PARIS > SEEING
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Museums and galleries
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Just as joiners would join pieces of wood to create elaborate decorative furniture so too did the City of Paris by creating the city’s expansive museum network by allocating art from the Louvre to newer museums. Paris’ museums are the original influencers of art greats from the late modern era till present. Don’t look at these museums as treasure troves but evidence of our humanity.
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1. Musée Nissim de Camondo
What’s luxury when you don’t have anyone to share it with? While the Sr. de Camondo lost his family to the World Wars, do his memory a favour and give purpose to the house he created to be shared and visit the Musée Nissim de Camondo.
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2. Musée de Louvre
If you could measure the depth of all the deep thought that’s passed through the Louvre over the centuries it would be deeper than any depth we can comprehend. I believe there’s an essence of all that though captured in the Louvre which you tap into when you begin studying that first painting.
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3. Musée d'Orsay
Post Impressionism is to Impressionism as the Musee d’Orsay is to the old school of museum curation. While vivid conversation was never an issue between the introspective artists of both Impressionist movements the same cannot be said of the colloquy between their paintings. Thankfully with the gallery’s 2011 rehang there’s now a dialogue.
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4. Palais de Tokyo
Nothing to do with Japonisme, the Palais de Tokyo is a rebel with the cause of being in flux, sticking it to the museum world with no permanent exhibition. While not a museum by definition, refusing to play in the big league in order to ensure creativity is kept alive in a non-static environment earns our respect.
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5. Musée de L'Orangerie
Just how intimate can a museum experience be? Monet’s Water Lilies were so precious to the artist that the museum’s oval rooms had to be renovated before Monet agreed to bequeath his eight panels to the space.
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6. Musee Picasso
Unlike how a new film gets made by our favorite contemporary director, it’s not every day our most cherished dead painter releases a new painting. Making never before seen works available to the public often requires the death of a collector. This was the case for the museum’s 5,000 Picassos, whereby Picasso himself was the collector who had died.
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7. Musée Carnavalet
Stand on the tennis court where the French Revolution began, where from the Enlightenment the creative spirit 20th century French writers such as Marcel Proust are known for was born. After visiting Proust’s writing room, take a walk down a “through the ages” Parisian street with shop signs that were once part of Parisian’s mémoire collective.
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8. Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
One’s hand painted on your VTC Savanna Bag, the other’s taxidermied – which lion has the loudest roar? You’re not the only one imagining things – the hunting museum’s unicorn room contains newspaper clippings of unicorn sightings.
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9. Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle
Challenge yourself to not think of museums as a home for cultural artefacts but as an institution of research and learning. Children and Paleontologists alike, we all have an inherent fascination for dinosaurs. Satiate your childlike curiosity in the Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy Gallery aka the bone room.
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10. Palais Galliera
Fashion is definitely art. If you don’t think so, there’s a reason why. A trip to the Palais Gallera will remedy this by undoing the association you have with fashion from fast fashion to slow fashion.
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11. Musee Rodin
When asked to think of a bronze sculpture a Rodin probably pops into mind. Rodin’s The Gates of Hell is a display of the French mastery over the macabre as well as an indicator of how alike he and Dante were – both placing the character of the individual first in their depictions, both revolutionaries in their field of visual art.
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12. Musée Des Arts Décoratifs
We sense a lack of excitement on your end, and it’s probably because you think glassware and other objet d’art rather dull compared to the great art masterpieces. Can you live the Mona Lisa? No, but you can live and breathe Art Nouveau – the late 19th century IKEA style of today.
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13. Musee Bourdelle
A studio apartment in the true sense of the term, the residence and atelier of the museum’s namesake sculptor. Who was he? From all you’ve learned about Paris’ bequeathed museums, don’t scrutinise the art itself but how the art came to be available to you in the first place and you’ll find that the city’s museum network was built on the philanthropy of Parisian artists.
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14. Musee Jacquemart-Andre
The art collection of a husband-wife couple who travelled annually between their home to Italy and the Orient – hey, sounds like a duo we know.
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15. Musee National du Moyen Age
More unicorns! Not as elusive as the horned horse, the riverside museum’s Unicorn Tapestries aren’t just magnifiqué because the anthropomorphised animals tickle our inner child but because the colors are as rich as when they were dyed over five centuries ago owing to the fine restoration work.