Tag Archives: Vincent Van Gogh

Musée D’Orsay

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Day 87,  Thursday, November 23, 2023

Today is dedicated to the Musée D’Orsay, one of my favourite museums in Paris. It is in the centre of Paris on the banks of the Seine, opposite the Tuileries Gardens. The museum is in the former Orsay railway station, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. So the building itself could be considered as the first “work of art” in the Musee d’Orsay, which displays collections of art from the period 1848 to 1914. There is a wonderful temporary Vincent Van Gogh exhibit that we really want to see, so we reserved a 12:00 time to enter the exhibit.  That was a wise move as the lineup without reservations is very long, and people are waiting for up to two hours to see the exhibit!  My friend, Ivy,  also told me about the Louis Janmot exhibit which she really loved, so I’m looking forward to seeing that too.

The Musée d’Orsay is a beautiful building, with two enormous clocks. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and  post-impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Edouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gaugin and Van Gogh.

I think this is my fourth time visiting this fabulous museum and it is wonderful to revisit many of these paintings. There is always something new to notice and appreciate on return visits.  We are a bit early for our entry into the Vincent Van Gogh exhibit so we browse a bit. Here are a few of the main floor paintings.

The Gleaners (1857) by Jean-François Millet

I didn’t remember seeing this painting before, Goustav Courbet’s ‘The Cliff at Etretat After the Storm’,1870 but it caught my eye.  We visited this exact location on the north shore of France earlier in our trip.  I sat and drew this very same cliff!

Goustav Courbet’s, The Origin of the World was daring when it was exhibited in1866 and still draws a crowd and lots of interesting comments. 

At noon we enter the Van Gogh exhibit.

“This exhibition is the first to be devoted to the works produced by Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) during the last two months of his life, in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris. Vincent Van Gogh arrived in Auvers-sur-Oise on May 20th 1890 and died there on July 29th following a suicide attempt. Although the painter only spent a little over two months in Auvers, the period was one of artistic renewal with its own style and development, marked by the psychic tension resulting from his new situation as well as by some of his greatest masterpieces.”  ~Musée d’Orsay website

I found this 12 minute video that has a walk through the exhibition…It takes me right back to our visit.  https://youtu.be/ntW7zadEEl4?si=aXna2cxoHvPw4lr-

Although I knew some of the paintings on exhibit here there were many new ones to discover. Here are some landscapes….

village and farm buildings….

Oh, did I mention that it was very crowded!  Bob kindly sat and waited for me when I needed a bit more time than he did to view the paintings.

In just two months, Vincent Van Gogh produced 74 paintings and 33 drawings.   The exhibition here highlights 40 paintings and 20 drawings.

Drawings of peasants working in the fields.1890

The church at Auvers-sur-Oise  

There were several of Vincent’s sketchbooks on view.  How I wished I could have held these in my hands, turned the pages and explored their contents.

One room held thirteen ‘double square’ paintings which I thought were particularly intriguing.  These paintings were produced in just over a month right before the artist’s death. I have included a close up shot to show the brushwork with each of these.  

I recognized ‘Wheatfield With Crows’ but it was much more impactful in person. I also really appreciated that I was able to stand very close to all the works and really study the brushwork and details…no museum guards came to tell me not to stand so close!

It was crowded but I was able to take my time and spend enough time up close with each painting and drawing.  It was amazing to see so many of van Gogh’s paintings and drawings.

Next we visited the Louis Janmot Exhibit.  It was not nearly as crowded but it was a  wonderful exhibit as well.   I was not familiar with this artist until my friend Ivy told me about this exhibit yesterday when we went for coffee after life drawing.

‘The Poem of the Soul’ is the great life-long project of the artist Louis Janmot in the 19th century. Begun in 1835 and completed in 1881, this ambitious work, consisting of 18 paintings and 16 drawings is accompanied by a poem of more than 2,000 verses. It recounts the journey of a soul on Earth.   This video explains the story behind all the works and walks the viewer through the exhibit.  It is in French but has English subtitles. It is long, almost 38 minutes but quite interesting.    https://youtu.be/yFImBcII72Y?si=oTBIhNgg6eqHP4eX

‘Nightmare’1849-50. The paintings were interesting, and well done but I was really intrigued with the drawings.

Details of some of the large charcoal drawings.  I loved them!

There were also studies that Janmot had made for his larger drawings.  These are particularly interesting as I can almost see the artist’s thinking and working process.

