Wednesday in Paris

While waiting in line for Musée d'Orsay, I saw this man with a bag that had the exact same design as one of my purses! It is a really dark picture, so it is a little difficult to see. 

Wednesday was my big museum day. I had originally planned on going to Musée d’Orsay, Musée Rodin, and then go back to the Louvre, but when I walked into Musée d’Orsay, I wasn’t going to leave. First of all, it was beautiful. You walk in and it’s this giant atrium with sculptures and natural skylighting and WOW. Also, there were so many painters that I knew! As much as I complained about my art history class, I knew it was a good class to take because now I appreciate art so much more! I was soo excited to see all the paintings that we studied during class. Looks like France has made me into an art history nerd!

The Gleaners, by Jean-Francois Millet! I studied this in my Written French I class AND my art history class. Talk about being important!

I don't understand sculpture at all, but can you imagine this being a slab of rock and the artist just slowly revealing this being underneath it?

THE MUSEE D'ORSAY IS SO PRETTY

I was so happy!!!

So this painting is of Jason and Medea by Gustave Moreau. I used this painting in my art history paper! So I was so excited to recognize it because I was like THAT IS MY PAINTING.

:D

Olympia, by Edouard Manet. It's very bold because it was the first time someone drew a naked woman who is clearly a prostitute, and didn't try to hide it as another depiction of Venus/Aphrodite (before, the only naked woman you were allowed to draw was a goddess).

Also Manet, also very bold, because again he is highlighting the French middle-class tendency to hire a prostitute who is so candidly sitting naked with some bourgeois men.

I didn't realize that I never got a good picture of myself with this painting... dang it

This painting is actually on the cover of one of my piano books!

This is one of Paul Cézanne's depictions of Mont Sainte-Victoire. I probably mentioned that he is a hero in Aix, so finding him in Paris was awesome!

More Cézanne. This one is called "A Modern Olympia" and at the time, it was pretty shocking (every art piece ever is shocking, haha) because Cézanne was comparing himself to "The Great Manet"

One of my favorite pointillist painters, Paul Signac! We studied this painting in class, too. 

Some Van Gogh for ya

Isn't the museum beautiful?? 

Also, I liked Orsay better that the Louvre simply because it was less crowded. And they had their walls painted all different colors. It was so pretty! I ended up staying there almost just as long, if not longer than I had stayed at the Louvre. Oh I loved it. I didn’t even want to leave.

Then I went back to Jardin de Luxembourg to have a picnic lunch. That was nice. After I went to Musée Rodin, this museum for Augustus Rodin, a French sculpture. I originally thought I wasn’t going to like it that much because I never studied sculpture art history and I wasn’t super interested in any of the sculptures at the Louvre or Orsay. But I FOUND “THE THINKER.” I mean I didn’t really find it because it was there in plain sight for all to see, but anyway… the museum (got in for free because they asked me if I was a fine arts student and I was like UH YES) was part of this large, very pretty garden. I almost cried when I finally saw The Thinker. I was wondering why the Louvre and Orsay didn’t have it and then I realized Rodin must have built it, so obviously it was probably in the Rodin museum… and then when I saw it in the Rodin garden, I didn’t know what to do! It was just like, Wow he’s so famous, I don’t even know what to do with myself. I wanted to take like 50 million pictures. It was wonderful.

The garden

In front of, The Gates of Hell

THE THINKER

MORE THINKER PICTURES

Omg he's so famous

Then, because I could, I visited the place where they filmed Inception by the Bir-Hakeim bridge! It was pretty underwhelming and there was a lot of construction. 

Got back to the hostel pretty early and packed everything! And that was my last full day in Paris.

-Cindy