Sunday at the Museums

In the winter months most museums are free to enter on the first Sunday of the month. That's today.

This morning we got up early and took the Metro to Concorde.  From there we walked over to the Louvre.  We eventually found a shorter line than the one by the pyramids, but it had a sign saying that the wait from the point where we were standing was 2 hours.  If we go to the Louvre, it looks as if we are going to have break down and buy tickets.

Instead we crossed the river and walked to the Musee d'Orsay.  We stood in line for

a short time.  Entering museums has become more challenging because every public location has

now got guards and metal detectors.  At one the Musee d'Orsay, we were behind a man who kept setting off the sensors. He put his money in a tray.  When that didn't work,  he took his keys out of his pocket.  He still couldn't get past the metal detector.  Finally he took out his cell phone and put that in the tray.He no longer set off any alarms.  When the guard saw the cell phone, he had a look on his face that said, "Finally this guy has figured it out." 

Unfortunately our driver took the day off so we had to walk home from the museums

Legion of Honor

National Assembly

The woman on the pedestal is Marianne, France's personification of the 

Republic. She is on coins and appears many places just around Paris.

She represents the fact that France will not tolerate a monarch or a despot.

Marianne is the center of the massive painting by Eugene Delacroix.

She is leading the revolution.

In front of les Invalides with the canons and the Eiffel

Tower in the background.

Musee d'Orsay

Sign just inside the museum

Aristide Maillol 

Berthe Morisot

The Cradle

Degas

Gustave_Doré

This is such a massive painting that I could not resist trying to capture it in a picture.

Just so that you know we were there.

This is a painting by Paul Gauguin.  I wonder if this is what inspired him to go

to the South Pacific.

One of only two Mary Cassatt's that we saw.

Claude Monet

Impressionists are so difficult to take amateur pictures of because they

have such soft colors.

In the museum, I was sure that I would remember everything that we looked at.

I think that these are early Monet.

Renoir

Rodin at the Musee d'Orsay

Paul Signac

Not too surprisingly he worked with Georges Seurat, .

No selfie poles allowed

I have not paid any attention to Alfred Sisley. 

 He is one of the few impressionists who stayed true to style.

He actually was English but born in Paris where he spent his life.

Balzac bust at Rodin museum.

It was a study for his more than life size statue that we saw at 

d'Orsay.

She is still one of my favorites.

Rodin in his studio

The Kiss

He did another similar to this 

The Waltz

Bust and painting of Alphonse Legros

He looks a lot like the figure of  Eustache de Saint-Pierre in the

 Burghers of Calais.

 The city of Calais commissioned Rodin to make a  monument in honor of the six 

men who volunteered to give up their lives so that the English would not destroy 

the city and its people.

When the people who commissioned the statue saw the burghers, they 

were not pleased.  They wanted one man looking triumphant  and standing on

a pedestal to place in the city square.  Calais has a copy of Rodin's statue but it is on 

pedestal where you cannot see the faces of the suffering men.  Rodin put a copy

in his garden on flat ground so that we can study the individual faces.

These three are the group at the very top of the Gates of Hell.

The Thinker

Rodin's house and museum

The museum was actually funded and started by Rodin.

Night by Aristide Maillol

in the Tuilleries