Paris is the proud host of an entire armada of museums, from historical to scientific, and a good deal of them are dedicated to art. Today, our vacation of centered around Musée D'Orsay, a museum on the banks of the Seine boasting the largest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings in the world. I absolutely loved it!
We woke up late after our late night at the Eiffel Tower and had a nice lazy morning in the apartment with some quiches and pastries that Mom was nice enough to run out and get. Late in the afternoon, after finally mustering up some motivation to leave, we hopped on the city metro and made our way to famous museum.
Once we got inside (there was a little bit of a line) we finally got a glance at some of D'Orsay's many treasures. The building was originally used as a train station, and as a result it's absolutely HUGE. Even on just the first floor, there are dozens upon dozens of sculptures carved throughout the ages, with rooms of paintings branching off every ten feet or so.
We decided to start at floor five, the top floor, and work our way down from there. The entire level houses the majority of the Impressionist paintings with works from famous artists like Monet, Degas, Manet, Renoir, Sisley, and more. Out of all of them, I'd have to say that Claude Monet was my favorite. From his painted figures to his painted flowers, I think that he does a good job of capturing the moment and all of its emotions, just like the Impressionists sought to do. Mom liked the artist Edgar Degas who both painted and sculpted, his main subject being dancers. Dad also liked him, saying that "he's impressed with the diversity of [Degas's] mediums" or some other poetic-sounding praise. Here's a few of the paintings we like (not actual pictures, just images off the web to provide a general feel of our individual art tastes. Praise the internet!):
Coquelicots, La Promenade by Claude Monet. All present Prestos agreed that we liked this painting.
We had planned to briefly stop at each floor on the way down, but the top floor alone had us for somewhere around two hours, so instead we skipped right to the second floor to look at some sculptures. I honestly have to say that while I think statues are interesting enough and definately require skill, I don't find them as captivating as paintings.
Next, we stopped in one of the side rooms the see some of the Neo-Impressionist works. I'm not entirely sure on the difference between Neo and not, but I think that it has something to do with the idea that Impressionists use quick brush strokes to capture a tiny moment, whereas Neo uses the same technique but focuses less on emotions. Unfortunately, I think that we were a little bored of the Impressionist style by then and skipped right to the next room, housing some Pointillism paintings. These were very neat, and the dot-based shapes were definitely more abstract. Up close the paintings looked exactly that: dots. But from far away, scenes and pictures start to take place. This probably sounds silky, but I had a lot of fun standing as close to the paintings as the ropes would let me and slowly backing up, watching a picture form.
Man at the Helm, by Theo Van Rysselberghe. I like this one. Up close, you can see all the different shades of blue, green, yellow, and even some red all close together and when you back up, the magic takes place.
Our entire time schedule was skewed by our overstay in the top floor, and after the Pointillism we had to leave off the museum's close. And lo and behold, all the museums were closing. Which, unfortunately, meant that we couldn't go see the traveling Van Gogh Exhibit OR the Louvre next door :( After much debate, it was decided that we'd come back to see Van Gogh tomorrow, and that the Louvre we be our first stop the next time we go to Paris. Now we have an excuse to come back!
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