I.M. Pei, The Louvre Pyramid
Still from APES**T, Ieoh Ming Pei, The Louvre Pyramid, 1989, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
Ieoh Ming Pei, The Louvre Pyramid, 1989. Photo by Benh LIEU SONG via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).
The Louvre Pyramid is a large glass and metal pyramid designed by Chinese-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei, surrounded by three smaller pyramids, in the main courtyard of the Louvre Palace. It serves as the main entrance to the Louvre Museum. Completed in 1989, it has become a landmark of the city of Paris but it also caused plenty of controversies, as for some it doesn’t match witthe Classicist façade of the Louvre.
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Théodore Géricault, The Charging Chasseur
Still from APES**T, Théodore Géricault, The Charging Chasseur, 1812, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
Théodore Géricault, The Charging Chasseur, 1812, Louvre, Paris, France.
This painting portrays a mounted Napoleonic cavalry officer and it’s one of the symbols of the French Romanticism. But there is something unique about this scene – it is not a typical moment of military victory, it seems that the battle is about to be lost. Instead of a typical for Géricault times idealized scene based on Ancient Roman or Greek motifs, the artist chose to depict a romanticized scene full of drama, of a fighter who knows his destiny but he still fights.
The Album Cover
YouTube
One of the closing scenes in the “Apesh-t” music video doubles as the Everything is Love album cover; the scene shows two of the ensemble dancers, Jasmine Harper and Nicholas “Slick” Stewart in front of the Mona Lisa. Harper is picking out Stewart’s hair, an intimate scene that Drew believes references photographer Deana Lawson and Carrie Mae Weems.
“I think it’s significant because it’s a moment that’s really intimate in an extremely public space,” she said. “I think it’s also significant because of their proximity to the painting as well – anyone who’s visited the Louvre knows that it’s hard to get up close to that artwork, so seeing them here was profound. What’s forefronted in the image to me is as much Deena Lawson as it is Carrie Mae Weems.”
Ary Scheffer, Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta Appraised by Dante and Virgil
Still from APES**T, Ary Scheffer, Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta Appraised by Dante and Virgil, 1835, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
Ary Scheffer, Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta Appraised by Dante and Virgil, 1835, Louvre, Paris, France.
This is a story of a hopeless romance. In the first volume, the Inferno, of The Divine Comedy, Dante and Virgil meet Francesca and her lover Paolo in the second circle of hell, reserved for the lustful. The couple are trapped in an eternal whirlwind, doomed to be forever swept through the air just as they allowed themselves to be swept away by their passions.
Dante calls out to the lovers and he speaks with Francesca. She obliquely states a few of the details of her life and her death, and Dante, apparently familiar with her story, correctly identifies her by name. He asks her what led to her and Paolo’s damnation, and Francesca’s story strikes such a chord within Dante that he faints out of pity.
Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii
Still from APES**T, Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784, Louvre, Paris, France.
Oath of the Horatii was created by Jacques-Louis David in 1784. It immediately became a huge success with critics and the public and remains one of the best-known paintings in the Neoclassical style.
It depicts a scene from a Roman legend about a dispute between two cities, Rome and Alba Longa. Instead of the two cities sending their armies to war, they agree to choose three men from each city; the victor in that fight will be the victorious city. Two families decided to fight: three Roman brothers of the Horatii family and three brothers from a family of Alba Longa, the Curiatii.
In the painting we see the Romans saluting their father who holds their swords out for them. Of the three Horatii brothers, only one survived the confrontation. However, it is the surviving brother who is able to kill the other three fighters from Alba Longa. The woman crying whilst sitting down is Camilla, a sister of the Horatii brothers, who is also betrothed to one of the Curiatii fighters, and thus she weeps at the realization that, in any case, she will lose someone she loves.
Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of a Black Woman
Still from APES**T, Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of a Black Woman, 1800, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of a Black Woman, 1800, Louvre, Paris, France.
