Free Museum Day!

On free museum day, I was surprised to find the metro almost deserted, but certainly not sorry. It was a relaxing trip, even if I missed a train that meant I was worried about being late for Meg at 9. Thankfully, I arrived at the Musée d’Orsay at 9.10 and Meg was just behind me, so it all worked well. We joined the queue, which was long, but as soon as the doors opened it moved quickly. It was a good day for the museum, as it turned out, as we didn’t have to wait for everyone to buy tickets, though the revolving door nearly crushed me when it turned out that no one was moving forward on the other side.

Death averted yet again, we found ourselves in the main hall of the Musée d’Orsay, surrounded by great sculpture.

The galleries progress more or less chronologically, starting on the ground floor, with most of the impressionists on the top floor. We toured the pre- and early-Impressionists, including some very pleasant Pisarro and Sisley landscapes.

Upstairs, there were far too many great paintings to take in properly, and I admit I was a bit overwhelmed, but we kept a good pace and systematically covered everything, which gave us time to concentrate on the ones we really liked or found interesting. I finally saw my Caillebotte painting of the floor planers, which is possibly my favourite impressionist painting if I really had to pick one. I was struck again by how much better Monet is in the flesh – I love his work but always feel you need to see the real thing to get any intensity or depth. My favourite of his in the museum was the sunset over the houses of parliament in London. We spent a bit of time in the Van Gogh gallery as we are both Van Gogh enthusiasts. Unfortunately, so is the rest of the world, so it was a crowded scene over which blared the less than artistically relaxing warnings to watch for pickpockets.

My favourite painting in the Musée d’Orsay, or at least the one (given its relative obscurity) that I would go just to see, is Eugène Burnand’s ‘Les disciples Pierre et Jean courant au sepulchre le matin de la Résurrection’ – The disciples Peter and John run to the tomb on the morning of the resurrection. I love their expressions and the colour, and I remembered it from ten years ago because of their vivid expressions and the feeling that these were plausible people, not just pietistic representations.

The last stop was the Art Nouveau section, which holds a few good pieces of design art and a complete panelled room by Charpentier – I think. There are Lalique pieces and a few by Guimard, including his Metro sign.

I grabbed a sandwich outside, and we perched on a wall near the Seine to eat. Some giraffes went by on the roof of some cars. Nobody else blinked.

Meg and I examined the near-impossibility of getting to the Pompidou Centre easily – changing metro lines twice was necessary, thrice entirely possible – and decided to go one stop on the RER to the Museum of the Middle Ages instead.

We alighted at Saint-Michel, where it took us ten minutes just to find our way to the surface, and breathing the air again, walked the couple of blocks to the museum. Having spent the past week looking at “two for €1!!!” deals on postcards – which just isn’t going to cut it – I nearly leapt into the air at the sight of a stand promising ten postcards for €1. Meg decided to get some too, I added a small, metal and purple Eiffel Tower to my ten, decided to go for twenty instead, and as we laid culture aside for only a moment, naturally it was in this state of artistic indignity that one of St Mary’s illustrious scholars happened upon us. The very first things I bought in Paris that were not edible! (Or hand soap)

We were all heading to the museum, so we located the entrance, which was a large mediaeval gate (of course) leading to a courtyard. We thought we didn’t have to queue, but when had we elbowed our way through the gift shop – ooh! – to the entrance proper, we were told that we needed to get a receipt so they had visitor statistics. That done, the first galleries were stuffed with Islamic art from North Africa and Spain, which is just the kind of thing I like. I’m not always into the middle ages in art, so this definitely won me over. They had stained glass from various chapels, including some original fragments from the Sainte-Chapelle, and a considerable number of icons, statues and tapestries. We spent a while trying to come up with a narrative for the unicorn ones, and I still call them unicorn tapestries, even though we all agreed this was unfair as the lion always appeared with the unicorn and was largely ignored. This may have been somehow related, however, to the fact that some of the unicorns looked surprisingly like goats with horns attached to their forehead. Not the majestic creature we have perhaps been led to believe. In the middle of these various scenes, each sharing the animal motifs – plus those of monkeys, lambs and crying bunnies – there were women in different outfits, culminating in a spectacle of early fashion, complete with her own tent, treasure chest and designer lapdog, prompting Meg to draw a comparison with Paris Hilton. Who, as far as we know, is yet to appear on a tapestry.

There were some badges bearing the St Andrews cross and fleur de lys, which appear to be pilgrim badges and we are very intrigued by the possibility that they are indeed from the St Andrews pilgrimage. There are fleurs de lys all over St Andrews – including St Mary’s and Holy Trinity, I believe – and the figures on the badges looked very like those on the town crest. We plan to find out when we get back.

There was even a private chapel – we decided we’d like one each – and a rich selection of sculpture and altar screens. It was a fascinating museum dedicated to a period of art that I don’t typically find all that fascinating, and I declare it to be an excellent collection.

I was really sore, despite all the movement, and didn’t think I could cope with the three changes on the metro to get to the Pompidou centre, so I left that for another day and Meg went on alone.