Orsay

19th Century Art Source for the 21th Century The Musée d'Orsay, which opened in December 1986, has a magnificent location in Paris, on the banks of the Seine, opposite the Tuileries Gardens. Housed in a reconverted station completed in 1900, reserved for works from the second half of the 19th century and bringing together a number of masterpieces, it is still as popular as ever with visitors from across the globe. Chronologically, its collections can be situated between those at the Louvre and those at the Centre Georges-Pompidou. The multidisciplinary Musée d'Orsay essentially presents works created between 1850 and 1914 in all fields of art: painting, sculpture, fumiture design, decorative arts, architecture, drawing and photography. The monumental size and harmonious atmosphere of the building is very impressive. On entering, beneath the glass-roofed, terraced nave, visitors can first admire the sculptures that lead up to Carpeaux's masterpiece, Donce. On the terraces are works by Rodin, Bourdelle and Maillol, three major artists who interpreted movement or repose in bronze and marble. Next to be discovered while walking through the exhibition spaces are the paintings: on the ground floor, either side of the central aisle, in the domed rooms on the middle level, and in the upper galleries. Realism, Naturalism, Impressionism, Pointillism, Symbolism - the differents artistic movements may be compared as one masterpiece follows on from another. To name just a few, let us mention Courbet's The Pointer's Studio, Millet's The Angelus, Puvis de Chavannes' Young Women at the Seaside, Monet's The Magpie, Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Renoir's Dance at the Moulin de la Galette, Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles, Cézanne's Still Life with Apples and Oranges, Seurat's The Circus and Degas' Ballerina. The Musée d'Orsay also boasts a rich decorative arts collection, and Art Nouveau is well represented by Gallé and Guimard, A special space is reserved for architecture, featuring models, drawings and original plans by great innovators from Garnier to Eiffel. More fragile, and thus unable to be put on permanent display without risk, the collections of drawings and photographs are exhibited temporarily, in rotating thematic presentations, in specially designated galleries. A living, constantly evolving museum, the Musée d'Orsay stimulates reflection on past art but also invites contemporary artists to show their work, related to an exhibit of their choice in the Musée d'Orsay, and thereby recalls that the 19th century is still a source of inspiration and a reference for the 21st century. Serge Lemoine, Chairman of the Musée d'Orsay Understand 19th-century art through the masterpieces of the Musée d'Orsay > The history of the Gare d'Orsay station > Presentation of the collections > 200 illustrations of major works > Chronological landmarks