This is the last painting shown in Jay-Z and Beyoncé Louvre video, and it is not a coincidence. The painting created by the female artist Marie-Guillemine Benoist was painted just a few years after the official end of slavery, and it swiftly became a symbol of emancipation. It’s one of the only pre-20th-century portraits of a black person in the Louvre that’s not explicitly a portrait of a slave. A huge and powerful symbol.
Now you should be fluent in explaining art motifs in Jay-Z and Beyoncé Louvre video to your friends. At the end, you can again watch the clip here:
Jacques-Louis David, The Intervention of the Sabine Women
Still from APES**T, Jacques-Louis David, The Intervention of the Sabine Women, 1796-99, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
Jacques-Louis David, The Intervention of the Sabine Women, 1796-1799, Louvre, Paris, France.
Here we have a story of Romulus’ (who established the city of Rome, with his brother Remus) wife Hersilia – the daughter of Titus Tatius, leader of the Italic tribe of Sabines – rushing between her husband and her father and placing her babies between them. Hersilia simply wanted to stop the bloodbath happening around her and she made it. The horseman on the right is putting his sword back into its sheath while, further away, hands and helmets are raised in gestures of peace. The painter produced marketing material to accompany the first exhibition of the painting with his own account of the episode and anticipated the controversy over his use of nudity. You can read more about this artwork here.
Galerie d’Apollon
Still from APES**T, Eugène Delacroix, Apollo Victorious over the Python, 1850-51, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
Still from APES**T, Eugène Delacroix, Apollo Victorious over the Python, 1850-51, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
The Jay-Z and Beyoncé Louvre video starts with shots of the Galerie d’Apollon‘s ceiling. At the request of Louis XIV, in 1663 Charles Le Brun painted the race of the sun (Apollo, the Roman god of the sun) through time and space. During the second half of the 18th century, when the Academy of Painting occupied the gallery, the painters Taraval, Durameau, J. J. Lagrenée, Callet and Renou completed the decoration with canvases which were their pieces of reception at the Academy. From 1848 to 1850, the gallery was restored by the architect Duban who commissioned Delacroix to the central composition, and Müller’s and Guichard’s two compositions.
The gallery served as a model for the famous Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles.
The scene we see in the video represents the ancient sun god Apollo’s first triumph, when, at Delphi, he slew with his bow and arrows the serpent Python, which is dying in the sea.
Nike of Samothrace
Still from APES**T, Winged Victory of Samothrace, 2nd century BCE, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
Winged Victory of Samothrace, 2nd century BCE, Louvre, Paris, France. Photo by Lyokoi88 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The Winged Victory of Samothrace, also called the Nike of Samothrace, is a marble Hellenistic sculpture of the Greek goddess of victory from around the 2nd century BCE. Since 1884 when it was found, it is one of the most celebrated sculptures in the world and one of the few examples of the Hellenistic sculptures that survived until our days (we know a lot of them but as Roman copies). Most likely it commemorated the Battle of Cos from 255 BCE in which Antigonus II Gonatas of Macedonia won over the fleet of Ptolemy II of Egypt.
Winged Victory of Samothrace
YouTube
The Winged Victory of Samothrace is a Greek statue of the goddess Nike, who symbolized victory, from the 2nd century, BC. In the video, Beyoncé appears and dances in front of the statue in garb that mimics the structure of the angelic wings and coverings of the statue; however, that’s not the only way that the video uses wings to send a message.
The video opens with a shot of a man wearing angel wings, kneeling in front of the museum, something Thomas says could be a reference to the film, Looking for Langston.
“The film shows black people with large wings that somewhat replicate that sculpture. An Essex Hemphill poem in it talks about falling angels that connect to the history of black life and death, which is something that Beyoncé has dealt with in her work as well,” she said.
YouTube
The Hemphill poem that Thomas referenced is called “Visiting Hours.”
