Musée d'Orsay: The Bernie Strikes Back

Greetings again, humble friends and colleagues!

After my cliffhanger last post, I left you to wonder whether or not we actually made it to the museum on time, (except not really because you'll see this post first. It's cool I got you;).

Anywho, we went to the Musée d'Orsay which used to be a train station, for the old coal powered steam engines, after it became obsolete due to the development of electric engines it became a museum of "modern" art, it houses art from Neo-classicism to Neo-impressionism. So this museum picks up where the Louvre leaves off.

We again had Bernie as our guide, which I was very excited about. We started in the Neo-classical sculpture and then moved into the transition from Classical to Realist paintings/sculptures.

This is a Neo-Classical sculpture of Cornelia Africana, who famously said "These are my jewels" refrencing her children. This sculpture is very classical, with perfect proportions and a classical story with a moral.

 This is another classical painting, when you look at it, it's supposed to look like your looking through a window, so no brushstrokes or anything like that at all. The paint is carefully laid on a little bit at a time. In order to get spatial distance and to show like shadows and things like that, a little bit of black is added in as the get to the outer edge of the arm or leg or whatever and that shows the 3D-ness of the figures.

This is a painting by Couture that won the price at the Ecole de beaux-arts' competition, it's called Decadence of the Romans, it is also very classic. This is a close up view of a part of the painting, but it's crazy big and follows all of the rules. Bernie compared this to painting to...

 this one, A Burial at Ornans by Courbet. Unlike the Decadence this painting shows very little movement, it is not set in a classical time period, and nobody is perfectly proportioned. If you could look closer you would notice, the red robed priests have red faces and like huge noses, as though they are drunk. And there are commoners, this isn't a painting of high class, the painting also appears to go beyond what is actually painted. Another difference because the Decadence of the Romans almost had a border around it made out of blank space.

This painting was being renovated right before us, happy sad because I wanted to see that painting as well.

This is another Courbet. What's interesting about this one is that the deer almost look out of place because they look pretty classic whereas the foliage around them is feathery and not clean cut.

After going through Realism we ended up in Impressionism.

 Matisse, the very scandalous painting that points out that in the new modern age of that time the old classical traditions and values don't stand anymore.

Monet

 Monet

Turkeys by Monet, in this painting he was trying to use light to show distance. Also he painted the turkeys with green and blue to show what was reflecting off their feathers. Something that we are used to now but that was crazy when it first came out.

 One of Dega's ballerina girls, this was a very scandalous statue because at that time ballerinas were considered fair game, and were very loose. So to portray such a young girl as a ballerina was an outrage. However, now the meaning of the statue has changed, to what a cute little girl prepping to become a ballerina, which just shows how much the meaning of a piece of artwork can change.

 A Cassatt. Bernie talked about how, because both Morisot and Cassatt were women what they could paint was more limited then the male impressionists. So they would paint things like women getting ready or doing everyday things.

A  Morisot

Monet catching Notre-Dame in different all at the same angles. Showing how light affects what we see.

 The Original Walking Man by Rodin.

We looked at the attempt to translate impressionism from painting to sculpture, and I'm very glad that it didn't stick around, because it was pretty sad.

After Impressionism we went through Post-Impressionism and then ended with Neo-Impressionism.

This is a painting by Gauguin, he is a post-impressionist like Van Gogh, he used garish colors and random scenes that perhaps did not make sense on purpose, trying to almost take a step back from only painting what one sees to what one can imagine. (Also that's Prof. Erickson one of our directors, my  camera decided to focus on him instead of on the painting;)

Van Gogh's Night Sky, it's gorgeous! This picture doesn't even come close to how breathtaking it is.

 Another Van Gogh

and L'Eglise d'Auvers sur Oise by Van Gogh

Van Gogh pulled off Post-impressionism much better the Gauguin. He still used colors not found in nature, but he also used bigger brushstrokes, this was the time when you weren't just painting what you saw, you were painting what you felt at the same time.

This is Le Cirque by Seraut, he developed Pointilism and believed that certain colors made you feel a certain way. He also believed that the "V" shape made people happy. So a bit eccentric but thats not necessarily bad. 

Anywho, that was my trip to the Musée d'Orsay. It went pretty quickly especially because we were trying to get to the Palais de Congréss at Versailles because President Uchtdorf was speaking.

Welp, until the next time, Stay Golden!