Of all of Paris' wonderful museums, perhaps the one most in line with our artistic preferences was the Musee d'Orsay. Featuring the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings in the world, we knew that we would be spending more than a couple of hours there.
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| You can see the old station |
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| Great view from the 5th floor |
Although it had a lot to live up to, as we'd just enjoyed an early morning stroll around the Eiffel Tower, it didn’t disappoint and impressed us right from the start. Housed in a former "Beaux-artes" train station that narrowly avoided demolition, the building is
as spectacular as the art (a common thread in the best museums we've been to). The first sight we were treated to was the amazing open-air central "courtyard" filled with great examples of French sculpture including the likes of Rodin and Carpeaux.
After wandering through the sculpture gallery, we began exploring the seemingly endless rooms of paintings. The likes of Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and many other masters of 19th and early 20th centuries are very well represented here. The bottom two floors explore various styles (symbolism, naturalism, etc.), some early work by the impressionist masters, and some of the foreign painters (Van Gogh, etc.); However, the piece de resistance is the top floor, reserved for the true masterpieces of French impressionism. Room after room of world-famous paintings await in the Gallerie des Impressionnistes. Here are a few of our favorites.
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| Vincent Van Gogh - Starry Night over the Rhone (via) |
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| Vincent Van Gogh - The Church at Auvers (via) |
After wandering through the sculpture gallery, we began exploring the seemingly endless rooms of paintings. The likes of Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and many other masters of 19th and early 20th centuries are very well represented here. The bottom two floors explore various styles (symbolism, naturalism, etc.), some early work by the impressionist masters, and some of the foreign painters (Van Gogh, etc.); However, the piece de resistance is the top floor, reserved for the true masterpieces of French impressionism. Room after room of world-famous paintings await in the Gallerie des Impressionnistes. Here are a few of our favorites.
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| Claude Monet - Le Givre (via) |
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| Paul Signac - Entree du Port de Marseille (via) |
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| Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Le Moulin de Galette (via) |
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| Leon Belly - Pilgrims Going to Mecca (via) |
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| Pierre-Auguste Renoir - The Mosque (via) |
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| Claude Monet - Woman with a Parasol (via) |
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| Claude Monet - Cathedrale de Rouen Harmonie Blanche (via) |
1 comments:
good post. change my mind to add this musee to my itinerary...
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