Fifty years plus one day – An early morning filled with excitement, all the way to the top. The day after and the day to see them. All artworks I’ve watched in books and read about, but not seen in real life – wow.
After a French, well-tasted breakfast at the hotel, we entered the metro, just outside the hotel. Through stations to an old station! After a couple of stations, we were home. Home of the impressionists’ house of artworks – MusĂ©e d’Orsay.
MusĂ©e d’Orsay is an art museum, inaugurated in 1886. Located in the 7th arrondissement. It’s a former railway station named Gare d’Orsay. The station was built in Beaux-Arts architecture between 1898 and 1900.
The queue of expectant visitors wound like a long train outside the station. Rising impressions like braking locomotives. Inside the walls, my expectations would be answered by oil on canvas and impressionists in a row on the walls.
Blocks had colored sections from red to green and grey. They resembled the colored room we entered in Versailles the day before. These sections were filled with artworks by the most famous artists in the mid-17th century. They featured these artworks instead of furniture from the baroque era.
To me, I felt like a child in a candy store. My favorite artists made my day. Artists like Van Gogh, Rodin, Gauguin, Renoir, Monet, and Jean-François Millet’s The Gleaners (1857) brought me joy.
From side to side, we walked and looked closer at every painting. We turned around a Rodin after a Rodin. Some of his artworks (statues) were like rounding marks to the next section. Sad maybe but I’ll get to him later – another day.
More than one hour on floor one, and hungry for more – heading for The main course. Up two floors, by stairs on heavy feet to the most important part of the museum. The Impressionists – worth seeing. One painting caught our attention even more, but not only ours attention.
A large gathering of people in front of a painting we all know. With tears in my eyes, tears of happiness, I finally got to see it. Van Gogh’s – The Bedroom (1889). There were many more artworks from him. There was another artwork from one of my favorite artists. It was Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Bal du moulin de la Galette (1876) 🔝.
After four hours at The MusĂ©e d’Orsay, we were so satisfied that the visit could be done once more. I had a hard time leaving Vincent behind me. I remember how long time I spent writing a script for a lecture about him at the university. It was around 2006, I think. 17 years ago “wow”.
From Monet’s garden on canvas, the day was changed to a walk in a real garden. Good food and French wine turned into a visit to the Jardin des Plantes. It’s a zoo and a botanical garden, founded in 1587. Since 1794, it belongs to France’s National Museum of Natural History.
More art, lots of art and lots of history there would be. Day 3 ended. Tired but satisfied with most things, full. The next day had to come faster, as the trains at the Gare d’Orsay station did once. Tickets were booked long ago for what was coming the next day. Guess what?
…Mona Lisa’s day
© Björn Blomqvist 2024-04-03
Blomman’s Art and Poetry 
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