This magnificent museum, located in the former
Orsay railway station, is dedicated to all
forms of artistic expression: painting, sculpture and photography
of the 1848-1914 period. The era of the impressionist painters
is particularly well represented with the masterpieces of
Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas... Admire the delicate brush
strokes of Renoir, the serious self-portrait of Van Gogh,
the radiance of a Monet's landscape amongst other artistic
marvels.
Built by architect Victor Laloux in 1900, the "Gare d'Orsay" was one of the Paris stations with trains to the south-west
of France (OrlÁans and Bordeaux). Located across the Louvre on the Seine river left bank, it has been spectacularly
renovated from 1977 to 1986 to house the Orsay museum.
The Orsay museum is the 19th century French arts museum. It is known worldwide for its
famous impressionists collections and is a must to arts lovers.
In the 1870, the "Impressionism" was a French "Avant-garde" painters group rejected by the official academy. The
impressionists (among them Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Edgar Manet, Théo Van Gogh and Paul Cézanne)
painted ordinary life and people on the spot and in the open air.
They rejected historical and mythological subjects. They used light colors. Above all, they are famous for having
departed from the tradition of painting "reality". They instead used color spots and strokes to suggest their
"impression" of the reality that only reveals itself from the distance.