Visiting the Musee d'Orsay

For most of western history, painting just isn't my thing. I mean, I love what they did at Lascaux, but after that I lose interest for about the next 16, 800 years.

Which makes the Musee d'Orsay the perfect museum of painting, at least for me. The Musee d'Orsay is devoted to impressionism, which is right about where I start to be interested again. With important works by Monet, Renoir, Pissaro, and Degas, exploring the museum is a chance to experience all the highlights of the movement that thumbed its nose at realism and academic painting and took its canvases into the great outdoors.

The Musee d'Orsay also displays works from the origins and aftermath of impressionism, including a small but wonderful collection of Van Goghs. A post-impressionist painter, Van Gogh shared and developed many of the Impressionists' interests, like light, experience, mood, perception, and outdoor painting. The Church at Auvers, one of my all-time favorites and one of the last paintings the artist ever did, is one of the must-sees among the collection. Works by Gauguin are also among the museum's post-impressionist masterpieces.

The Musee d'Orsay is located on Quai Anatole France (oddly enough, not on the nearby Quai d'Orsay) on the bank of the Seine near the Pont Royal. Tickets are 8 euros (not including special exhibits) or free with the Paris Museum Pass.

Copyright 2010 Sara Harding