l'Orangerie was a building that was originally a hot house for the King's orange trees. It was chosen by Monet himself to house his seminal works of 8 giant canvases stretched out over the walls of two oval rooms specifically built for this purpose. Monet first conception of the project began in the 1880's and he continued to work on it unitll his death nearly 30 years later. He officially donated the first panels the day after the end of WW1 in 1918. The number of panels was 12 at one point but Monet was not satisfied with all of them so we are left with these 8. What an huge achievement. The remainder of the museum contains the collection the art dealer Paul Guillaume mostly containing impressionists works. We liked the Renoir paintings specifically. He used models over and over and we could see one model grow from a child to an adult in his paintings. An unexpected gem was a diorama of Guillaume's studio in miniature, funky and cool. There was a exhibition of de Kooning's works and some of the artists who influenced him. These works were a big departure stylistically from the other works in the museum.
At the far end of the park is the museum
The small paintings were no bigger than 1 inch by 1 inch
Imagine a dinner party
Or cocktails here with the glitteratti
A window into the past
So funky
These panels were 20 feet long
They are curved to hang on the curved walls
Over 2000 square feet of paintings
I like this one the best
Imagine 6 feet high and 20 feet long
Can you hear the birds and bugs?
The beginnings of cubism in Cezanne's work
Lots of swimming back in the day
The blonde model as a young girl
Playing piano as a teenager
Middle age
Old as dirt
Semi decomposed
Out of balance
