Paris. From Leonardo da Vinci’s "Mona Lisa" to Eugène Delacroix’s "Liberty Leading the People," France's Louvre is home to many of the world’s most famous artworks. The museum, spanning as large as 73,000 square meters, has some 35,000 eye-pleasing works on display. 

Walking around the museum is like riding a time machine, as some works even date back to 7,000 BC. The Louvre also showed how time has changed. Today, art generated by artificial intelligence (AI) has gone so rampant, even sparking protests from illustrators. Some can’t even tell the difference between which art is made with love and care versus AI-generated ones. The Jakarta Globe recently travelled back in time to a world without AI art at the Louvre. 

The "Mona Lisa," which Italian artist da Vinci painted half a millennium ago, has become a must-see for the Louvre visitors. This masterwork of Renaissance painting has become a household name in art history. The Louvre has kept the painting's admirers at a distance, setting up a line to better protect the painting from vandalism -- one of any gallery’s biggest fears. When making the "Mona Lisa," da Vinci used the sfumato, a painting technique in which he made subtle gradations to bring the model’s gentle smile to life. 

In 2024, as many as 8.7 million people visited the Louvre, about 77 percent of whom were foreigners, the gallery reported. The huge interest among foreigners was crystal clear during the Globe’s visit to the famous tourist site.

Left and right, there were foreigners, old and young, accompanied by guides speaking their native language, be it Dutch or even Japanese. Many of these foreigners had headphones that were connected to the guide’s audio system to cancel out the endless conversations in the room. 

As far as the eye can see, works of art fill the entire gallery. It’s not just the painting on the walls. Remember to look up at the ceiling as you walk down the hall. 

The Louvre does not only house “love letters” on a canvas. Countless lifelike statues are on display, showcasing how much talent ancient sculptors had. Even without touching the sculpture by hand, your eyes can tell how their makers put their heart and soul into their work as they look “alive” despite being lifeless objects. At the Louvre, the "Athena of Velletri" -- a statue of the ancient Greek goddess -- stands tall. This is a Roman replica of the Greek bronze original attributed to the original sculptor Kresilas around 430 BC.

French President Emmanuel Macron had pledged to rescue the Louvre, among others, by having a dedicated exhibition space for the Mona Lisa and giving the painting its very own access pass for anyone who wants to see da Vinci’s magnum opus. He believed that the major redevelopment could boost the annual visitor numbers to 12 million people. According to Macron’s estimates, the entire renovation plan will cost between 700 million and 800 million euros (up to $930.7 million) over ten years, but only a tiny portion of the funding will come from state money.