Paris - Artistic Impressions at Musee d'Orsay

Sculptures displayed at Musee d'Orsay

The Louvre is an intimidating place to visit as it's so large and filled with masterpieces that it's an overwhelming experience.

A more approachable art museum that focuses more on the Impressionists is Musee d'Orsay, in a former train station still retains its original ceiling mouldings, but also a contemporary look.

Monet's Poppies or The Promenade

We got timed tickets the night before and thankfully we did because the next morning when we arrived at 9.30am when it opened, there was a massive queue for those who didn't have tickets or timed tickets.

When I showed them our tickets, we were ushered into another entrance where we went through security and then were in.

The museum has expanded its gallery space to the fifth floor, the top floor where its Impressionist collection is. There's also a balcony area where we could go outside and across the Seine see the Louvre and the giant balloon (minus the fiery cauldron) parked in the Tuileries Gardens.

It's interesting to see the museum's collection of Impressionist works arranged by collectors who bequeathed their paintings to the French state.

The Starry Night by Van Gogh

There is a short introduction of the collector, how they got to know the artists and following their deaths, how their collections were donated to either the state or Musees Nationaux.

It's not often that we know about the collectors, and how they supported artists financially, and these short biographies give visitors a chance to get to know them, and appreciate the role they had in artists' careers.

We saw numerous works by Claude Monet, like Poppies, also known as The Promenade, with a woman and child walking through a field of red poppies, or Vincent Van Gogh's Portrait of the Artist, the Dutchman painting himself in a light blue suit with a wavy background, and his Bedroom in Arles.

But there were other paintings that caught my eye, like Van Gogh's The Starry Night -- not the one in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, but the precursor to it that he painted in 1888. A few months later, he was committed to a psychiatric hospital, and that's where he painted the work we all know.

Caillebotte's The Floor Scrapers

There's also an artist by the name of Gustave Caillebotte, who had a knack for painting scenes of blue-collar workers, like The Floor Scrapers in 1875.

Three bare-chested men are on their knees on the floor of a Paris apartment where the are stripping away the wood on the floor. Some critics at the time felt the work was vulgar and how it focused on the working class.

However, that's what makes the painting so interesting for us today, seeing the work they did was back-breaking and very physical, working hard for the benefit of the rich.

Caillebotte has another interesting perspective of being in a rowboat sitting in front of a man in a top hat who has the oars. The angle is one we'd probably take today with our phone cameras, but at the time was considered "audacious immersive framing" according to the caption.

Polar Bear by Pompon

The ground floor of Musee d'Orsay is well known for its display of sculptures, and there was one of a polar bear by Francois Pompon from 1923 to 1933. Pompon worked with Rodin, but focused more on animals. His Polar Bear is so contemporary looking, it's surprising that it was made a century ago.

A pair of sculptures caught our eye -- Chinese Man and Chinese Woman by Charles Cordier in 1853, the busts of two real people, Chung Atai and his second wife, Yung Achoi. Perhaps the spelling should be Ah-tai and Ah-choi?

In any event, according to the caption, the couple were originally from Canton (now Guangzhou) and traveled to London for the 1851 Universal Exhibition before touring Europe.

The Chinese Man, Chung Atai

The busts are made of bronze and have a lot of detail, like Atai's long braid, the embroidery on his chest, and he holds an opium pipe, whereas Achoi has butterfly and floral hairpins in her hair, the intricate designs on her silk robes, and her long fingernails.