The Musée d’Orsay is in a building that used to be a train station. Like many Paris museums, the building itself is an intriguing work. The Musée d’Orsay houses many outstanding works from 1848 to 1914. On display are Impressionist and Post-Impression paintings, Art Nouveau furnishings, Rodin sculpture, and much more.
The Musée d’Orsay has several restaurants. I had an excellent lunch at this very elegant one on level 2.
Gauguin painting
The main reason that I visited the d’Orsay was to look at the works by Paul Gauguin. The d’Orsay contains most of the Gauguin work that can be seen in Paris. Gauguin was born in France in 1848. In 1890 he went to Tahiti to escape the pressures of life in France and to immerse himself in Polynesian culture. Except for 2 years back in Paris, he spent the remainder of his life in the South Pacific. He died in 1903 in the Marquesas Islands.
In his landmark book on Western art, The Transformative Vision, author José Argüelles describes Gauguin as one of Western Civilization’s “transformative visionaries,” a distinction he reserves for only a few. In his later work, Gauguin was striving to capture the innocence and spirit of the island people through a style that became increasingly bold, primitive, and enigmatic.
Gauguin sculpture
In the Marquesas, Gauguin build a thatched hut for his house and called it “Maison du Jouir” (house of sensual delight). He carved five panels to decorate the entrance to the hut. The five panels are on display at the d’Orsay. I spent a lot of time studying them and admiring their virile execution and bold designs.
On this bottom panel, the inscription reads, “Soyez mystérieuses” (be mysterious) .
On this bottom panel, the inscription reads, “Soyez amoureuses et vous serez heureuses” (find love and you will find happiness). It seems to contain a self-portrait, as the figure on the right resembles Gauguin.
Paris 2019 