Orsay Museum Full Guide

The Orsay is a brilliant and immersive gallery of spectacular Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works. Formerly a station teeming with passengers, today it teems with paintings. Surprisingly, the most scenic photograph of the Seine is actually from inside the museum, between the hands of a gigantic, river facing clock. When you are in the museum to see the works, take a moment to enjoy the museum itself, which has a blend of modernity and old-world charm! The smaller size of the museum makes it a more intimate setting than the Louvre, but don't judge by the size, as there are more world-famous paintings at this venue than anywhere else in France. Therefore to answer the pertinent question—"Orsay is on everybody's list of things to see in Paris, but what is on your list to see in Orsay?", the answer, in fact, is very simple and explained in three steps: just download the app, choose the time you want to spend, and keep pressing the next button on the tour. Join us as we embark on our grand visit at the ground floor. Crowds pour into the entrance are stunned at the sculptural backdrop of the gallery, in which people and life-sized sculptures mingle and become an experience in itself. This gallery that cuts through the building is both the spine and the artery of the museum through which rivers of people flow in and out. Here we find spectacular works like Women Bitten by a Snake and sublime masterpieces like the poetess Sappho seemingly lost for words or a nervous Ugolino chewing on his fingernails; Hebe being cradled tenderly by her father; and Penelope fighting sleep as she weaves to ward off her suitors. Several smaller galleries with blockbuster paintings also spans out from here. The confusing layout means you are likely to miss a highlight, but don't worry as you could redo the missed part of the tour by using the back button and then retracing your steps. These galleries hold a dedicated collection relating to war, the development of Paris, Salon winners, Oriental masterpieces, symbolist extravaganzas, and Courbet's highly controversial works that took Paris by storm (including The Origin of the World). Instead of going to the second floor, we will now use an escalator to go all the way to the fifth floor where a beautiful view of both Paris and the interiors of the museum greets us. And if you are wondering about the third and fourth floors, they do not exist in maps but only in our minds! On this floor, the paintings are grouped roughly by artist—Manet is followed by Degas, Renoir by Pissarro, and Monet by Van Gogh. In the last gallery that belongs to Van Gogh's works, the bustling crowd does a silent ode to the starry night. One look at his haunting self-portrait will convince you that his soul lives on in his works. At this point, although we have only seen half of the museum, we have covered ninety percent of highlights, and for the rest of the tour we breezed through the pointillism of Signac and the primitivism of Gauguin to reach Rodeon, who blurred the boundaries etween serious and decorative art. For our penultimate stop, we travel down the stairs to the second floor where we are treated to some of the greatest works by Rodin and his pupils—but don't let that deter you from visiting the Rodin Museum, where the.same sculptures are more meaningfully displayed in arguably more spacious surroundings. Our final stop is the most beautiful station clock by Victor Laloux, gazing at which, even time appears to stand still! But now we are truly finished, and we can walk out of the museum having been there and done it! And.. What better way to see the gallery than by listening to great audio descriptions during your tour? Simply download the audio files in advance and set a reminder to also pack your headphones or Bluetooth ear phones to take along. Remember that in order to play the audio, the buddy needs your earbuds else the sound would drown in the museum din!