The Orsay Museum (Musée d’Orsay)
Mention the Universal Exhibition or ‘World’s Fair’ in Paris,
and nearly every Parisian will tell you that that is the event for which the
Eiffel Tower was built, as a temporary exhibit, in 1889. But in the Paris World
Fair which followed in 1900, a no less illustrious but lesser known Parisian
landmark was built: the Orsay train station, designed to bring trains into the
very heart of Paris, on the upper limits of the Left Bank of the Seine.
This grandiose building of steel, concrete and glass, 32
metres high at its highest and built in the Art Nouveau style, already looked
like a work of art long be-fore it was turned into a museum in 1986. Now it is
home to some of the most valuable and well-known works of art in the world: late
nineteenth and early twentieth century European art of the Impressionist and
Post-Impressionist schools.
Inside The Orsay
Museum (Musée d’Orsay)
One does not need a degree in art history to recognise the
movements and the artists themselves, so well imprinted is their touch in much
of our collective psyche. Bonnard, Cézanne, Degas, Delacroix, Gauguin, Ingres,
Klimt, Manet, Monet, Munch, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Toulouse Lautrec, van
Gogh: after seeing their work on so many school posters, tea coasters, postcards,
T-shirts, screen savers, here, finally, is a chance to see the real thing up
close. And if you want a whiff of scandal, this is also the place to come to.
The Origin of the World, an oil painting by Gustave Courbet is on display here.
It depicts in graphic detail female genitalia and has been the subject of
censorship and controversy more or less constantly ever since it was painted in
1866. The last time it was censored was in 2011, when Facebook removed it from
a user’s wall. Its never-ending fame means that this painting alone guarantees
a steady stream of visitors to the museum.
Apart from the extraordinary collection of paintings, the
museum also boasts a fine collection of sculptures, photo-graphs, decorative
objects, works of graphic arts and architectural drawings. The place may no
longer be a train station, but it will transport you nevertheless. Arrive early
and plan to stay the whole day.
Musée d’Orsay, 1 rue de la Legion d’Honneur
Métro: Solferino or Assemblée Nationale (line 12)- RER:
Musée d’Orsay (line C)
Open Tuesday to Sunday, 11 am to 6 pm; Thursdays open till 9
pm, temporary exhibitions only
Entrance: $13.7-18.7 musee.orsay.fr/en
The Pompidou Centre (Centre Pompidou)
The front of the
Pompidou museum
From the outside the Pompidou Centre looks like an urban
factory covered in giant coloured exhaust pipes. A large glass-covered tube
staggers its way up across the frontal façade, somewhat like a graph charting
the uninterrupted rise of a financial asset blinking on a computer screen.
Inside the tube is an escalator, and riding it one feels like an extra in the
film set reconstruction of a space ship: this is one of the most important
modern art museums in the world, housing the largest collection of modern and
contemporary art in Europe.
The museum’s mission statement is to present art of the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the works on display are divided into
two broad periods: 1905 to 1960, and 1960 to the present day. The Pompidou
Centre is not only about paintings. Architecture plays a big role, as does
photography, multi-disciplinary art and installations. Current events include
an exhibition explaining the relationship between dance and the visual arts,
and contemporary artists on show use multiple media to infuse life into their
art: video, film, music, light, human movement, to name but a few.
The Pompidou
Centre (Centre Pompidou) at night
The bridge between history and modernity is firmly drawn as
well, with retrospectives on great figures of twentieth-century art throughout
the year. 2012 has already seen Munch and Matisse, and a much-awaited
exhibition of Dali’s masterpieces will open in November.
Above all, the Pompidou Centre has a reputation for being
hip and avant-garde and is located in a lively, somewhat alter-native part of
central Paris. The concrete slope leading down to its entrance is a favourite
hangout for edgy fashionable youth, urban picnickers, musicians and skate boarders.
To reflect its young client base, parts of the museum stay open late.
Centre Pompidou, Place Georges-Pompidou
Métro: Chatelet (lines 1, 4, 7, 11 and 14); Hotel de Ville
(line 1)
Open daily (closed on Tuesdays), 11 am to 9 pm; Thursdays
until 11 pm (galleries 1 and 2)
Entrance: $12-17.3
centrepompidou.fr
