Museums of Paris

Everyone knows that Paris has some of the best museums in the world, housing some of the most famous pieces of art. One can spend days visiting one wonderful museum after another and be moved by some of the greatest works of art ever produced. But our time in Paris is just too short!

So here's a quick overview of what we experienced during our pathetically brief tours of some of the best museums Paris has to offer.

The Louvre is one of the largest museums in the world, and the most visited, with over 8 million visitors a year.

Doing the touristy thing with the Louvre pyramids

The building complex, a former royal palace, is enormous and also beautifully decorated. To begin appreciating its collection of over 35,000 pieces of art would take days. But the crowds of tourists all seem to congregate to just a few famous pieces, especially the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa.

While undoubtedly beautiful, the Venus de Milo gets all the attention of the hordes of tourists while other equally stunning Greek antique statues are virtually ignored.

This one by Praxiteles deserves a bit more attention because of its importance in art history. After all, this fourth Century BC sculptor is credited with introducing the female nude into the statuary!

Here are a few examples of the exquisite textural details on some of the other sculptures in the Louvre that most of the tourists rush by.

Tristan noted that this marble bed looked very soft and comfortable. But don't get fooled too quickly by this sensual female, since it is in fact a hermaphrodite!

It was fascinating to see the influence of antique sculpture in this Michelangelo masterpiece.

However, the star attraction of the Louvre is clearly the Mona Lisa. The immense room where it is displayed was filled with thousands of tourists trying to catch a glimpse. The whole scene was actually quite ridiculous.

In the meantime, there were five (!) Leonardo masterpieces displayed in the hallway that were virtually ignored by the tourists. Go figure.

There was only so much that Tristan and Joy could absorb in the Louvre, so after a couple of hours and an ice cream pause, we went to the Musée de l'Orangerie, where we were able to admire a collection of Monet's Water Lilies. They were beautifully displayed in large oval rooms that allowed for wonderful panoramic viewings (sorry, photography was not permitted). This was one museum that Joy had requested to visit after learning about Monet in school.

Upon leaving the Orangerie, Kate brought to everyone's attention a small temporary exhibit of a Korean photographer named Ahae. The parallels with Monet's experiments with light and seasons were remarkable.

This stunningly fascinating exhibit called "Through My Window" displayed only a few of the million photos this artist took over a period of two years, solely from the window of his studio!

This was definitely a highlight of our museum-going experience in Paris. Here's the link to his website which will give you a better appreciation of this beautiful work celebrating changing nature in a seemingly ordinary environment.

http://ahae.com/

Many would argue that a trip to Paris should include a mandatory visit to the wonderful Museé D'Orsay, housed in a former train station along the bank of the Seine. The gorgeous building with its famous clocks houses the most exquisite and most extensive collection of impressionist and realist paintings by artists such as Degas, Manet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Monet, Millet, Corot, and many others. It is really a wonderful museum in a scale that is manageable.

Another highlight in our museum-going experience was our visit to the Rodin museum and gardens.

The beautiful setting and the very extensive collection of sculptures in different stages and versions really gave an insight into the creative process of this incredible sculptor.

Rodin worked on his Gates of Hell for most of his life. We saw the original plaster at the Musée D'Orsay and the full bronze cast, made after his death, is here in the gardens.

This monumental work, with scenes straight out of a nightmare, was inspired by Dante's Inferno. Many of Rodin's most famous sculptures, like The Thinker, The Shadows and The Kiss are characters in this depiction of hell.

Another monumental work is The Burghers of Calais (shown here with Alan attempting to add an additional touch of anguish).

This emotionally charged work depicts the moment during the Hundred Years War, when the King of England demanded the surrender of the noblemen of Calais in order to spare the town and the population following a lengthy siege. The six men were to walk out barefoot in tattered clothes with ropes around their neck to offer the King the keys of the city. While they were expected to be executed, the Queen of England successfully begged her husband for mercy. The statues hauntingly capture the expressions of pride, defeat and despair that these men must have experienced while walking out to meet their fate.

It was fascinating to see how Rodin experimented with different versions of the characters of the monument. With the same faces and the same postures, the sculptures were cast in the nude and in various stages of dress and completeness.

Other beautiful works were displayed throughout the peaceful gardens.

Ugolino and His Children

Balzac

Next to the Rodin Museum stands Les Invalides, originally a hospital for veterans established by Louis XIV. It now houses the Museum of War, but more importantly, the tomb of Napoleon.

The massive red granite sarcophagus positioned in a crypt right underneath the distinctive golden dome is clearly intended to inspire awe.

The sheer scale of the monument, along with the surrounding colonnade and the numerous Roman-themed sculptures aim at establishing Napoleon as a divinely-sanctioned emperor, just like Augustus two thousand years ago.

After having visited some of the Roman monuments still standing in Provence, this attempt at transforming Napoleon into a Roman deity was almost comical.

Just don't tell this to the French...