The Musée D’Orsay.

Brief history of museum
    The Musée d’Orsay was originally built by Victor Laloux as a railway station to take visitors to the 1900 World’s Fair. Laloux’s plan “decorated” the exterior of the station by covering it in white limestone to match the upscale neighborhood and the nearby Louvre Palace.  However, as technology advanced, the station’s platforms could no longer accommodate larger, modern electric trains, which subsequently led to the station’s closure in 1939.  In the 1970s, a movement began to restore and preserve the magnificent building, declaring it a historical  monument in 1978.

    The current museum was opened in 1986.  The main part of the museum has the features of a railway station, which in my opinion makes it unique and creates a special atmosphere.  But the building also has a modernized exhibition section. 

The Musée d’Orsay houses one of the most unforgettable art collections of the late 19th century and early 20th century.  One of the most memorable paintings in the collection is “Olympia” by Édouard Manet. The artist created this painting in 1863 and exhibited it at the Salon of 1865, where it  became one of the most scandalous works.  The main provocation of the plot lies not so much in the naked nature lady of the night, but in the fact that the viewer standing in front of Olympia feels like her client.  A lot of details help to feel this, from the expectant pose and look of the girl to the cat rearing up, supposedly frightened by you.

    For that time, it was an incredibly daring act to expose that part of life that is not customary to cover in art.  In my opinion, it is creativity that crosses the rules of decency of high society that deserves special attention, since it breaks patterns.  This greatly helps the development of world art, because such exhibits expand the boundaries of the penetration of art and help to begin to show all aspects of social life.

    But the cause of the scandal was not only the plot of the picture, but also the manner of painting.  At that time, Manet was inspired by Japanese art, which is why he refused to draw the delicate combinations of light and dark that other artists aspired to.  Contemporaries did not appreciate “Olympia” and called the picture a rough and flat canvas.  There were so many

such opinions that the painting survived only thanks to the precautionary measures checked by the administration of the exhibition and the two guards assigned to it.

     After a disastrous debut, this painting was hidden in the inaccessible workshops of the artist and reappeared only at the 1889 exhibition in honor of the centenary of the French Revolution, where Manet’s friends buy the painting from the widow for 20,000 francs collected by subscription and donate it to the state.  The painting was kept in the storerooms of the Luxembourg Palace for a long time and in 1907 was hung in the Louvre without attracting attention.  After that, in 1947, “Olympia” took pride of place in the Museum of Impressionism.

    The Musee d’Orsay has another very interesting painting by Edouard Manet – A portrait of Emile Zola 1868.  This portrait was painted in gratitude for the support and protection from criticism of Manet’s new works in the articles of a friend. The idea of ​ ​ painting a black and white copy of his last picture in the upper right corner of the new one seemed to me very amusing and original.

    The pictures that impressed me most of all in musee D’Orsay is “The Oreads” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Because of its size, it looks very majestic, and the skill of painting the author allows you to imbue the magic of the plot and imagine it in detail real. Perfectly spelled out figures and the situation looks so lively that the atmosphere of the mysterious scene is completely transmitted to visitors. The mythical motifs of the paintings always fascinated me, thanks to this,  Bouguereau became one of my most beloved artists.

    The artwork was painted in 1902 and donated in 2009 by the descendants of the artist and is now exhibited at the Musée d’Orsay.

    The Oreads is a mythological painting , in the collection of works of the artist, similar fabulous motifs are often found , and it is one of Bouguereau’s best-known works. The painting includes many nude nymphs , a characteristic seen in many of Bouguereau’s artworks. It is painted in a Neoclassical style which features mythological Roman and Greek nymphs and satyrs. In Greek mythology, these creatures are led by the Greek Moon goddess of the hunt named Artemis, one of the most venerated ancient Greek deities.

    As for the artist, he is a French painter, a prominent representative of 19th-century salon academism. Researchers rank his work as the so-called “romantic realism,” since, following the techniques of romanticism, he preferred to write from nature and reproduced the appearance of his models with photographic accuracy.

Morozov’s Collection, Foundation Louis Vuitton.

Ivan Abramovich Morozov (November 27, 1871 – July 21, 1921) was a Russian businessman. He was a representative of a noble family, and his family had an ancient history. He was the average child in the family, his two brothers also made a small contribution to the collection, which after the Revolution of 1917 began to belong to the state and distributed into parts in different museums of the country.

