Musee de l'Orangerie - Monet

Yeah, yeah, so I know I said a long time ago we were done with art. But let me tell you, you can never escape it in Paris. On our next to last day in Paris, we headed out to the Musee de l'Orangerie. The museum is located on the west side of the Tuileries garden, and it is most famous for housing Monet's masterpiece "Les Nympheas" (Water Lilies to us).

When you first walk in, you go through a blank room to clear your mind...or something like that. Then you walk into the first oval shaped room that Monet picked himself to house the 6.5 foot high paintings. There are two of these oval shaped rooms, each with four paintings each, and each with natural light so that the "mood" of the paintings can change at any given time.

The paintings were inspired by Monet's home at Giverny during World War I, and he continued working on them until his death in 1926 (at age 86). To him they represented "peace and meditation" (especially poignant given the time he was painting them).They were hung in the Orangerie one year after his death, and they have remained there ever since (even through a six year, $36 million dollar renovation where they had to be protected and built around).

Outside of the Orangerie

As usual, no pictures allowed, but they wouldn't do it justice anyway, so here are some Google finds to give you an idea of what it was like. There are four of the huge paintings in each room, each reflecting a different time of day. 

They really are pretty cool if you like art and especially if you like Monet. I'm glad we went to see them since they were his obsession for the last year's of his life and he chose to hang them in this exact spot/way. We also enjoyed the air conditioning for once. ;) Downstairs is the Walter/Guillaume collection which features Cezanne, Matisse, Modigliani, and Picasso. Don't know all those people? Yeah, I didn't either, but hey, we've seen them. :)

I promise, that's a wrap for the art in Paris.