ktechtow's Reviews

Les Nymphéas at the Musée de l'Orangerie

This site’s headline attraction is well worth a visit for travelers on an impressionism pilgrimage to the art museums of Paris. As of the summer of 2006, admission to the Musée de l’Orangerie was included in the Paris Museum Pass, whose feature of expedited entry is quite handy given the site’s popularity after a six-year hiatus. In the lower level of the Musée de l’Orangerie, Monet’s “Waterlilies” (Nymphéas in French) are displayed in two airy, oval rooms in near 360-degree panorama and with natural lighting. Six years of renovations on the interior spaces of this building were completed in May 2006, including renovations to the ceiling whose gauzy filters permit natural light into the exhibit space. The predominantly cool tones of the waterlily paintings can now be viewed with better appreciation of the constantly changing atmosphere and lighting conditions in which they were initially laid down to canvas. And what large canvases they were – these are no diminutive pieces designed to hang obediently in line with other fellows on a gallery wall, but instead they are impressively vast, lush works that quietly command attention and fascination.

Reviewed on: February 19, 2007