After having a hearty breakfast we walked to Musée D'Orsay. The Museum ticket costs €14 but we bought the Paris Museum Pass which included admission to various Paris attraction and a special queue to enter the museum!
It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built for the 1900 World Fair. The building itself could be seen as the first "work of art". The Museum is devoted to all the arts between 1848-1914. The various artistic movements represented include Academism, Realism, Impressionism, Symbolism , Art nouveau. Just to name a few of the featured artists: Manet, Monet, Rodin, Renoir, van Gogh.
Interior of Musée D'Orsay
Unfortunately, the Musée D'Orsay does not allow for pictures in the museum.But..
"Van Gogh enjoyed the fine evenings and starry skies of the Midi region in southern France and the 'effects of night' intrigued him. In September 1888, he wrote from Arles that he went 'to paint the stars', seeking to transcribe that which is 'darkness but nonetheless colours'. The banks of the Rhone provided Van Gogh with a composition where the night light and its reflections enabled him to give body to the elements sky, earth and water. The sky dominates the composition ,painted in cobalt blue with wide energetic and spontaneous brushstrokes. The Great Bear is clearly visible, and the stars are painted in outwardly radiating strokes with thick white highlights at their centre, sometimes applied straight from the paint tube. Amid the multitude, the artist has scratched a number of unformed rosettes within the paint layer."
Interior of Musée D'Orsay
Unfortunately, the Musée D'Orsay does not allow for pictures in the museum.But..
Starry Night Over the Rhone, 1888, oil on canvas.
"Van Gogh enjoyed the fine evenings and starry skies of the Midi region in southern France and the 'effects of night' intrigued him. In September 1888, he wrote from Arles that he went 'to paint the stars', seeking to transcribe that which is 'darkness but nonetheless colours'. The banks of the Rhone provided Van Gogh with a composition where the night light and its reflections enabled him to give body to the elements sky, earth and water. The sky dominates the composition ,painted in cobalt blue with wide energetic and spontaneous brushstrokes. The Great Bear is clearly visible, and the stars are painted in outwardly radiating strokes with thick white highlights at their centre, sometimes applied straight from the paint tube. Amid the multitude, the artist has scratched a number of unformed rosettes within the paint layer."
Starry Night Over the Rhône (September 1888) is one of Vincent van Gogh's paintings of Arles at nighttime. It was painted at a spot on the bank of the Rhône River that was only a one or two-minute walk from the Yellow House on the Place Lamartine which Van Gogh was renting at the time. The night sky and the effects of light at night provided the subject for some of his more famous paintings, including Cafe Terrace at Night (painted earlier the same month) and the later canvas from Saint-Rémy, The Starry Night.
A sketch of the painting is included in a letter van Gogh sent to his friend Eugène Boch on October 2, 1888.
The painting was first exhibited in 1889 at the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in Paris, together with the Irises. The latter was added by Theo, while Vincent had proposed one of his paintings from the public gardens in Arles, most probably the version now in the Phillips Collection.
Even if the descriptions may sound complicated! It's fine as the museum is great even if you "know nothing" about art. The paintings here are so famous that you may have seen them used in pop culture. For example, the painting of Whistler's Mother was featured as a major plot element in the 1997 Rowan Atkinson film Bean.
Whistlers Mother, 1871
There are many other paintings that you will have to see to believe. They are as good as photographs! Below is the painting of "The Comeback of the fisheries" by Joaquin Sorolla.
The Come Back of the Fisheries' Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida
The exterior of Musée D'Orsay
What you need to know:
- The Museum is closed on Mondays.
- 09.30 am - 6 pm on Tuesday to Sunday with late openings on Thrusdays until 9:45pm
- Audio guides are available in French, German, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese and Russian for €5.
- "Children" under the age of 18 enters for free.
- No entry fee on the First Sunday of each month
Donate :paypal.me/danieltaslidzic
A sketch of the painting is included in a letter van Gogh sent to his friend Eugène Boch on October 2, 1888.
The painting was first exhibited in 1889 at the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in Paris, together with the Irises. The latter was added by Theo, while Vincent had proposed one of his paintings from the public gardens in Arles, most probably the version now in the Phillips Collection.
Even if the descriptions may sound complicated! It's fine as the museum is great even if you "know nothing" about art. The paintings here are so famous that you may have seen them used in pop culture. For example, the painting of Whistler's Mother was featured as a major plot element in the 1997 Rowan Atkinson film Bean.
Whistlers Mother, 1871
There are many other paintings that you will have to see to believe. They are as good as photographs! Below is the painting of "The Comeback of the fisheries" by Joaquin Sorolla.
The Come Back of the Fisheries' Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida
The exterior of Musée D'Orsay
What you need to know:
- The Museum is closed on Mondays.
- 09.30 am - 6 pm on Tuesday to Sunday with late openings on Thrusdays until 9:45pm
- Audio guides are available in French, German, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese and Russian for €5.
- "Children" under the age of 18 enters for free.
- No entry fee on the First Sunday of each month
Donate :paypal.me/danieltaslidzic
