Gregory Curtis by Disarmed: The Story of the Venus De Milo Page A

has a cult following in France; and published engaging memoirs and travelogues. But most of all he was a connoisseur both of art and of people.
    With people his connoisseurship took the form of a charming sycophancy. Denon managed the seemingly impossible by ingratiating himself with—in succession—Louis XV, Louis XVI, Robespierre, and Napoleon. He knew Voltaire, Frederick II, Catherine the Great, Danton, and Talleyrand, the wily diplomat who was brilliant and slippery enough to become minister of foreign affairs for Napoleon and then for Louis XVIII. And he was an intimate friend of Josephine’s long before she married Napoleon.
    He first encountered Napoleon at a reception given by Talleyrand. Denon was used to such occasions and quite at ease; Napoleon was still a young officer, gauche and rather timid. Denon kindly offered him a glass of lemonade. They fell into conversation about Italy and the Mediterranean, which Denon knew well, and about Corsica, Napoleon’s birthplace, about which Denon knew nothing, although he knew how to talk as if he did. Napoleon never forgot the agreeable impression Denon made on him.
    Under the empire Denon’s official title was general director of museums. In that role he commissioned paintings of the emperor and his victories from leading artists such asJacques-Louis David. He also mounted regular exhibits that were generally successful. Primarily, however, he accompanied Napoleon on his campaigns and remained behind after the fighting to select artworks and arrange for them to be carefully packed and sent to Paris. He did not loot indiscriminately. Instead he took only the best and left behind the merely good, often agonizing over the distinction.
    TheMusée Napoléon, as the Louvre was called during the Empire, became Denon’s masterpiece. Visitors could not believe what they saw. One recalled that the artworks “are displayed in such profusion that in the midst of so much beauty the eye no longer knows where to rest.” Another kept remarking, “Is this really real?” And everywhere in the crowds were invalids, soldiers in tattered uniforms, and ordinary workers, all with skin weathered by the sun. They mutely pondered this profusion of beauty, none of which had ever before been available for people like them to see.
The masterpieces reclaimed
    N APOLEON himself had no interest in art. His taste was neither good nor bad but nonexistent. He thought that art was simply an imitation of nature and that there was no merit in mere imitation of any kind. His motivation in removing art to France seems to have been simply that he wanted to take the best from any country he dominated. That to him was what a conqueror did. Whenever Napoleon was shown around the Louvre, even during the glorious heights of the Musée Napoléon, he tried to proceed from room to room without stopping at all. If a work was specifically drawn to his attention, he might ask the name of the artist, after which he would stare straight ahead at the piece without expression.
    There was one exception. Napoleon was proud of theApollo Belvedere. It was by far the single greatest possession of theMusée Napoléon. The emperor himself occasionally conducted dignitaries in private to gaze upon the statue and, in turn, upon the emperor illuminated by its radiant glory.
    After Winckelmann published his ecstatic description in his
History of Ancient Art
, and before the arrival of the Venus de Milo in Paris, it is impossible to overestimate the grip the Apollo Belvedere had on the European imagination. It was almost as if the French had inaugurated the policy of looting with it in mind. Even before Napoleon’s Italian campaign, while the revolutionary armies were still busy subjugatingBelgium, an influential delegate in the government announced, “Certainly, if our victorious armies penetrate intoItaly, the removal of the Apollo Belvedere … would be the most brilliant conquest.” The German poet and philosopherFriedrich