Travel || Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Posted on January 18, 2023

I absolutely adore the Musée d’Orsay. It is my favourite museum in Paris – which is a pretty big shout. The architecture of the museum itself is beautiful. The Musee d’Orsay is in an old railway station (Gare d’Orsay). It was the world’s first electrified urban rail terminal. The original massive clock from the train station remains in the museum.

Here are some pieces in the museum that I think you would be remiss if you didn’t see:

10. Edgar Degas, Small Dancer Aged 14. This celebrated statue of Marie (a ballet student at Paris’s Opera) is made of bronze, but the original — which Degas exhibited in the much-criticised Impressionist Exhibition of 1881 — was sculpted in a skin-colored wax, dressed in real fabrics and topped off with real hair tied with a ribbon.

9. Edouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass. Manet made the subjects close to him (the two men are his brother & brother-in-law, and the nude has the body of his wife and head of his favorite model). Parodying Raphaël, Giorgione and Titian (painters the Beaux-Arts coveted), Manet received his hotly-deserved spurn from Redon, Proust and countless others.

8. Francois Pompon, Polar Bear. Polar Bear is one of the standout works in Francois Pompon’s repertoire. While he was at one point an assistant for Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin, it was the latter’s expressionist works that inspired him to strike out on his own and create his animal-inspired works. Eschewing realism, he sought to communicate the barest minimum of the animal and upon closer inspection, the animal begins to fade away – leaving only marble.

7. Edouard Manet, Olympia. Olympia was a controversial piece and depicts a nude prostitute named Olympia, who looks calmly at the viewer and in complete indifference of her nakedness. This was a huge clash against the classical tropes of blushing virgins and highborn women in art, which ignited a huge conversation about the representation of women in art.

6. Van Gogh, Self-Portrait. As one of the most memorable paintings from Vincent van Gogh’s self-portrait series, van Gogh painted himself dressed in a suit against a swirling and disorienting backdrop. The sea of colors is absolutely mesmerizing, with pops of the artist’s bright hair disturbing swirls of turquoise, green and blue, and communicating a sense of van Gogh’s inner turmoil despite his genius.

5. Auguste Renoir, Bal du Moulin de la Galette. This portrayal of popular Parisian life, with its innovative style and imposing format – a sign of Renoir’s ambition – is one of the masterpieces of early Impressionism.

4. Cézanne, Apples and Oranges. Cézanne was a master of the still life and one of his greatest works named Apples and Oranges can be found in Musée d’Orsay. The oil painting depicts exactly what it says on the tin, with apples and oranges arranged on a draped cloth amongst crockery.

3. Paul Gauguin, Arearea. The painting shows two local women in a seated position with a red dog in the foreground. In the background, you can see women praying to an indigenous Maori statue, which Gaugin blew up to be as big as an enlarged Buddha. It appears that this was not a real rite in Polynesia. So, by creating this, Gaugin idealizes the primitive way of life where man lives in a world protected by the Gods.

2. Van Gogh, Starry Night. Van Gogh frequently painting the same scene over and over, such as Starry Night, as seen from Arles, where he lived from 1888-1889.

1. Monet, Blue Water Lillies. Monet was particularly renowned for his water lily works, which were based on the beautiful views in his sprawling garden where he fostered them. Unlike other works, he chose to zoom in on lily pads in water and manages to create a beautiful recreation of the scene despite the seemingly haphazard brushstrokes on the canvas.

The museum is open every day except Monday. Pre-booking tickets is recommended. Adult tickets are €16. It is located at Esplanade Valéry Giscard d’Estaing 75007 Paris.