My cousin put it best when he said, “The best art in Paris is the city itself”. 

Walking through the city, the architecture alone is awe-inspiring. Passing by the Seine, witnessing the rebuilding of the Notre Dame, even just random buildings in residential districts. They remind me of stories half heard from my grandmother of France. From the portes-fenêtres to the small boulangeries every couple blocks. It feels as though Paris has as many bakeries as New York has delis, but the foundations they sprout from are centuries older than New York's. 

The Musée de Louvre is one of the most acclaimed museums in the world with a staggering amount of breathtaking art. At an age of 231 years, it is nearly as old as the USA. Countless beautiful pieces of art far older than the walls they reside in are on display there, but the piece that stood out to me most, was the Seated Prisoner. White marble hands and head, sitting atop a dark green stone figure sitting with legs and arms crossed. The original body was likely crafted in the 1st century AD and was thought to depict a “defeated oriental”. Worn away either by time or purposeful destruction, the hands and head fell away. In the 2nd century AD new ones were provided of white marble, changing the depiction to something reminiscent of the Dacian “prisoners” of the Palazzo Farnese. From prisoner to prisoner. The statue's fate unchanging, but their focus, their victim, changing upon being remade. 

After seeing this I walked through the exhibitions with a fever, searching for more art that had been changed from what they originally meant. From a relief of Ariadne, with only smallest center of her remaining from ages past, modern additions adding women providing sacrifices to her. Another statue called the Captured Barbarian, this time set in brown and white stone, the same hands and head having been replaced. The original statue's meaning lost, changed to a man with an outstretched hand, as if asking or offering alms from each passerby despite him towering too far above us to reach his hand. 

Back in the streets of Paris, there's a different piece of art that caught my eye. Not all the architecture of ages past, remodeled and secured with improving technologies and safety codes, although they are all beautiful, but smaller things, little Invaders. Throughout the city of Paris an artist named (never would've guessed) ‘Invader’ posts mosaics of pixel art aliens in the style of Space Invaders. He's actually done this around the world, with the lowest being in the bay of Cancun, the highest being in the International Space Station. Other artists around the world have often copied his work to the point where there is an app named FlashInvaders to take pictures of some of the mosaics and see if they are from Invader or if its something by other artists. From icon game characters to pop culture symbols done in the same style, there's a variety even just here in Paris. The original artist had started this project because he saw exhibitions as too restraining, preventing the everyday person from seeing art. Now the art has escaped even him. Countless copies and interpretation spread throughout the world.

The final statue in the Louvre that captured my eye was the most unaltered. Jupiter of Smyrna, only a faint difference in shade denoting what had been lost and replaced. This depiction of Jupiter shows a well muscled man in a toga, right hand raised high with a lightning bolt with the left resting on his hip as if the weight of the lives about to be smote mean nothing. Before this statue was a god of thunder and might, it was likely a different god. Aesculapius the god of medicine. The original work was of healing. Perhaps the right hand held at first the famous twin snaked rod of Aesculapius, symbol of medicine world wide. Similar to the seated prisoner, their position remains the same. From god to god, but a change in position from healing to smiting. I can't help but wonder what the original sculptor would have wanted. Would they have been happy to see their work remain a divinity? Or would they have rather it remain a symbol of healing, albeit even a broken one? How much longer does a god remain a god after breaking? Was remaking them the only way to preserve that image of divinity?

I don't have some nice bow to wrap this all up in. Art has always been an act of revision. That will likely never stop, nor should it. The Mona Lisa was never finished. Leonardo da Vinci carried it with him from place to place never quite done with it. The background near the bottom is said to have been barely sketched out. No one would dare add on top of it, dare try to change the original even if just through addition. Many throughout ancient and modern history have with those statues, changing the entire essence of a piece, finding a new centerpiece in them. If anything, I suppose it teaches us to not feel shame for the unfinished or imperfect things we make. Others might find value in them you could never have imagined.