Did Someone Say "Impressionists"?

Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France

In 1986, Paris consolidated most of its collections of French art from 1848 to World War I in the most unlikely of spots: a old converted train station. While there are earlier works by the likes of Ingres and Delacroix, the Orsay's biggest draw is undoubtedly those crowd-pleasing impressionists.

So many of the works here are so widely reproduced that you might wander through with an eerie feeling of déjà vu. There are Degas' ballet dancers, his l'Absinthe; Monet's women in a poppy field, the Rouen cathedral painted under five different lighting conditions, a giant Blue Waterlilies; Van Gogh's Restaurant de la Siréne, self-portraits, peasants napping against a haystack, and his Bedroom at Arles.

Then there are artistic icons of surpassing fame: Whistler's Mother; Manet's groundbreaking Dejeuner sur l'Herbe (Picnic on the Grass) and Olympia, which together helped throw off the shackles of artistic conservatism, giving impressionism room to take root.

Add in a generous helping of Cezanne, Gauguin, Rodin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Pissaro, and Seurat, and you could easily spend a full day exploring this museum.

1 rue Bellechasse or 62 rue de Lille (Métro: Solférino. RER: Musée-d'Orsay)
tel. +33-01-40-49-48-41, www.musee-orsay.fr
Closed Mondays

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