The Musee D’Orsay has to be one of my favorite art galleries with its art works primarily from the late 19th century and early 20th century, dominated by beautiful sculptures, and paintings from the Romanticism, Pre-Raphaelite, Symbolist and French Impressionism movements to name a few, and set in the wonderfully transformed train station.
It does have a rather strange lack of toilets though, and the only one I found had a long line of ladies queued up and forced to stand outside the open door of the men’s room with full view of the line of urinals – well when in Paris, you just have to not worry about these things – although I suspect it was more awkward for the ladies who are not used to such experiences!
But let’s go onto some of my favorite artworks – although the gallery boasts an incredible range of beautiful nudes which I will limit here to ensure viewing is not an issue in workplaces.
These were all shot with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 II Micro Four Thirds camera with the Olympus mZD 40-150mm f/2.8 pro lens.
I had to adjust the lights a bit for this one 🙂
Amaury-Duval Madame de Loynes 1862:
Ernest Hébert La Lavandera ou Jeune lavandiére songuese 1869:
Honoré Daumier Crispin et Scapin 1864:
Maxwell Armfield Faustine 1904:
Edward Burne-Jones Princess Sabra 1865:
Ford Madox Brown a pioneer in the Pre-Raphaelite movement – Haydée découvrant le corps de Don Juan 1878:
Edgard Maxence La Légende bretonne 1906:
Ferdinand Hodler Madame Valentine Godé-Darel malade 1914:
Gustave Moreau Orphée 1865 (Moreau continues the myth of Orpheus, with the vision of a girl dressed in Oriental finery rescuing the poet’s head which rests on his lyre, and the girl is gazing at him with a melancholy air. The diagonal compositions suggests a playing card, in which the musicians in the top left corner are balanced by the turtles, lower right, whose carapace, according to the myth, was used to make the first lyre – Moreau counts as a decisive figure in the Symbolist movement):
Gustave Moreau Hésiode et la Muse 1891:
Henri de Toulouse-Laetrec Rousse (La Toilette) 1889:
Henri de Toulouse-Laetrec Femme de profil Madame Lucy 1896:
Philipe de Laszlo La comtesse Anna de Noailles 1913:
Pablo Picasso La Buveuse d’absinthe dit aussi Buveuse accoudée 1901:
Henri de Toulouse-Laetrec Au Nouveau Cirque, Papa Chrysantheme 1894:
A. Carrier Belleuse 1873:
Denys Puech Sirene 1889:
Gustave Courbet L’Atelier du peintre 1855:
Jean-Francois Millet Femme nue couchée 1844-1845:
It is indeed a privilege to be able to view these works in reality, and it is not something to be taken for granted with the world going crazy yet again and destruction of culture rampant.
