Paris And Art In A Time Of Climate Change

The Louvre's closure proves art cannot survive climate change; The flooding in Paris is a stark warning of the danger posed by climate change to everything human civilisation has achieved – no matter how priceless

Jonathan Jones, 6 June 2016 (UK Guardian)

“One of the oldest human illusions is that culture is a conquest of, or an escape from, nature. It is an illusion we need to abandon fast…[As the Seine rose in Paris in recent days, no less a museum than the Louvre had to close its doors (along with the Musee d’Orsay) so staff could protect artistic masterpieces. This] is a stark warning that civilisation can only survive in harmony with nature. If we destroy our planet, we destroy not just our current way of life but the human heritage itself…If any museum sums up the best of human creativity through millennia, it is the Louvre…[Now that it has been forced] to take emergency measures against another of those weather events in which only the most foolhardy or corrupt refuse to see human-induced climate change, we can glimpse how our destructive side will wreck our best hopes if we don’t change…The most apocalyptic masterpiece in the Louvre is Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa…Civilisation has died. Bare survival is all they have. Is that enough?” click here for more

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