My Trip to FranceMusee D'Orsay
We were lucky that
Orsay was open late on Thursday, as we really wanted to visit the impressionists
(if we had had more days we also would have gone to the Monet Museum and
the Rodin Museum). We longed to see the Monets and Manets and Van
Goghs and Degas', and the Rodin sculpture gallery. Orsay used to be a train
station is a very large museum, and so interestingly designed - image Grand
Central station turned into a museum, quite a difficult feat really!
There are so many paintings and examples of furniture and sculptures you
could spend many days there. Impressionists and Postimpressionists were
our goal plus the startlingly gorgeous painting of a composer's aunt. As
we traveled up to the top gallery we stopped through the Lewis Carroll
photograph exhibition. Frank was severely unimpressed but they were
rather quiet and unreal I thought (different children and Ellen Terry and
family in costumes).
First we saw the Toulouse Latrec paintings, what life and exuberance. What is so incredible about Lautrec is you can see his life in his work - it's right there all laid out for you. There is a recent French film about him that I would love to see. It is like that with the Degas also - they had such a huge collection of his paintings and sculpture!!! Wow!! The Dancing Lesson - probably my favorite, ah, to see it finally - and we saw the little dog - how many times have I looked at that painting and never seen the dog!! We were just ecstatic to actually be SEEING in person all of our favorite paintings! Hooray!! And the Monets and the Monets, they had so many!!! All of our favorites and many more. It was so great to be able to see them all from his young years through his old age!!! The progression the mastery!!! Stunning. To see the two women on the hills with their umbrellas..side by side. And the Renoirs!!! To see the dancing couples side by side!!!! Oh they were lovely, the elegant high-class couple in her gown and his tuxedo and then the happy middle-class couple in her bonnet and in his suit…what a pair of pairs!!! That was the best - to see the complimentary paintings together. The Monet series of the cathedral - all six of them together - it was dazzling. And then to find the Renoir dancers again in the big picture around the corner and wonder if she was dancing with the same man… And Monet's gardens….and the Van Gogh's…The night of stars., his bedroom - and Whistler's mother! What a big painting, so neat to see it.The Impressionists
As we came downstairs we found the Opera Wing which had under the floor
a 3-D map of that part of Paris where the Opera Garnier was and then a
marvelous big model cutaway. There were some nice little 3-D set
designs. We wandered through the Rodin Gallery, which features his
Gates of Hell and some of those pieces. We were getting very tired!
We decided to go down to try and find a little restaurant in St. Germain
for dinner. We walked down along the river past all of the high-end
antique shops! Wow! The things they had in their windows should
have been in museums! Frank joked as we passed the big art school
right next store to the shops, that the "antiques" were being turned out
as fast as the rich could buy them. There were too many restaurants
to choose from. Then we found a street with MANY cafes near the St.
Germain church but they were all empty except for one that was PACKED with
people. That had to be the one - we squeezed in next to some American
students inside and had a real "Down-home" style French meal of pate and
veal rolled with olives and potatoes. Yum. The red wine was
GREAT!!! It was packed a smoky and late so we watched the crowd thin
out and the waitresses and cook close down, fun.
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