Day 7
Today we went to the Orsay ( a museum that has long been on my bucket list), the Orangery (home of the famous water lilies!) and finally ended our trip with a Seine river cruise!
One of the big highlights of the day was seeing Monet's water lilies. My husband enjoyed them a lot more than he thought he would, and he walked around the water lilies multiple times to view them in their totality.
Jason said that the water lilies' quick and painterly brushstrokes
rendered the closest aproximation to the parts of his sight that he's seen to date. This is because blind people (who were born with sight and later lost it) don't see 'nothing' when they lose their vision, they see something their brain makes up. Jason sometimes says it's a bit like colorful static.
Monet also lost his vision later in life, and as an artist, it had me wondering if the rendering of his water lilies had anything to do with his vision loss. ​
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The day began with us going to the Orsay museum. I was so excited, this museum is inside of a former train station built for the world's fair.
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Now obsolete as a train station, it's the perfect place to host many amazing works of art.
The top floor has plenty of skylights, perfect for showcasing impressionist art under natural light. I'd been wanting to go to this museum for years, and today was the day.
Walking through the halls of the Orsay was like walking through my art history class in real life. Gustave Courbet's self portrait looked out at me across the room, it's wide and unblinking eyes so much more vivid in real life versus what we see in textbooks.
The biggest highlight for me of the Orsay museum was seeing the impressionists. To me this was a huge bucket list item. I nearly cried throughout the gallery of Van Goughs, Monets, and of course, Renoirs!
This painting by Renoir, Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, was incredibly vivid in real life. The colors, the flesh tones, the dappled light felt incredibly 'real' in terms of accurately capturing people dancing in a social setting.
My photo does not do it justice, and it must be seen in person to appreciate it.
"The absinthe drinker" was another favorite. The woman's face in the painting is so relatable.
Have we not all had a day where we feel like the way she must feel in this painting? Her face says it all.
After a delightful time at the Orsay, we traveled to the nearby "Orangery" museum. This museum was a great place to view Monet's water lilies, hosted in natural light.
Orangeries were owned by nobility and were like glass greenhouses used to grow oranges. The museum is hosted inside of a building that used to be an Orangeries, hence the name!
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For Jason and I, this was one of the biggest highlights of our trip. The water lilies capture light and water in motion like nothing else.
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Monet was also losing his sight, like Jason, at the end of his life; and like Jason, he didn't let his vision loss stop him from doing what he loved to do.
Finally after a day of art, it was time to say farewell to Paris. We hopped onto a boat with the rest of our tour group and sailed down the Seine river for an unforgettable night of beautiful light and music.
The cruise at the end really nailed for us that this was the "City of Light"!
We both had such a fantastic time in Paris, and we can't wait to return, ready to ride the Metro like locals!