Study of a foot with interesting lighting.We decide it is time to find something to eat.  This restaurant is behind one of the Musées famous clocks but it is quite expensive and has a long line of people waiting for a table.  We do find a little cafeteria and we only have to wait about 15 minutes to get a table.  We are tired and hungry and it is so good to sit and rest for a while.  Museums are wonderful places to visit, but also very tiring.Refreshed, we head up to the top floor to see the permanent collection.  So many famous impressionist and post Impressionist paintings!  Cezanne’s ‘Still Life, Apples and Oranges’ and ‘The Card Players’, Berthe Morisot’s ‘The Cradle’ and ‘ The Dance Class’ by Edgar Degas

Gaugin’s ‘Tahiti Women’, Toulouse- Lautrec’s ‘The Clown Cha-U-Kao’, Van Gogh’s ‘Bedroom In Arles’, and an artist who I was not familiar with, Blanche Derousse’s ‘Two Little Girls’ which is a copy of Van Gogh painting.   VanGogh’s ‘Night Over the Rhone’.  We stood in the exact location where Vincent stood when he painted this. Check out the post here. http://Arles, France…Walking in Van Gogh’s Footsteps

I have always loved Degas’ ‘Little Dancer’ and was pleased to have another visit with her.

I am happy to see Renoir’s ‘Dance at the Moulin de la Galette’ once more…

and of course Edouard Manet’s ‘Luncheon on the Grass’, which caused quite a scandal when it was first exhibited. A nude woman casually lunching with fully dressed men was an affront to audiences’ sense of propriety at the time.  

We peek out a window at the museum and discover that it is pouring rain. We can see the ferris wheel set up in the gardens just outside of the Louvre, across the Seine river.

A view of the main floor of the museum. It is time to go home.  We have been here for over seven hours, and we still didn’t manage to see everything!  I guess we will have to return to Paris someday for another visit.

Arles, France…Walking in Van Gogh’s Footsteps

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Day 62,  Sunday, October 29, 2023

“Vincent van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888.  This was the start of an intense period of activity for the artist, in the Mediterranean light.  Indeed, it was his most productive era and during this 15 months in Arles, Van Gogh produced over 300 paintings and drawings, thus forging one of the most important periods in the history of art.  In May, 1989, Vincent left Arles for the Saint-Rémy de Provence asylum, leaving the name of Vincent van Gogh linked to that of Arles forever.” ~ Arles Tourism brochure.

Vincent spent a year at the asylum before moving to Auvers-sur-Oise in May 1890, where committed suicide on July 27th 1890.

Today we are going to follow Vincent’s footsteps as we walk through Arles, looking for the places where he stood at his easel creating some of his most loved paintings. Arles has placed a copy of each of his paintings at the location where Van Gogh would have stood.

First stop is the courtyard at the hospital in Arles.  Vincent stayed at this hospital three times between December 1888 and May 1889.

I feel like I have walked into a painting…

In the old hospital buildings there is also a wonderful photography exhibit by Pierre Vallet.  We later see some more of his work on display in the Arles Amphitheatre.

There is a sculpture of Van Gogh in the courtyard.

On our way to the next location we pass an old church that is hosting an AI exhibition. The audience is invited to sit and interact with these AI games.Here are the screenshots of some of the other games…notice that one of them has a character named Bob.

We pass a shop window with a creepy window.  Halloween is only two days away!

Arles is a pretty town.  We are trying to follow the not very clear map to find the next location when I notice…

this plaque set into the sidewalk.  So now we just have to follow the plaques, and it feels like a treasure hunt!

The stairs of the Trinquetaille Bridge was painted from this spot.

We climb the steps and cross the bridge, walking beside the Rhône River to our next destination.

We pass these ruins which are Roman baths…looks interesting but we are on a mission.

We pass a couple of old stone façades, just one wall left standing.  Back home it would have been torn down.

Starry Night over the Rhône…too bad the river cruise boats are in the way of our view, but we are able to pick our several of the landmarks in the painting.

We make small detour to check out the remains of a bridge that was destroyed in the bombardment of Arles in 1944.  There are many reminders of both the First and Second World War in every town and city that we have visited.

Then we pass a little carnival that was just getting set up.  I thought it was interesting that they have chairs for the parents to sit while their children are on the rides.  

Unfortunately the Yellow House that Van Gogh shared with Gaugin was also destroyed during the bombardment. It stood on this very street corner.Several young boys were hanging about and one of them, Leron (in the blue jacket) asked me to take his photo.  They were fun.

Van Gogh’s next painting was done in the amphitheater, so we buy tickets to go inside, even though the plaque is outside for tourists to see. The Amphitheatre painting shows the arena full of people, but there aren’t many people here today.

