Pei's Palace of Art

By THOMAS SANCTON/PARIS

Napoleon III had a taste for ostentation. On the ceiling of his gilded reception room in the Louvre is a fresco of the goateed sovereign himself, sitting on his throne and surrounded by puffy clouds and horn-blowing cherubs. . Flying toward him are two figures brandishing architectural plans and a model of the royal palace. The painting commemorates the Emperor's 1852 decision to expand the edifice by adding a new north wing, named after Cardinal Richelieu, to house his private apartments and expanding bureaucracy.

President Francois Mitterrand's likeness will probably never grace a ceiling. But what he shares with the Emperor is the French monarchical itch to build upon the nation's patrimony. His Grand Louvre renovation, launched in 1981, was once attacked as an exercise in Socialist self-aggrandizement. Today the project is described by Jacques Toubon, the new Gaullist Minister of Culture, as "a historic and cultural space without comparison in the world."

About their own culture, all Frenchmen are hyperbolists. But in this case, Toubon might be right. For when Mitterrand opened the newly rebuilt Richelieu wing last week, he vastly expanded the world's most famous museum and, for the first time in the palace's 447-year history, allowed the Louvre to be dedicated entirely to its extraordinary art collections. With its 231,400 sq. ft. of floor space, the three-story Richelieu wing will double the Louvre's display areas, allowing its curators to pull more than 4,000 works out of the reserves and put a total of 12,000 on view in the new sections alone.

Every stage of the Grand Louvre renovation has had its controversy, and this one is no exception. When in 1989 Mitterrand first unveiled architect I.M. Pei's modernistic glass pyramid in the the museum's vast central courtyard, the work brought accusations of aesthetic heresy. This time Pei has offended some observers by combining the museum with an underground shopping gallery that includes 13 fast-food counters and 60 boutiques, ranging from Lalique crystal to Esprit sportswear and a Virgin Records Megastore. The new commercial space is elegant and features at its center an inverted Pei pyramid, which echoes the one outside and bathes the beige limestone halls in a rich, silky light. To his critics, Pei responds in the best tradition of the king-picked artist: "The mixing of art, culture and commerce is not impossible," he says. Besides, the 76-year-old Chinese-American architect points out, the rental income from the shops was necessary to finance an underground garage.

The new Richelieu wing is only part of the $1 billion Grand Louvre project, which is likely to last three more years. But last week's opening, which also - marked the museum's 200th anniversary, completed Pei's vision of a subterranean crossroads linking every wing to a central starting point. Before the renovation, the entrances were confusing, and the Richelieu wing, occupied by the Finance Ministry, had been subdivided into a warren of cluttered, low- ceilinged offices. Apart from the Napoleon III apartments, the entire structure had to be gutted and rebuilt by an international team of architects under Pei's supervision.

A key decision was to cover the wing's three interior courtyards with glass and use them as galleries for sculptures. Taking advantage of the immense space available -- the ceilings are 115 ft. high -- French architect Michel Macary turned two of the courtyards into limestone terraces that show off, among other things, the heroic statues of Pierre Puget and a pair of rearing horses carved in Carrara marble by Guillaume Coustou for Louis XIV. The third courtyard, designed by American architect Stephen Rustow, evokes the palace of the Assyrian King Sargon II (8th century B.C.) at Khorsabad and features two 13-ft.-high winged bulls with human heads.

The new wing also houses most of the 5,500-piece decorative-arts collection -- including jewel-encrusted gold crowns and carved ivory statuettes -- in handsome, well-lit glass display cases mounted on stone pedestals and trimmed in chrome. The cases, which are used in all the new areas, are one of the Richelieu wing's most effective unifying elements because they echo Pei's refined, understated decor.

Some of Pei's finest achievements are the most practical. In contrast to the hodgepodge that reigned in the old painting galleries, he arranged the rooms to create a succession of schools and periods. He also conceived the sleek black escalator that runs from the underground level up to the top floor. Set in a vast hall of polished stone, it is the central nexus that links all the departments to one another. Thanks to the large windows on the landings, it offers dramatic perspectives of the grand outdoor Pyramid and the majestic facades of the other wings. Wherever possible, in fact, Pei has sought to provide windows that open the museum on to the city outside and permit visitors to orient themselves. Perhaps Pei's greatest concession to visitor comfort was to include five rest rooms in the new wing, compared with two in all of the old museum. Pei's lighting system, which prevails throughout the upper-floor painting departments, is an inventive mix of natural and electric light. His solution to Paris' wide seasonal variations was to place a system of wooden screens under the skylights. Their angles are set to prevent direct sun from falling on the paintings and at the same time to deflect the beams from hidden overhead spotlights. The system works beautifully except in those rooms where museum officials, ignoring Pei's wishes, hung paintings above other paintings. The result is a distracting sheen on the higher canvases. Asked why Pei's advice was ignored, curator Pierre Rosenberg snapped, "No museum in the world would let an architect hang artworks."

Disputes between architects and curators arose frequently during construction. One of the worst involved the wall colors in the exhibition space for Northern European 17th century paintings. Pei wanted beige or off- white, he says, because "neutral-colored walls go with any colors in the paintings." But the curators insisted on stronger tones. The dispute grew so acrimonious that one curator is reported by several observers to have referred repeatedly to Pei, behind his back, as "that slant-eyed little Chinaman."

The walls of the Flemish section are a gray-mauve that curators describe as plum but less charitable observers call degueulis d'ivrogne (loosely translated as regurgitated wine). Here the magnificent Flemish collection, featuring works of Van Eyck, Van Dyck and Bruegel, ultimately prevails. And so does the ingenuity of Pei's layouts, which is evident throughout the painting galleries. For Poussin, Pei designed a special octagonal room to show off the famous Seasons series. And for the 24 oversize Rubenses commissioned by Marie de Medicis in the 1620s, Pei designed what is the stunning centerpiece of the Flemish section: a 130-ft.-long chamber with a vaulted ceiling and almond- green walls. The Dutch canvases, says curator Rosenberg, are "the greatest surprise. Everyone knew that Flemish art is one of the glories of the Louvre, but the Dutch collection had been ignored."

It is in search of such surprises that more visitors are likely to descend on the Louvre. Already, attendance has risen from 3 million in 1988 to 5 million in 1992. Now that it has been transformed from a dark and dowdy cavern to a bright and logical showcase, millions more are expected.

With reporting by Benjamin Ivry/Paris and Daniel S. Levy/New York