Visit to Musée de l'Orangerie

I finally took time to visit the Orangerie with my friend Guillaume back in June 2008 after having almost spent 5 years in France...and it wasn't even on our 'wish list' because we were suppose to visit the nearby Jeu de Paume (long story in an earlier article:http://nlliew66.blogspot.com/2009/07/last-dance-in-paris.html ).

But the impressionists were my passion when I first started painting seriously and every Cézanne, Renoir and Monet inspired me in ways that cannot be expressed in words...so off we joined the queue to enter the Orangerie. By the way, the Orangerie was really part of the royal gardens that included the Louvre Palace (now the famous museum that houses the Monalisa) and Orangerie simply means greenhouse for over wintering citrus plants...so actually seeing the waterlilies, Monet's last testament to the city of Paris, was a real treat.

The main collection of 4 huge Monets was in an infiniti-shaped gallery and a stroll to the lower galleries will reveal more impressionists from 2 art dealers's collection, the collection of Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume. I finally get to snap one with a real Picasso (I was not allowed to, even without flash, at the Picasso Museum). Visit the collection at the Orangerie at: http://www.musee-orangerie.fr/homes/home_id24803_u1l2.htm

a tiny Sisley next to Monet's landscape painting of Argenteuil...

Renoir in the polished style of his later years

an unusual subject for Renoir

Cézanne! and so many of them...I was like walking in my impressionist art book...

a tiny Gauguin 

Picassos....

a cubist piece: Grand Nature Morte (meaning the big still-life)

Maurice Utrillo, essentially a painter of the common Parisian crowd and life...

Chaim Soutine's topsy turvy landscape...

Matisse

Henri Rousseau dit Le douanier (Henri Rousseau the Custom Officer, as opposed to the famous philosopher). He is among the most recognisable Naive painter of all time.

a pensive portrait: apprenti (the apprentice) by Modigliani

a large canvas by André Derain: Arlequin et Pierrot (Harlequin and Pierrot), 2 characters with italian vaudeville theatre origin and deeply rooted into the French théâtre...