Musee National De L’Orangerie
At this small but nice museum, the famous L’Orangerie, we found a place where I could see everything in a single visit. It has water-lily paintings of Monet as well as work from Renoir, Matisse, Picasso. I like impressionism! The only drawback of this museum is that most of the explanation texts are in French. I was disappointed because I bet that a breakdown of visitors by country would show that most visitors are not French-speaking. English, Spanish and German displays would be highly welcomed. Well, well … We also watched a video on … not sure on what, as it was all in French, but the photography was great.
Musee Rodin
We arrived at the Rodin Museum too late to see the exhibits inside. We walked around in the garden instead and it was great. Walking through the gardens, we saw the Thinker and The Bourgeois of Calais, among others. But my favorite was the Gate of Hell/La Porte de l’Enfer, which is thousands of sculptures in one. By looking through a telescope we saw more of the tiny details in the Gate than we could see with the naked eye. The Gate was created for the State that asked for a monumental door for the Musee des Arts. When it was commisioned Rodin was asked to base the work on Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. Rodin choose the Hell and was also inspired by Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil. He put together that gate and then many parts became an independent sculpture.
A bit of a trouble maker , Rodin got in trouble two times after the Gate. Once when commissioned to make a sculpture of Victor Hugo and he presented a nude surrounded by two muses. Pressed to make a dignified sculpture of Victor Hugo dressed and standing, he said we would do two – one of him naked and sitting for Luxembourg Gardens and one dressed for the Pantheon (this one never completed;-). Then there was “the Balzac affair”, where he spent 5 years researching Balzac’s life, clothes and home town to later present a bare Balzac that was described by some journalists as “a penguin, a sack of coal, a block of salt caught in a downpour, a gorilla”. It is an interesting story that caused a lot of noise.
We also saw the Kiss, which was first intended to be part of the Gate – representing Francesca and her bother-in-law Paolo, who fell in love with each other and were caught in the kiss that would condemn them to eternity in Hell. I pointed out to E- that The Kiss was a clear example of the results of a successful “Clima.” Upon researching more (Wikipedia of course), it is interesting to note that Rodin himself said he wanted to portray in this sculpture that the woman was an equal partner in ardor and not just submitting to the wiles of a man.
I wish I had seen the Camille Claudel room. I caught E- imitating L’Ombre. After all the effort of art viewing and appreciating we sat down in the shade and played backgammon until we were kicked out at closing time.
Musee D’Orsay
A beautiful building that used to be a train station. It is worth a visit just for the building itself, which has a wonderful ceiling and a great clock inside above the entrance. The museum holds great paintings from 1848 to 1914, sculptures and a model of the Opera House.
I liked the “La Siesta” of Van Gogh, the sails of Monet, the “L’enfant au chat” of Renoir (I missed my Bibi) and many others.
E-‘s favorite piece was the L’Origine du Monde, which H- and I agreed that needed some trimming.
Poor planning made us miss the chance to visit the Egouts De Paris.
Dreaming 
