Ishtar? "Goddess of Love that You Are, Surely, The Things I Ask...Can't Be Too Great a Task"-Oh, Wait...is it Venus or Ishtar or Diana or Nike or the Virgin Mother?
Worshipers of Ishtar-
called her the Blessed Virgin,
and prayed to her to intercede with the angry gods.
The nature of intercession is the BIG ASK...Fix It, Save It, Save ME, Fix me, Light the Path. Prayers to Ishtar the Mesopotamian Mother/Virgin goddess are legion.
The feet of Ishtar...formidable!
If she would only intercede for me, I am sure she could make all things even, steady...safe. How many millions of prayers went to her...this winged, triumphant vision.
There is going to Paris and there is going to The Louvre. They need not be mutually exclusive but the Louvre takes many visits over a lifetime, all within itself-400 rooms and 35,000 artworks, why rush! If you live in Paris, an 80 Euro pass will secure endless opportunities to pop in and out, just as Degas and Manet used to do. That would be my dream.
In our travels to Paris, most often over a winter breaks, Dave and I spent whole days in the Louvre...sometimes with purpose, when I needed to find something from the collections of Margaret of Austria or Dave needed a specific painting of Napoleon doing Napoleonic things... and sometimes just to meander and breath the same air as these ancient creatures. In these less visited galleries, we found Ishtar. Notice her foot on the back of a roaring lion, thighs akimbo with a veiny leg planted. She is horned, be-winged and looking at me.
Ishtar, the enigmatic Mesopotamian goddess, pulsates with a multifaceted aura that transcends time and cultures. Known by the Sumerians as Inanna, her origin story stretches back to the dawn of Mesopotamian civilization, her legacy intricately woven into the fabric of myths, temples, and empires. She lives, happily, in the darkness of the Louvre.
"What do you want?" Ishtar asks me. Should I repeat an ancient Christian litany or would she be offended? Let's try it. There is chapel in my neighborhood. It is a jewel box of meditation, open all day on Wednesday and empty, silent, mystical...It is dedicated to Mary, the Star of the Sea. Like Ishtar, with less shush, the virgin mother waits patiently, more passive than Ishtar...but a capable girl, a good listener...not as feisty, someone you could have tea with on a rainy afternoon...as opposed to Ishtar, who looks like she might chuck a spear into the wall...
Our Lady, Star of the Sea Pray for us
Sign of Hope for the weary Pray for us
Guiding Star of holiness Pray for us
Protector of travelers Pray for us
Rescuer of the lost...Pray for us
Antidote to despair...Pray for us
Comfort of the troubled Pray for us
Source of fresh courage Pray for us
Luminous Pointer of the way to Heaven Pray for us
Radiant beacon of purity Pray for us
Hearer of the distressed Pray for us
Guide of the wanderer Pray for us
Solace in loneliness...Pray for us
Mediatrix of reconciliation Pray for us
Remover of bitterness Pray for us
Support of the persevering Pray for us
Roadmap to true peace Pray for us
Joy of Heaven...Pray for us
Smoother of turbulence Pray for us
Dispeller of darkness Pray for us
Vanquisher of evil...Pray for us
Protector of the truth Pray for us
Advocate for sinners Pray for us
Security of the storm-tossed Pray for us
Life-raft of the drowning Pray for us
Savior of the ship-wrecked Pray for us
Joyful song of sailors Pray for us
Motivation for true repentance Pray for us
Sobriety of the addicted Pray for us
Sustainer of the prodigal on the return home Pray for us
Herald of the dawn of goodness Pray for us
True Mother to us all Pray for us
Whilst wandering in the Louvre, are the "asks" any different? Could not the same requests be applied to Diana? Wandering from corridor to corridor, why is there such a solace in looking at the strength of women?
Draw that arrow, sure and fast, Diana, with the magnificent upper arm development and focus of an eagle.
The Divine Diana, the Huntress, Louvre
The exquisite shift of her weight makes us all believers...
Diana, Surest of Aims, Thwart Mine Enemies....that might work...That is part of a litany I could surely say to the Divine Diana.
Who has stood before her? Thousands of women and men, thousands of years ago prayed for their small and large intentions with devotion and intensity...Save me, save my son/daughter, grant me long life, health. Who visits Ishtar now in the present day and what much they be thinking?
In contrast, the Nike of Samothrace is the greeter as you enter the Louvre. She is about to take flight with imaginary arms outstretched as her wings begin to flap.
After leaving Samothrace in early May 1863, she landed in Toulon at the close of August and in Paris on the 11th of May, 1864. What must Parisians have thought of her? No wonder, meeting and greeting revolved around visiting the Louvre on Sunday during the 19th century. My Stars, Manet and Degas witnessed this reconstruction. Did they take notice or were they arguing?Berthe Morisot walked right passed it on the way to a gallery to do some sketching. It is an aspect I have never considered. There are miles of information right here.
Assembling the Nike statue of Samothrace, 1879; Oregonian2012, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Winged Nike of Samothrace, Parian marble, ca. 190 BC, found in Samothrace in 1863; Louvre Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
No doubt, you are wondering where I am going with this entry, N’est-ce pas? In part, it is because Elaine Sciolino has a new book that has just dropped...
Adventures in the Louvre Book Tour 2025. She dissects the complexities of the museum and points out her favorite paintings with their myths and legends. It got me to thinking that Dave and I will need to return to Paris soon because we can not stop thinking about falling in love with the Louvre all over again, in all of her wrappings...or unwrappings...
The Venus di Milo....Thanks, Wiki
She is full of splendor. She possesses that extraordinary Hellenistic feature of a "rund er rund erlabnise." a knowledge in the round, an entire knowledge of the subject, as one would approach a marriage with a desire to spend a lifetime knowing and witnessing a mate. Her arm was broken off when she was found in the 16th century by a Greek farmer in Ottoman occupied Greece. She held out the apple of discord. You can't say a litany full of reverence and metaphor in front of the apple...but somehow it is possible as you view her from every angle. Her magic is in her back view, her vaguely draped bottom that surpasses any golden apple. She was bought for Louis XIII. Little Lou, with his Queen Ann of Austria and the Three Musketeers. She has lived, quietly, on the bottom floor of the Louvre ever since. She is moved, now and again, due to war and greed, but all 7 feet of her has been, thus far, returned to live in a room where I never find another living soul.
Think of who has stood before her, all with their own intentions, from Louis XIII to Victor Hugo, Rose Valland and high level Nazis, Clemenceau, Napoleon I, Napoleon III and his spendacci, wife, Eugenie. What does it all mean, in the end? We seek the eternal and ask for intercession between us and the angry gods? We are a cog in the wheel. To witness these sculptures allows us to share in the ancient humanity or inhumanity of all who have stood there before us.
Do they rise up in the night like Pygmalion? stretching their ageing joints, converse about how the more things change, the more they stay the same? Do they miss warm weather or are they immune to their own needs... and ours?
I like to think that we are changed when we stand before these mostly stolen works of ancient civilizations and though they are essential static, they fill us with awe, their grandeur lifting us out of present time into the eternal, into the metaphor of the all-powerful...
Armless Protector of Beauty....Embrace Us...Protect Us