Venus de Milo
Still from APES**T, Venus de Milo, c. 130-100 BCE, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
Venus de Milo, c. 130-100 BCE, Louvre, Paris, France. Photo by Mattgirling via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Another iconic masterpiece appearing in Jay-Z and Beyoncé Louvre video. The statue is believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, but we can’t tell that for sure as she has no attributes. Also the missing pieces of marble and absence of attributes made the restoration and identification of the statue difficult. According to whether she held a bow or an amphora, she was Artemis or a Danaid. She may have held an apple — an allusion to the Judgement of Paris — a crown, a mirror, or a shield in which she admired her reflection. However she might also be the sea goddess Amphitrite, who was venerated on the island of Melos.
The Louvre
YouTube
The Louvre is one of the world’s most famous art spaces, so the Carters having private access to it is definitely newsworthy. Drew found it to be a fitting location for the Carters, especially given the content of the album and the couple’s past interactions with the city of Paris.
“ a site that they reference continually in their music and so the location is perfect for them, thinking about the ‘Ni**as in Paris’ song or thinking about their visit to the Louvre in 2014, Paris being the city of lovers — there are a number of reasons why it’s an incredible space,” she said. “What they did was interpret works and really take the viewer of the video both inside the and outside of the museum space, and I thought that that was one of the most profound things.”
Drew also pointed out that this video is part of a longer history of the Carters’ support and participation in fine art.
“Of course you have to think about Picasso Baby while watching this video and of course, there’s Tina’s influence on the Knowles women and their relationship to art, it’s a definite family affair.”
Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa
Still from APES**T, Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, 1503, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, 1503, Louvre, Paris, France.
An ocean of ink has been spilt on Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece. It’s the iconic, most recognized and popular work of art in the world. It’s no surprise that it has a key role in the whole Jay-Z and Beyoncé Louvre video. From our side we can add a couple of intriguing facts:
1. Mona has been once stolen in 1911 (but then recovered in 1914).
2. It has a twin (about which you can read here).
3. It’s super mysterious, but probably it presents Francesco del Giocondo’s wife.
4. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest known insurance valuation in history at $100 million in 1962, which is worth nearly $800 million in 2017.
It’s just super-glamorous, super-famous and super-super. Just like our today’s heroes.
Great Sphinx of Tanis
Still from APES**T, The Great Sphinx of Tanis, 2600 BCE, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.The Great Sphinx of Tanis, 2600 BCE, Louvre, Paris, France. Photo by Oh Paris via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).
The sphinx is a creature with the body of a lion and the head of a king. This one has been connected by the archaeologists to the pharaohs Ammenemes II (12th Dynasty, 1929-1895 BCE), Merneptah (19th Dynasty, 1212-1202 BCE) and Shoshenq I (22nd Dynasty, 945-924 BCE), but it may be earlier as well.
The word “sphinx” is of Greek origin. The appropriate Egyptian appellation for a statue or image of this kind was shesep-ankh (living image). The creature was a symbolic representation of the relationship between the sun god (the lion’s body) and the king (the human head), and was the “living image of the king”, demonstrating his strength and his close association with the god Ra.
The sphinx was always positioned as a guardian of important places, such as temple entrances – it was the defender of Egypt.
Jacques-Louis David, Portrait of Madame Récamier
Still from APES**T, Jacques-Louis David, Portrait of Madame Récamier, 1800, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
Jacques-Louis David, Portrait of Madame Récamier, 1800, Louvre, Paris, France.
Juliette Récamier was a Parisian socialite, a wife of a wealthy banker. Here, the 23-year-old is reclining on a Directoire style sofa in a simple Empire line dress with almost bare arms, and short hair “à la Titus”. Leaving an empty, flat background was extremely avant-garde for 1800. Also, David never finished the painting and it’s unknown why. One more thing – the sofa became a hit and every fashionable socialite who run a salon should have one like this.
