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The entrance to the massive Musée d’Orsay is on the parvis or small square beside the Musée Nationale de la Légion d’Honneur. Victor Laloux designed this train station and hotel for the Universal Exposition in 1900, when it was the
Paris terminus of the Orléans-Paris line. Designed in 1896–97, it was built between 1898 and 1900 and uses stone from the Charent and Poitou regions. Consisting of seven impressive arches opening onto the riverfront, it contains a magnificent multi-domed vestibule which hints at Labrouste’s Bibliothèque Nationale. One of three major structures built for the 1900 Exposition, the other two are the nearby Grand and Petit Palais. The building narrowly avoided demolition in the 1970s, but following an outcry from Parisians still smarting from the loss of Baltard’s beautiful pavilions at Les Halles, it survived.
After 47 years of lying empty, the building was converted into a museum in 1986. This was done by ACT architecture group, Renaud Bardon, Pierre Colboc and Jean-Paul Philippon, with the Italian Gae Aulenti overseeing the interior. During the conversion a lot of the building’s original features were retained.
The museum presents works of art in various media from the period 1848 to 1914. It also frames them within the context of society at that time. Occupying three levels, the collection’s ground-floor exhibits work from the mid- to late 19th century, the middle features Art Nouveau decorative arts as well as a range of painting and sculpture from the second half of the 19th to the early 20th century, while the upper level contains a breathtaking collection of Impressionist and Neo-impressionist art. Many of these works came from the Louvre, while the Impressionists came from a much too cramped Jeu de Paume.
The Art Nouveau collections feature the work of Hector Guimard, the architect responsible for Paris’ iconic metro station entrances, as well as Belgian architect and designer Victor Horta, the Viennese Otto Wagner, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann and the Glasgow School’s Charles Rennie Mackintosh, as well as American Frank Lloyd Wright. There is also some of René Lalique’s jewellery and glassware. Sculpture is represented by Eugène Guillaume, François Rude and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, as well as Alexandre Falguière, Hyppolyte Moulin, Edgar Degas, Antoine Bourdelle, Aristide Maillol and, of course, Rodin. Paintings up to 1870 include Delacroix’s Lion Hunt and Ingres’ The Spring as well as Manet’s provocative Le Déjuner sur l’Herbe. The Impressionist paintings are what the museum is most famous for, and the movement is well represented with Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas, Cézanne and van Gogh, while the Neo-impressionists are represented by Seurat, Signac, Gauguin and Odilon Redon as well as Henri (Douanier) Rousseau.
St Germain des Prés
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