Aussi Paris
Only the irrepressibly puerile would express disappointment that the Musée de Lingerie is not actually called that and has no connection at all to Victoria’s Secret: the Musée de l'Orangerie is in fact a building full of paintings, some of them by Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir.
The big attractions that would surely populate any “I’ve been to Paris” KPI checklist are Monet’s Nymphéas (Water Lillies) murals, which are surprisingly large with just four to a room, but my favourite exhibits here are comfortably Argenteuil (Monet) and Fraises (Renoir). Others that caught my eye were an angular effort by Picasso called Grande nature morte that reminds me of Lee Mingwei’s Gernika in Sand project that appeared on the floor of Brisbane’s GOMA in 2008; Paul Cézanne’s Portrait de Madame Cézanne; André Derain’s Le Joueur de mandoline; and Maurice Utrillo’s Rue du Mont-Cenis, which is notable both because the white elements in the painting ‘pop’ on account of the plaster that the artist used and because we coincidentally had run down this street earlier on during an 11 km self-consciously Strava-wanker exercise that took in Montmartre Cemetery, L’Etoile, Champs-Élysées, Place de la Concord, Opéra and Montmartre.
On a much bigger scale than the Musée de l'Orangerie, albeit for the same €12 entry fee, is the Musée d’Orsay, housed on several levels (+5 being the top floor) in an old railway station next to the Seine, and it was the scene of our afternoon, incorporating heaps of Vincent Van Gogh and some more helpings of Monet and Renoir.
Selected artworks from the Musée de l'Orangerie and the Musée d’Orsay
Notably, while surrounded by so many great works, taking a selfie in front of the inside of the great glass clock with Montmartre in the distant background seemed to be more popular with the hordes.
No Whistler’s Mother though, which after seeing that Paul had given us Mrs Cézanne this morning just takes us back to being disappointed. Perhaps it is beyond repair after the damage caused to it by Mr Bean?