Paris Digest
Paris city guide since 1997
Musée d'Orsay is Paris impressionism museum. Opened in 1986 in a former train station built in 1900, Musée d'Orsay exhibits among many treasures 86 paintings by impressionist Claude Monet including the Saint-Lazare Station, the Rue Montorgueil in Paris, Celebration of 30 June 1878, Wind Effect, Series of The Poplars, Rouen Cathedral. Paris museums.
Housed in the former 1900 Orsay train station on the left bank of the Seine river in Paris, the spectacular Musée d'Orsay, the museum of 19th century art, is one of the top impressionist museums in the world, if not the greatest.
Its Impressionist collections, including masterpieces by Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec, are worth the trip to the City of Lights.
You can extend your visit to Musée d'Orsay with the visit of Musée Marmottan, a smaller size museum entirely devoted to Claude Monet, of Musée de l'Orangerie, its waterlilies and Walter Guillaume collection, travel by car or on a coach tour to Monet's world famous Giverny Gardens near Paris. It is also possible to visit by train Auberge Ravoux in Auvers sur Oise where Vincent Van Gogh ended his life on July 29 1890.
Optimize your visit to Musée d'Orsay. Choose a left bank hotel, a great district at walking distance to Musée d'Orsay.
Paris metro: Metro station Solferino
Locate Musée d'Orsay on Paris map.
Open Tuesdays to Sundays 9.30am to 6pm (9.45 on Thursdays). Ticket price: 16 euros.
Buy tickets online.
Two restaurants: Café Campana: quick-serve dishes, Seine view. Le Restaurant: beautiful restaurant. Information.
The 18th century hotel Duc de Saint-Simon is a few minutes walking from Musée d'Orsay. The hotel offers rooms and suites, some of which have a private terrace or a view over the inner garden. Free Wi-Fi is available in all of the rooms. After a day of sightseeing, enjoy a relaxing moment in the hotel bar and lounges and during nicer weather, on the terrace of the Duc de Saint-Simon Hotel. The Louvre is less than a 20-minute walk away and the Eiffel Tower is easily accessible via public transportation. Rue du Bac Metro stop is 170 m from the Duc de Saint-Simon. Left bank hotels.
Built in 1900, Gare d'Orsay was a railway station built for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans, with trains to Bordeaux and the atlantic coast. The station was finished in time for the 1900 Exposition Universelle to the design of three architects: Lucien Magne, Émile Bénard and Victor Laloux. By 1939, the station's short platforms had become unsuitable for the longer trains that had come to be used. After 1939, it was used for suburban services. It was then used as a set for several films, such as Kafka's The Trial adapted by Orson Welles. The suggestion was made to turn the station into a museum. Dedicated to the 19th century, Musée d'Orsay would display the impressionist paintings then hosted in the French paintings department of the Louvre Museum and be a bridge between the Louvre and Centre Pompidou. The plan was accepted by Georges Pompidou and a study commissioned in 1974. The museum was inaugurated in December 1986 by President François Mitterrand. Paris history
In the middle of the 19th century, the Académie des Beaux-Arts dominated French art and preserved traditional French painting standards. In the early 1860s, four young painters — Monet, Renoir, Sisley, and Bazille — met while studying and discovered that they shared an interest in painting landscape and contemporary life rather than historical or mythological scenes. During the 1860s, the official Salon rejected about half of the works submitted by Monet and his friends in favour of works by artists faithful to the approved style. In 1863, the Salon rejected Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe - the luncheon on the grass - because it depicted a nude woman with two clothed men at a picnic. In December 1873, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, Morisot, Degas and other artists decided to exhibit their artworks independently. They participated in a first exhibition, held in April 1874 at the studio of the famous photographer Nadar. Critic Louis Leroy derisively titled his review article The Exhibition of the Impressionists and declared that Monet's painting "Impression, sunrise" was at most, a sketch, and could hardly be termed a finished work. Impressionism was born.
The Impressionists painted in the open air with light colors. They rejected the tradition of painting historical and mythological subjects. The Impressionists abandonned the tradition of reproducing the real world. They used color spots and strokes to suggest an impression of the real world, only perceivable at a distance from the painting.
Most famous impressionist painters are well represented in Musée d'Orsay with key masterpieces.
