Musee de l'Orangerie, Paris: A Review

Owing its name to the fact that it used to be the location where Napoleon stored his nations freshest and best supply of oranges for royalty and dignitaries, Paris' most under-appreciated museum is an excellent place to visit if you're a fan of impressionism, especially Monet. The small, unassuming building on the south bank of the Seine looks like it could have been built a few years ago, when in fact it is well over two hundred years old.

The current building that houses the museum was renovated in the recently and work was completed in 2006. It houses over 60 of Monet's water lily paintings as well as a huge, two room sized cycle of paintings. These paintings were moved to the l'Orangerie in 1927 and only recently have they been moved from the bottom floor to their present location, which allows them to be viewed as Monet intended, with diffused sunlight from ceiling skylights. Both rooms are home to some of the most beautiful works of art in the world. It's really tough to describe their scale and the grand artistic vision that Monet had when he decided to paint two room-sized murals of lily pads and ponds. Each room contains a different scene painted in a completely unique light and tones. I could have spent hours just enjoying the ground floor Monet exhibit alone.

Besides Monet’s gigantic cycle, the l’Orangerie houses the collection of the late impressionist and post-impressionist painting collector Walter Guillaume. It chronicles his acquisition of many of the most famous works and serves as a kind of time line for Mr. Guillaume’s life as one of the world’s more prominent art collectors of his day. In this collection exists a multitude of paintings by such masters as Paris. It contains works by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Chaim Soutine, Alfred Sisley and Maurice Utrillo to name a few. It is one of the largest and most extensive collections of paintings from these categories in the world. One of the concepts that compelled me the most about the l’Orangerie was the fact that there are many paintings which were impressions of other famous paintings, hanging next to the original inspiration for the impression. It was very satisfying to stand and see the entire scope of the impressionist and then the post-impressionist movement represented in a few hundred paintings.

The easiest way to get to the Musee l'Orangerie is by getting on Paris' metro system and accessing the museum via the closest metro station, which is Concorde. The line to get into the museum was fairly short and I only had to wait about 10 minutes. Inside, the admission is about $6.00 for students and they provide a free coat and purse check while you're enjoying the amazing art that this facility has to offer. No visit to Paris is complete without a visit to this museum, which in my opinion is one of the shining gems of the city of light.