I took some black and white photos in the passageways beneath the seats.  I like how the light streamed in through the openings and all the old stones.

We climb to the top of the amphitheatre tower and get a great view of all the very French rooftops.

And up in the tower what do I find?  Graffiti!  It has been around for a long, long time.

Set in one of the stones at the top of the staircase to the tower is a sea shell, partially buried in the stone and just below it another stone block that is full of smaller sea shells.  I love it when we notice these little kinds of details, details that I am sure many people don’t ever notice.

We take another detour to visit the The Roman Theatre of Arles.  It  is a 1st-century Roman theatre, built during the reign of Caesar Augustus.  Bob is sitting consulting our map to figure out where to go next, as we have wandered off the path laid out by the plaques in the sidewalk.

I just love the way the stone steps have been worn down by countless footsteps over the centuries.

We pass this poster of a young man who is carefully looking at another poster

We walk through this old building to reach the square on the other side…

to look for the painting, Café Terrace At Night.  We find the cafe but there is no sign of the plaque with the painting.  We find the location which must have been very close to the spot where Van Gogh stood.

I noticed that the café isn’t open so I went up to take a peek in the windows.  Everything inside looks ready to receive customers, and there is the plaque that we were looking for!  However….

I think it has been closed for a while, as there is a pile of old  mail on the ground at the door.  Too bad, It would have been nice to go inside for a drink.Walking through this plaza I notice another photography exhibit but it is getting late and we still have one more painting spot to find, so we decide not to go in.

But we do a quick peek inside the Church of Saint-Trophime.  We never know what we will find behind church doors.  Every church is different, ranging from quite austere to the incredible elaborate.

We find the park where the next painting should be located and a monument to Vincent but we can’t locate the painting.  Pansies have been recently planted for the winter garden around this monument.

Bob checks out one part of the park and I go look in another.  The tower is part of the Roman Theatre that we sat in earlier.

Finally we find it!  But looking at these photos, I think we should have turned around and taken the photo of the garden in the other direction.  Guess we were getting tired.  There were three more spots on this walking tour but they are almost on the town’s outskirts and we have once again run out of daylight.

It is only 45 minutes to Nîmes and here we are driving in the dark once more.  One more interesting fact, the whole old town of Arles is a UNESCO World Heritage Site!

Van Gogh Museum

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Friday September 8,2017

After a lazy morning we finally headed out about 2:30 to try to find the Icelandic Air Office and sort out our cancelled flight.  It was raining off and on all day today so we got rather wet walking from the tram to where the office was located.  We found it but we were informed that Icelandic Air had moved their office to Germany about a month ago!  Of course the phone plan we got for our cell phone does not allow international calls, so we now have to figure out another way to be able to talk to them.  I don’t think that this will be easy to sort out by email.

Next on our agenda was a visit to the Van Gogh Museum. It is open until 10:00pm on Fridays and we niavely thought it wouldn’t be as busy during the evening.  Well, the line up was about 2 1/2 hours long, standing out in the rain, I might add…so we headed to the Rijk Museum Restaurant to see if we could get a nice hot cup of tea and order our tickets online. We did get our tea and the website to order tickets gave us all the information needed but didn’t have any place to actually order and pay for the tickets.  After much effort and trying a different browser I noticed a little order box at the very bottom of the screen that was so dark  we could barely see it. We ordered the tickets only to find out that we needed to download them and guess what, for some reason my phone doesn’t want to download!! and now our battery is getting very low.  We finally figure out a work around way to get the tickets and head over to the museum. Seems it is just that sort of day.
No pictures in the museum but there are a couple of places to take a photo with some oversized reproductions.There are a lot of paintings and drawings, many more than there were when we visited the old museum almost 40 years ago but I liked the old one better. Here is a photo of that building. When we were there so many years ago, I was in a large room surrounded by paintings with only a handful of other people. I had the feeling that if I could only turn around quickly enough I would find Vincent standing there, brush in hand.  It’s hard to explain but his presence was palpable in that room.  I have never forgotten how I felt that day, and I definitely didn’t experience that tonight.  The rooms of this very large modern museum were packed with people, it was noisy and we could barely move.  I looked for Vincent but he was no where to be found.  I guess I should have known that what I had experienced so many years ago was an amazing once in a life time experience. Here are a couple shots I was able to take in the museum just before we left when the crowds had thinned out.  It is huge, five floors all spread out with many flights of stairs. I thought it felt rather sterile. We had a bite to eat in the little restaurant there to break up our visit and finally left just before 10:00.  It is supposed to rain tomorrow morning but we are hoping for nicer afternoon.