Day 6--Musee D'Orsay



On the first Sunday every month, admisstion to any museum in Paris is free. Since we were going to be in Paris over one of these Sundays we decided this would be the perfect day to spend visiting the museums of our choice. The Louvre is perhaps a more famous museum but I had a greater interest in seeing the Musee D'Orsay first, since I'm a huge fan on impressionist art and that is the main feature in this museum.

The building the Musee D'Orsay is in was formally a train station. This photo shows the main level gallery, which still bears much of it's train station type charm. Most of this area is filled with statues of various kinds, the upper levels and side galleries house paintings.

A huge clock still hangs on the upper wall of the main gallery, just above the entrance. Isn't it grand? It's almost a piece of art itself.



After entering the museum we went directly to the upper level where all of the impressionist art is kept. The majority of our visit was spent in this area. Here we saw hundreds upon hundreds of wonderful paintings and an occationaly sculpture. There was an entire room dedicated to Monet and another to Van Gogh, two of my favorite artists. I did not see Van Gogh's "Starry Night" there (my favorite work by Van Gogh), but there was another beloved painting there called "Night Sky" which I admired for some time. In the Monet room I saw his famous "Water Lilies" which is just gorgeous, but so are all of his paintings. I don't think I've ever seen a Monet that I did not like. Around this floor I kept seeing many pictures that I did not recognize but highly admired and nine times out of ten when I checked who the artist was they were by Pissaro, who is now one of my new favorite artists. In another of my favorite galleries, there was a large display of Neo-Impressionist art which features one of my favorite painting styles called pointillism, which is basically the use of small dots of paint to create an entire picture. Here I saw featured more paintings by another favorite artist of mine, Georges Saurat. Scattered about this floor there were also paintings by Renior and Manet, more artists that I admire.

When we came down from the upper level and briefly checked out the rest of the museum, I found this statue and fell in love with it. It is called "Ours Blanc", which I believe means quite simply "Polar Bear", and was made by an artist named Pompon. This picture is a bit overexposed but you get the idea. We were not allowed to photograph any of the painting unless we did not use a flash. I didn't waste my time taking pictures knowing that without a flash it would be pointless. Instead, on our way out, I went into their gift shop and purchased a stack of postcards each featuring one of the paintings I loved and saw on my visit. I ended up buying twenty altogether.

This huge bronze lion is another sculpture that I really liked and it is displayed right at the entrance to the main gallery. It reminds me of Aslan the lion in the Chronicles of Naria books.

We spent several hours in the Musee D'Orsay before leaving and taking a walk around the outside along the river Seine. I also took a few photos of the outside of the Musee D'Orsay and you can tell from this pictures how it still resembles a train station. Right across the river from the Musee D'Orsay you can see the Musee du Louvre, which was our next destination.