Morozov’s collection presents many masterpieces of painting by various artists from talented artists who have not entered the history to those whose names are known in all corners of the world. The most memorable paintings for me were three paintings of Matisse in blue tones – The Moroccan Triptych. The organizers of the exhibition very competently exhibited these three paintings in such a way that they perfectly support and complement each other creating a holistic atmosphere, while it is not close enough that they break the harmony and do not argue with each other. also I would like to note how wonderful the natural lighting was exhibited for this composition: The windows were on the sides on both sides of the paintings and the falling light recreated the atmosphere from the canvases. The warm rays of the Moroccan sun fell not only in the paintings but also in the hall.

Matisse’s journey to Morocco lasted in 1912-1913. It helped the artist to contribute a great variety to his used colors in paintings. The entire triptych was written during the trip and consisted of artwork “Landscape Viewed from a Window. Tangier,” “Zorah on the Terrace,” and “The Casbah Gate”. Unlike his early paintings, where his interest in oriental art was manifested in forms borrowed from Arabic applied art, in this triptych Matisse makes the atmosphere languid, almost dreamy, but everyday. “Landscape Viewed from a Window. Tangier,” “Zorah on the Terrace,” and “The Casbah Gate”. I associate these paintings with the three parts of the day “morning,” “day” and “evening.” Morning, not yet warming, but bright falling ray of sun and cool shadows of complex blue shade of the interior of Zory-  for me mean morning. Already a warm light on the arch and a bright joyful road to the city – ”day”. The dark languid blue leading in the third picture in my opinion perfectly shows a smoothly beginning to cool the city after a hot afternoon- ”evening”.

    Another canvas worthy of separate attention is the painting of the famous Russian artist Mikhail Vrubel “Lilac” 1901.

    “Lilac” is one of the most subtle and tender paintings that Vrubel has ever painted.  And this landscape, with the protruding outlines of trees in the background and with a lilac bush under the moon in the front, is like a dream.  Or what we see before we wake up, between a dream and a reality .

    “Lilac” is one of several picturesque “nocturnes” by Vrubel.  It was to be included in a series of his works created based on Russian fairy tales, works dedicated to night miracles and transformations.

     Due to the fact that the author did not have time to complete the picture, each viewer is given a unique opportunity to deceive it in his imagination and betray her own meaning.  But according to Vrubel, the film was supposed to mix two plots – the ancient Slavic legend of Siringa and the plot of Pushkin’s classic work “Eugene Onegin.”  The captured moment combines Tatyana’s departure from the garden, where her beloved Eugene Onegin rejected her love, and everything mythical around creates an allegory on the legend of Siringa .  In Russian, from the word “lilac” is formed “Siringa” – the name of the nymph pursued by Pan (the ancient god of cattle breeding) and turned into a reed, from which Pan built a flute.  “Lilac” and “Pan” are connected by the unity of the mythological plot.  The walking girl in the picture should have transmitted the seal of the fate of two heroines in more detail.

Morozov’s collection contains many portraits of family members.  One of them is the portrait of Maria Feodorovna Morozova 1897 by Valentin Serov.

     Maria Fedorovna was the wife of Timofey Morozova and the mother of Savva Morozov, who went down in history as a famous philanthropist. It was a woman with a strong character. She was engaged in entrepreneurial activity in 1871, when creating a family manufacturing company, she was included in the number of founders on an equal footing with her husband and began to receive the same percentage of profits. In 19th-century Russia, for a woman, she actually achieved the impossible. Also, despite the stinginess of her husband, she was actively engaged in charity work, and later instilled this in her son.

    Artist Valentin Serov is one of the best portrait painters of his time. Personally, I am admired by his gentle overflows of flowers on the faces and skin of people, as if in a light haze and bright, but not cutting, signs of contrasts (as for example, a bright black dress on Morozova attracts a look, and a complex beige-gray background supports and simultaneously softens the resulting unforgettable effect).

     The talent for drawing was discovered by Valentin after the death of his Father in 1871, when he was 6 years old. Two years later, he began to study drawing with his governor Karl Köpping. At an older age, Serov entered the Imperial Academy of Arts, and later began to go to watercolor courses with the famous artist Repin.