Musee L'Orangerie

But first, the short exchange I just had with Lise as she walked up the stairs from my floor so that she could go get ready for bed:

Me: "Wait, Lise, you forgot your shoe!" (this was one of her sneakers that she had left down here in my room a few hours ago.

Lise: ::looks at me, then scrambles farther up the stairs instead of towards me and her shoe::

Me: "Wait! What am I going to do with one shoe?"

Lise: ::long pause:: "It's really comfortable." ::scrambles away and out the door::"

I don't really know that means.

Anyway, on a whim, my friends and I went to the Musee L'Orangerie today, which is located inside the Tuileries. I only decided to go because it's a museum, and because it has Monet's Waterlilies, so I guess why not go, right? I didn't really plan on loving what I saw, but in the end I was totally blown away, and left feeling completely inspired.

I've never truly been attracted to late 19th-Century art (except for my Kandinsky period in Elementary school), but kudos to the museum's curators (and especially to the people in charge of the Debussy: La Musiques et Les Arts exhibit), because I fell completely in love. I found that the flow of the museum really worked well with the paintings, and I'm officially a fan! Sarah and I made plans to come back on Sunday and stare extra hard at all of the paintings that we missed (actually, once we made this pact, we tried really hard not to concentrate too hard much on the paintings we walked by just so that we would have an excuse to come again). The Musee L'Orangerie is definitely one of my favorite places I've visited so far, and of course I highly recommend it.

I wasn't allowed to take my own photos, but I really liked this one especially. It's Maurice Denis' interpretation of the Muses.

I hadn't heard of Maurice Denis before, but I really like him, and it turns out that he even has is own museum in the outskirts of Paris. I also really liked Henri-Edmond Cross:

And there was another really great painting of the main entrance of the Tuileries (exactly where the museum is) at night, but I'll have to go back and see who painted that one. It feels so amazing to have a newfound appreciation of an entire art movement and era after a visit to one small museum! MORE, please!!