short, I wasn’t bored. When President Mitterand announced the ‘Grand Louvre’ project in 1981, as the curator of French painting I had a lot of responsibility in the preparation of the planning, since from the national and international perspective alike it was a fundamentally important part of the collection. So a lot of special thought had to go into the transformation. Years later, when Michel Laclotte became director of the museum [in 1987 – O.R.], my tasks increased further, since I succeeded him in the post of head of the painting collection. Then in 1995 I took over the position of director of the Louvre from him

– Personally, were you able to intervene in the preparations of the plans?

It’s well known that the architect whom the president wanted to commission with planning the ‘Great Transformation’ was chosen by him on the basis of his own authority, without any competitive tender. There are many legends concerning who advised him to select the Chinese-American Ieoh Ming Pei, but at the end of the day, considering the quality of his work and despite numerous press scandals and criticism, I think it was by no means a bad decision. Personally I have only positive and agreeable memories of him. Pei was endowed with a wonderful diplomatic disposition. Always smiling, he would ask for our professional opinion and pay the greatest attention to the smallest detail. I worked with him a great deal in connection with the relocation of the 17-18th century French paintings. I would have liked to see overhead lighting installed in the third-floor halls surrounding the Cour Carrée. I discussed the issue a lot with Pei, but I felt he was difficult to convince. I thought I’d have more success if I invited him to dinner at my place to continue our exchanges with a bottle of wine. I knew that Pei was a great admirer of Grand Cru wines, so I got hold of a 1959 Château Lafite. There was a great atmosphere during the dinner and in the course of our conversation I raised the matter of the lighting. Smiling, Pei simply said that even before the dinner invitation I had persuaded him with my arguments about the issue.

– What expectations did the museum’s professionals have about the large-scale transformation?

Every curator agreed that a radical change was needed. The permanent lack of space affected every collection, in terms of both exhibitions and storage. Everybody was happy that the ministry was vacating the Richelieu wing. It was also clear that apart from this extra space, the only possibility for further expansion was underground and that the network of passages from the reception hall underneath the pyramid would connect the wings of the museum. Naturally every department raised issues concerning the best interests for the transformation of their own areas, then these were harmonised, and with compromises we worked out the overall museological project, after which Pei and his colleagues prepared the design in the light of that guidance. The museological project was just the starting point. Continuous consultation with the architects meant that a common concept was elaborated about the final form of the Grand Louvre, which was acceptable to all.

– What’s your own personal view of Pei’s emblematic pyramid?

At the time it was a hugely controversial creation, which generated numerous critical reactions. Nevertheless, today the pyramid is undoubtedly a defining element of the Parisian cityscape, much like the Eiffel Tower, which in its day was similarly shocking. For a long time I feared that this theatrical gesture which was just one – though undoubtedly the most visible – element of the Louvre’s large-scale transformation, would obscure the real substance, the successful rearrangement of the museum’s interior. Fortunately, I was wrong about that. However, what no one doubts is that the main entrance, completed in 1989 and conceived on the basis of handling the visitor numbers and visitor experiences of the early 1980s, can no longer cope with the annual number of visitors, which is approaching ten million (and rising). Hence it’s my belief that currently this is the most urgent task to be addressed by the new director, Jean-Luc Martinez, and his colleagues.

– These days do you live a more secluded life than formerly as a museum director?

I wouldn’t say secluded, though above a certain age you naturally try to live your days and do things with a different rhythm. Since I retired from the Louvre, I live mostly for my own research. I’m aiming to prepare for publication my work about the story of Pierre Jean Mariette’s collection of drawings. The French volume of drawings was published in 2011, while currently I’m working with colleagues on the other schools. My other major undertaking, which I’d like to complete before I die, is a catalogue of Nicolas Poussin’s paintings. Although I’ve dedicated numerous exhibitions to him, written countless articles and given lots of presentations about his art, putting together a catalogue of his entire oeuvre is a huge endeavour, demanding patience and a tremendous amount of work. In addition, I’m continuously invited to conferences and to open exhibitions across the country, which I’m delighted to do. Undoubtedly, one of the things I’m most proud of is that I’ve provided inspiration for setting up the Paris Tableau salon. For a long time I aimed for us to organise – following the example of many other big European cities – a major annual get-together in Paris where the most significant galleries dealing with old masters, the most noted professionals, specialists and young people could gather for a few days and survey the best and the most interesting works, and where the interested public could attend lectures on a couple of highlighted themes. I was delighted when the first Paris Tableau opened in November 2011, and this year we were preparing for the third salon.

– Do you still have time to think about the Louvre, for example recent developments such as the new exhibition of the Islamic collection and the new museum in Lens?

As I touched on at the start, my love for the Louvre is eternal, so naturally I’m interested in everything happening there. After many decades of difficulty, the Islamic collection has at last got the appropriate possibilities for exhibition in the special, covered space of the Visconti Courtyard. I regard the brand-new, reservedly modern building in Lens to be a work of pure genius. With restrained elegance and without intrusion, it allows the works of art to assert themselves, highlighting their greatness. I very much like the selection and highly appreciate the great work of those who conceived the project, with particular reference to Henri Loyrette who was able to consistently follow through this huge work to its conclusion. I have to confess that I regret the decision that after four terms of office he is ceasing to be director, since the institute has much to thank him for, and I hope that his successor will guide the world’s most famous museum with similar enthusiasm, good organising ability and judgement.

– The history of the construction in Lens is exemplary, particularly now for Hungary.

Yes, I know about the far-reaching plans for museum development in Hungary and I wholeheartedly wish you success. If I may make some suggestions, by all means insist on an international design competition for the plans. Nothing is more useful, enriching and inspiring for domestic architects than if they can measure themselves in a broad, good international field. But what is even more important is a thoroughly worked-out project. An architect can only make a good design if the daily life and processes of the envisaged building are clear. And since the artworks are considered the most important elements of a museum, it’s logical that museological perspectives must dominate above all. Strive to achieve maximum functionalism, calmly scrutinise from close-up those good examples which luckily have appeared even during the recent years of economic crisis. Go, for example, to Lens – if I may say so myself. These are ideas drawn from my own experience. Countless professional discussions with common concepts emerging are required to give birth to a building which is a storehouse of national treasures, and a pleasant and convenient home for researchers looking after the collection and the hopefully large numbers of visitors in the following decades. Planning such a large-scale project is a great responsibility, but at the same time involves a wonderful opportunity. Thus I don’t suggest you rush into anything, but draw into the planning as many good specialists from as many different fields as possible, because this is the key to achieving a successful conclusion.