Part One: Musee D'Orsay

Hello Again!

It's raining, raining, raining in this city again. But fear not; this flighty temptress I call weather has not kept me indoors. This is actually Part One of a Two Part Blog that will (hopefully) be posted today. Part One consists of Yesterday, and Part Two consists of Wednesday and Today. It's bit complicated, but that is how it will be.

Yesterday, my class and I visited the Musee D'Orsay, over by the river. It houses Impressionist and Post Impressionist paintings and sculptures, including Manet, Matisse, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Cezanne, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and many more I can not think of at this moment. Now, I am bit fearful of saying this because I know I will receive a tongue lashing from many art enthusiasts out there--especially Renaissance lovers-- but...*whispers*... I think the Musee D'Orsay is better than the Lourve.

First of all, how is that possible?! I've spent multiple posts raving about the historic museum. And it is fabulous and full of masterpieces; however, and I admit this is based completely on my own biases, I simply like the D'Orsay better because it has Impressionist and Post Impressionist artwork. I had never quite understood what someone meant when they said that a piece of art "spoke" to them until I came across Impressionist artwork. Their use of color and shapes to portray more than what is simply seen creates such an emotional response within me that it actually becomes a physical reaction. I could feel my stomach hollowing out from the beauty of the paintings. Perhaps it was only because I was surrounded by so many of the paintings I had always admired, but I don't think so. I was standing in front of individual paintings for fifteen minutes at a time with this crazed smile on my face, slightly gasping for breath. Tour groups were whizzing by and school children were pointing, laughing at, or just ignoring the contorted portraits and pointillist landscapes, but I just stood there. Sometimes I would turn around in slow circles multiple times over and over, trying to take it all in at once which of course is impossible. Even today in class, when students discussed the artwork that most intrigued them, I didn't know what paintings some of the were talking about, which surprised me because I thought I had paid very close attention to the entire museum. 

Here, I'll most some photos of my favorite pieces (taken from the internet of course, since I couldn't take photos in the museum and didn't feel like breaking the rules.)

Flight of the Nymphs: Henri-Edmond Cross

The photo can't do this painting even a grain of justice. Each of these little squares of color is almost the exact same size. here, you can't se the way the paint actually pops up from the canvas, the way the colors scream out at you. The nymphs are so beautifully created in the painting and that male arm in the background isn't nearly as predominant. 

Plage a Heist: Georges Lemmen

This painting appeared to me like it was made of sand. Remember those toys from when we were kids that you could fill funky colored vases with colorful sand and make a design? Well, it reminds me of that, but more beautiful, and much more genius.

Abel Mort: Vincent Feugere Fort

He doesn't look dead to me. He looks asleep. He looks like a fifteen year old boy that fell asleep in the woods while he was fishing. Not as if his brother killed him. He looks like a fifteen year old boy, that if a fifteen year old girl found him, would awake to her caressing his body with her eyes and sheepishly smiling at him when he awoke to her trying to steal a kiss from him in his slumber. he looks like a fifteen year old boy who is about to lift his eyelids, run a hand through the curls stumbling down the back of his head, and get up and walk home. But he is dead.

La falaise d'Etretat apres l'orage: Gustave Courbet

I want to live in this little house on the edge of the ocean. It doesn't look nearly as peaceful and mysterious as it does in real life, but I promise you, if you stood in front of this painting for ten minutes, you would want to live there too.

Woman Bitten by a Snake: Auguste Clesinger

It's a bit erotic, yeah? But she is also dead. Or perhaps she is writhing in pain--she has just been bitten after all. That could explain the arched back, the chest pushed forward. But I doubt it. So it is an unusual position to paint someone in death. It could be that rigor mortis set in, but I likt to think of her as this erotic beauty who has lost her life and died in a final pose the way she wanted to be remembered. Not as some object who belonged to a man, but someone who had desires and joys and emotions as well.

Edgar Degas: Dance Class

What can I say about Degas, except that he is brilliant? I am fascinated by his dancers paintings. There were others in the museum, including some of his blue dancers. The way he can express the characteristics of each girl through her body language and color, without ever providing a direct or precise glimpse of her face, is amazing. I leran more about the figures he paints than anyone of the figures in the Realist portraits I have seen.

My point is: Visit the Musee D'Orsay if you are in Paris. It is absolutely worth the money. I am going back to gain entrance into the Manet exhibit, and I am sure it will be just as fabulous as the rest of the museum.