Family vacation in France: Day 3 in Paris

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I am only good at two things, and those are: gardening and painting.
– Claude Monet, French Impressionist painter

Statues and architecture at the Orsay Museum, Paris.

The expansive railway station-turned-museum, inside the Orsay Museum.

More statues and the ever-present clock at the Orsay Museum.

We reserved our Sunday for more museums – Musée d’Orsay, Musée de l’Orangerie, and the Musée Rodin. While the Louvre obviously is impressive, the three museums we visited today were my favorites, with the Orsay Museum being my absolute favorite. This museum, a former railway station which boasts Beaux Arts architecture, takes up where the Louvre’s art collection ends, namely the Impressionist era. I can imagine coming to this museum on a daily basis for a month or more, just to enjoy and savor every painting, every detail. This museum is full of Impressionist (including post-Impressionist) big names, the ones I’ve learned about when I took an art history class in college – Monet, Manet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Degas, Cézanne, Gauguin. There also a great many wonderful sculptures.

I love the rendering of the plaid textile in Renoir’s Jeune femme a la voilette (1870), Orsay Museum, Paris.

Manet’s Berthe Morisot a l’eventail (1872), Orsay Museum, Paris.

Henri Fantin-Latour’s Narcisses et tulipes (1862), Orsay Museum, Paris.

Monet’s Madame Louis Joachim (1868), Orsay Museum, Paris. Look at how luxurious the fabric is rendered.

Detail of a sculpture, Orsay Museum, Paris.

Close-up of sculpture, Orsay Museum, Paris.

Detail of Rodin’s Gates of Hell, Orsay Museum, Paris.

Another detail of Rodin’s The Gates of Hell, Orsay Museum, Paris.

But I also saw some painters whose names are new to me – Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Edouard Vuillard, Felix Vallotton – and whose paintings drew from me astonishment, delight, and great appreciation.

The Muses by Maurice Denis (1893), Orsay Museum, Paris.

I love the textiles in Pierre Bonnard’s paintings, including The Game of Croquet (1892), Orsay Museum, Paris.

Winslow Homer’s Summer Night (1890), Orsay Museum, Paris.

Alexander Harrison’s La Solitude (1893), Orsay Museum, Paris.

Le Dejeuner en famille by Edouard Vuillard (1899), Orsay Museum, Paris.

Baigneuse rose by Felix Vallotton (1893), Orsay Museum, Paris.

Femme se coiffant dit aussi interieur by Felix Vallotton (1900), Orsay Museum, Paris.

Interieur, femme et enfants by Pierre Bonnard (1899), Orsay Museum, Paris.

A current exhibit is called Ames sauvages: Le symbolisme dans les pays baltes, featuring artists from Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia whose works dated back 100 years or so. These artists embraced the Symbolist movement at a time when the Russian Empire was faltering.

Princess with a Monkey (1913) by Janis Rozentals of Latvia, Orsay Museum, Paris.

Nu (1906) by Janis Rozentals of Latvia, Orsay Museum, Paris.

Close-up of Estonian painter Peet Aren’s Aupres du lit du malade (1920), Orsay Museum, Paris.

Hiver (1908) by Vilhelms Purvitis of Latvia, Orsay Museum, Paris.

The upper floor houses the greats, and you have to get there early to avoid the big crowds that surround each masterpiece. We got there at the beginning, but by the time we reached the top floor, we had to share the paintings with a mass of art enthusiasts.

Monet’s The Garden at Giverny, Orsay Museum, Paris.

Renoir’s Girls at the Piano, Orsay Museum, Paris.

Monet’s Notre-Dame Cathedral at Rouen, our next stop after Paris.

One of the most memorable paintings that I remember from my college art history class – Gustave Caillebotte’s Floor Planers (1875), Orsay Museum, Paris.

Renoir’s Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (1876), Orsay Museum, Paris.

Isabella and Jacob deeply engrossed discussing Impressionism. Not. Orsay Museum, Paris.

The rooftop view of the Seine River from the Orsay Museum, Paris.

I was going to post a self-portrait or Starry Night, but I really liked this painting by Van Gogh of two farm workers taking a rest, Orsay Museum, Paris.

Gauguin’s Tahitian Women (1891), Orsay Museum, Paris.

After lunch at the Orsay cafe, which was behind the massive clock that you see in and outside of the museum, we continued our walk down to the Orangerie Museum. This museum is located in the Tuileries Garden. Monet’s Water Lilies rightfully dominate large sparse rooms. You have to just stand there and take in all that saturated color under natural light from the eight huge curved panels, which Monet worked on “obsessively” for 12 years (1914-1926). Then you work your way downstairs to a collection of paintings that include Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, and Renoir. This is a very manageable museum, likely best appreciated early in the morning before the tourists come in.

Monet’s Setting Sun, 1914-1918, Orangerie Museum, Paris.

Monet’s Clouds, 1914-1918, Orangerie Museum, Paris.

Monet’s Green Reflections, 1914-1918, Orangerie Museum, Paris.

Jacob and Isabella with an incredible backdrop in the Orangerie Museum, Paris.

Monet’s Morning no. 2, 1914-1918, Orangerie Museum, Paris.

Monet’s Reflections of Trees, 1914-1918, Orangerie Museum, Paris.

Detail of Monet’s Morning, 1914-1918, Orangerie Museum, Paris.

One of my favorite photos from our France trip – with Jacob doing selfie duties at the Orangerie Museum, Paris.

Bouquet of flowers by Renoir, Orangerie Museum, Paris.

Monet’s Morning no. 1, 1914-1918, Orangerie Museum, Paris.

We reversed direction and headed to the Rodin Museum, which is a mansion with an outdoor sculpture garden. The museum’s permanent collections reside in the Hȏtel Biron, built in the early 18th century, where Auguste Rodin lived as a tenant. The museum was created in 1916, a year before Rodin died, on his initiative when he donated his works, personal collections, and copyrights to the French state, and was inaugurated in 1919. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke first told Rodin about the estate. When Rodin saw the hotel, he rented four rooms on the ground floor in 1908. At that time, the writer Jean Cocteau, painter Henri Matisse, and dancer Isadora Duncan also rented, but from 1911 on, Rodin was the sole occupant.

Rodin’s The Thinker under a brilliant-blue sky with equally brilliant-white clouds, Rodin Museum, Paris.

Up close with an outdoor sculpture, Rodin Museum, Paris.

Rodin has a way with imbuing such strong emotions in his sculptures, Rodin Museum, Paris.

Rodin is one of my favorite sculptors, so I was excited to see his works in France, especially as I’d seen a very nice collection of Rodin sculptures in North Carolina a few years ago. We were not to be disappointed, with the likes of The Kiss, The Thinker, and The Gates of Hell on display.

Bust of Victor Hugo by Rodin, Rodin Museum, Paris.

Detail of The Gates of Hell, Rodin Museum, Paris.

An outdoor statue at the Rodin Museum, Paris.

We did a lot of walking that day. It was Father’s Day, and is usually the case (family joke), we had to find a bad dinner to celebrate David. Two years ago it was a Subway sandwich shop in New York City. This year, a bad creperie place. The tradition continues….

As dusk falls, Jacob in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.