L'Orangerie

My first post about Paris is going to be about something I saw on my last day there. Why? Because it's my blog and I make the rules. It'll be a short post about my favorite museum experience while I was there. Lean in close art lovers, L'Orangerie is a refreshing mostly overlooked compliment to a day at the Louvre. We all love the Louvre, Venus Dimilo, Winged Victory, Mona Lisa and rooms upon rooms of gorgeous sculptures, paintings, tapestries, carvings, jewlerey, and the list goes on. But standing in front of the Mona Lisa, 25 deep, you wonder if you'll ever have a chance to actually apreciate a piece of art instead of walking by it at warp speed while 75 people scowl at you for 'ruining their snapshot' of one of the greatest masterpieces in the world. Seriously people, about a billion people have captured her on film so far just do an image search on google, it's better than your zoom lens.

I too almost missed L'Orangerie. Fortunately, we had purchased completely magical Paris Museum Passes (BUY THESE IF YOU GO TO PARIS) which let us skip the ticket line, get in for free, (it would have been €7,50) and here specifically let you in even if the museum is at capacity while everyone else has to wait. We strutted on up past all those people in line, waved our passes and we were in.








The museum only has two floors, and the basement consists of roughly five rooms conected by a large hallway. For it's size it has the most lovely collection. All of the artists are impressionists (the best kind of artists in my opinion), they have Picassos, Rodains, Monets, and quite a few Reniors. It is the greatest known artists to unknown artist ratio ever! It is here I discovered that I have a new favorite artist, (sorry Mr. Van Gough) Chaim Soutine.








Wow. If anyone could paint a gorgeous and slightly melting countryside at the same time it was Soutine. He's not all happy swirling trees though. Here's a man who could paint a dead chicken like no other. Rabbit for dinner? Still strung up? Soutine painted that too. I hope the rabbit didn't have to sit for two long. Got some chicken you've ripped the guts out of? Soutine put it next to a pitcher and called it a lovely still life. The paintings are emotionally haunting and you can't help wondering what darkness covered this man during these times. Here's my favorite:













(The chicken is cool too, but lets face it I don't want it hanging in my bedroom.) Where was I? Oh yes, let's go upstairs now and see the rest of the museum. There are only two whole rooms, but they make it count.


These large oval rooms were created specifically for Monet's water lillies series. The presention was absolutely perfect. when you walk in, the light from translusnt skyslights perfectly mimics a shady pond on a cool day. Standing in the middle of th room with only a few other people at a time, you might actually start to feel as if you are floating just under the surface of a lilly covered lake.



I was so completely overwhlemed with emotion that I got John and myself in trouble three separate times, once for using the flash, once for sitting on the rail in front of the painting, and then more time when I switched the camera to no flash mode and it decided to flash anyway. We almost got kicked out. Me and John, museum rebels, who would have thought? Here's me about to get an anrgy whisper:



This might be my last post about Paris for a while. Paris was so crazy I couldn't keep up with the blogging. I'm going to move onto Frankfurt and then Prague. But, you can bet your life that I am not finished blogging about Paris, and there will be more to come after things settle a bit. See you in Frankfurt!