In Jay-Z and Beyoncé Louvre video, the two dancers seem to be a haunting echo of the colonial past. Their arrangement repeats the setup of the sofa from the painting. Slavery was the base of the wealth and social status of the Récamiers.
Бейонсе и Джей Зи сняли клип в Лувре — «Я как Звезда»
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Бейонсе и ее супруг Джей Зи выпустили совместный клип на песню Apeshit. По задумке режиссера Рикки Саиза, пара вместе с танцорами захватывают Лувр в Париже.
Во время загрузки произошла ошибка.
В частности, в кадре супруги позируют около «Моны Лизы» Леонардо да Винчи. Песня Apeshit вошла в совместный альбом супругов Everything Is Love, выпущенный дуэтом под именем The Carters (это настоящая фамилия Джей Зи).
Напомним, недавно Бейонсе поразила воображение фанатов фееричным выступлением на фестивале Coachella.
Больше фото пары смотри в галерее.
Venus de Milo
YouTube
The Venus de Milo, an ancient Greek statue of the goddess Aphrodite, has long been held up as a standard of awe-inducing beauty. Beyoncé’s nude bodysuit and her pose in the “S curve” of the statue draw an obvious parallel to the statue, but Thomas said it wasn’t a surprise since Bey’s birth announcement drew many an Aphrodite comparison.
“Beyoncé is obviously very interested in Venus and Aphrodite imagery. For Beyoncé to have these black performers with her and her husband, performing in front of an iconic piece of ancient Greek sculpture – which probably symbolizes European beauty standards more than anything – was really powerful.”
Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of a Black Woman (Negress)
YouTube
Marie-Guillemine Benoist painted “Portrait of a Black Woman (Negress)” in 1800, during a brief period of abolition of slavery in French colonies.
While the portrait has been speculated to be a symbol of the French republic, post-revolution, Thomas points to it as one of many examples of how black bodies are a part of Western art, even when black culture hasn’t always been welcomed or represented.
“Carrie Mae Weems has a series called Museums 2006, where she’s standing in front of Western museums and she has one where she’s standing outside of the Louvre. It’s meant to symbolize what it means for a black person to not see their culture reflected in the history of Western art, but still seeing their bodies in it, which makes me think of the Negress portrait, where her breast is exposed and she’s hyper-sexualized,” Thomas says.
She continued: “Black women and black women artists are excluded from the history of Western art, but their bodies, particularly sexualized or desexualized in domestic labor or sexual labor, are there. I think what really stuck with me was the juxtaposition of subject portraits of white womanhood…the Mona Lisa with the Negress painting and then we have Beyoncé intervening in this narrative and also being so unapologetically black about it too. Beyoncé and these other artists aren’t assimilating, but instead, staging this embodied intervention that disrupts more than it conforms to the logistics of Western art and Western museums.”
Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa
Still from APES**T, Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1818–1819, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1818–1819, Louvre, Paris, France.
The Raft of the Medusa, another masterpiece in Jay-Z and Beyoncé Louvre video, depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French ship Méduse, which ran aground off the coast of today’s Mauritania in 1816. Three days after the catastrophe at least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly constructed raft; all but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation and dehydration and practiced cannibalism. The story became an international scandal and the symbol of social inequalities – all of the lifeboats were used by the noblemen and rich, the poor had no chance to rescue themselves.
The painting is of a monumental scale of 491 × 716 cm (193.3 × 282.3 in) so most of the figures rendered are life-sized. Géricault worked with the survivors and the carpenter to construct an accurately detailed scale model of the raft, which was reproduced on the finished canvas, even showing the gaps between some of the planks. The artist used friends as models, among them was Eugène Delacroix, who modelled for the figure in the foreground with face turned downward and one arm outstretched. Also, the two of the raft survivors are seen in the shadow at the foot of the mast.
