More Treasures in Paris

One of the highlights of my trip to Paris was viewing Monet's huge waterlily paintings in L'Orangerie Museum. The L'Orangerie is one of the smaller museums of Paris but quite a gem. The bottom floor contains the collection of Paul Guillaume who was a gallery owner and patron of the arts who aquired many works by the well known artists of Paris. The second floor large oval room displays Monet's paintings presented with natural light coming in from the ceiling. It's impossible to take a photo of the entire painting so I photographed a section of one. It is amazing to stand in the center of the room and behold the surrounding paintings. Wish it was in my house!

This picture is a view of one of the main gallery spaces of the d'Orsay Museum. This museum is a gem and seems to be everyone's favorite. The museum is a converted train station and it is beautifully renovated with two floors of the main galleries and smaller galleries off to the sides. The museum contains many impressionist and post impressionist works by favorites such as Degas, Bonnard, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Seurat. After taking this photo, I saw signs everywhere saying no photos allowed and I didn't photograph of any of the art works.

My one disappointment was that I had hoped to see Monet's cathedral series of the Rouen Cathedral and they weren't currently on display. I found out later many of the impressionist paintings had been moved into storage while some of the galleries are being renovated.

I enjoyed this Van Gogh painting at the Rodin Museum in which Auguste Rodin's sculptures and his paintings are housed in a mansion and gardens (Hotel Biron). What I found interesting is that Rodin "traded" art with several famous painters and their works are also displayed. Such is this piece by Van Gogh. I am drawn to this painting for it's wonderful composition, such an interesting and intricate background which does not overpower the figure in the foreground. I also love all of the bright colors and bold strokes.
The last museum we visited was Center Pompidou which is the modern art museum with quite a collection. I have to admit, it was the end of the week and I was on information overload so I skipped most of the most recent works which I believe are right through the 1960s or 1970s. What we did spend time looking at was the special Edvard Munch exhibition at the museum. I have never seen an exhibition with so many of Munch's works before. Munch himself was a troubled man who dealt with depression all of his life and even checked himself into a hospital for several years of treatment. His works were often disturbing and he often painted a subject over and over.

One of the tidbits of his life I found very interesting was that in 1886, Munch exhibited a painting called "The Sick Child" in which his style transformed from the traditional impressionism to a style of his own. He received negative comments from the critics saying his work was scratched and unfinished. However, the exhibit stated that this only served to help his career as the public wanted to see what all the fuss was about! I learned years ago in college about critiquing art that a negative reaction is better than no reaction at all.

Oddly enough, none of Munch's Scream paintings are included in this exhibit. There was only one reference that mentioned like many of his other subjects, he painted a series of the Scream paintings.

The above painting is one of Munch's last self portraits titled "Self Portrait Between the Clock and the Bed". He stands between time and sleep, his final resting place.

This small sculpture or vase was displayed in a gallery window and I couldn't help but stop and admire it. The top of the piece is constructed of colored felt-tipped markers. It started me thinking of what could be done with colored pencils in this fashion!