Jacques-Louis David, The Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon and the Coronation of Empress Joséphine on December 2, 1804
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The parallels that Beyoncé draws here are far from subtle; by positioning her body directly under the kneeling figure of Joséphine being crowned by Napoleon (who had just crowned himself, as opposed to letting the church do it) it appears that Queen Bey is not looking to the establishment for confirmation of her greatness. Napoleon’s role as one of the world’s most notorious colonizers adds another dimension of complexity to this juxtaposition.
Jay Z reiterates this idea when he raps “Tell the Grammy’s f-ck that 0 for 8 sh*t/have you ever seen the crowd goin’ apeshit?” right after telling the NFL, “I said no to the Super Bowl/You need me, I don’t need you.” The choreography that she performs with her line of dancers (reminiscent of her “Formation” lineup) is a display of strength and joy, something that Thomas saw as similar to a piece by Ringgold, titled “Dancing in the Louvre.”
“Beyoncé’s not interested in respectability politics that would fall in line with the Western empire or things like that. She just has these black women of all these different shapes, wearing tight, nude clothing. It’s very clear that she wanted nude leotards that would match black skin — and it’s just pleasure and joy in having all these black women dance. In the Faith Ringgold quilt, you see young black kids just running through the Louvre. It’s a black feminist intervention that’s about love and pleasure and joy.”
Great Sphinx of Tanis
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The Great Sphinx of Tanis is one of the largest sphinxes housed outside of Egypt and is believed to date back to the Old Kingdom. Thomas suggests that Beyoncé and Jay Z’s choice to feature the Great Sphinx in the video is an reminder that ancient Egypt and its history are part of a larger African history.
“Part of the way the museum represents white supremacy in Western art and Western dominance is through a tracing of the past that sees ancient Greece and ancient Rome as the birthplace of civilization and democracy,” Thomas said. “I think one way that black artists and performers try to re-narrativize that is with imagery that we associate with ancient Egypt. Museums are very deliberate about not considering Ancient Egypt within the history of African and black art; instead, it’s often put together with ancient Greece and Rome, even though ancient Egypt is part of Africa. Beyoncé is a part of a tradition of not only black artists and performers, but activists too who find power in imagery like that because it connects them to an African past where there is a narrative of innovation and power.”
Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa
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When viewers first encounter the Carters in the Louvre, the couple is standing in front of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa in coordinating pastel power suits. Thomas said that the Carters positioning themselves in front of one of the world’s most famous pieces of art symbolized them making space for themselves in a traditionally white museum locale.
“Thinking about portraiture, the Mona Lisa is probably one of the most iconic portraits we can think of in the history of Western art,” Thomas said. “Other artists, like Kehinde Wiley, Faith Ringgold, and Renee Cox, have played around with that idea too, of a black person inserting themselves into a white painting or a white museum space.”
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For Drew, the Mona Lisa moment at the close of the video, when Bey and Jay turn to face the painting showed the agency that the Carters are exercising as both consumers and creators of art.
“Much less than how historically white standards of beauty have operated, she provides us the opportunity to engage with the art. She reminds us that she, herself, is offering us this video. They are the ones who are in charge here.”
Jacques-Louis David, Coronation of Napoleon I
Still from APES**T, Jacques-Louis David, Coronation of Napoleon I, 1805-1807, Louvre, The Carters, 2018, Youtube.
Jacques-Louis David, Coronation of Napoleon I, 1805-1807, Louvre, Paris, France.
Here we have another painting in Jay-Z and Beyoncé Louvre video, a masterpiece of modern propaganda created by Jacques-Louis David. The coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of the French took place on December 2, 1804. Napoleon wanted to establish legitimacy of his imperial reign, with its new royal family and new nobility. Therefore, he designed a new coronation ceremony that was unlike the ceremony used for the kings of France. Napoleon’s was a sacred ceremony held in the great cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris in the presence of Pope Pius VII, and he firstly coronated himself and then, what we see on David’s canvas, his wife, Josephine.
Let’s call him, a self-made Emperor.