Degas, Renoir, Boldini, oh my!

Yesterday I revisted my favorite museum of all time--Musee D'Orsay.  Once a train station, Musee D'Orsay is now a mecca for priceless works of art that come with a long rap sheet of famous artists--hence the title of this post.

The museum is also one of my fondest memories of my first visit to Paris when I was 16 visitng my sister abroad.  A large, glossy book about the museum is now nestled in the open cabinets in the living room of my house.

"Art is an abstraction, take it from nature while dreaming from it."

-Paul Gaugin, French Post-Impressionist artist

My appreciation for art museums has been a steady work of progress throughout my life so far. Oftentimes I would sit down at museums and rarely look at the art--this was when I was little and I was generally unappreciative of most things in my life. My art ephiphany started when my parents took me to see the John Singer Sargent exhibit at The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. My eyes came upon the great and scandalous "Madame X" and the whimsical "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose." I thought it was magical--I have never seen a person convey such a beauty in a painting--and those colors...I was sold.

Fast forward some odd 12 years--I'm standing infront of Giovanni Boldini's "Madame Charles Max." I've found a new favorite painter. The painting is done is shades of pearl, light blue, grays and white--colors that come together to be ethereal and graceful.  I want to be this woman in this painting--or atleast have the dress.

Another painting that caught my eye was Charles Cottet's "Au pays de la mer." At first glance, I thought it was a painting of a funeral, but it is really a family at a dinner table dressed in the most dole colors. It is a heavy-hearted painting. Sadness is deeply rooted in the family--their shoulders are hunched and nobody makes contact with each other. Everybody is in their own world of misery--the only life in the photo is the food on the table that remains untouched.  The woman's face shows an individual who is alone and has been forgotten--"attention must be paid" to her expression(Arthur Miller reference for all you American lit fans). It is the polar opposite of Norman Rockwell's jovial depicition of the American family in "Freedom from want." 

As I was strolling in and out of the exhibits at the Musee D'Orsay, I questioned what type of art do I prefer. Sure I have my favorite artists and I like color(or in the previous painting--lack there of). I found myself spending more time on the solo portraits and paintings with a group of people. There is something about people's eyes that are so powerful. I believe they are the only true way to know how a person is feeling. This leads me to my next favorite painting--"Madame Jeantaud au miroir" by Degas.

It is another powerful painting, but I think the message is incredible. The woman is dressed in fine garb and all made up but she sees an very distorted representation of herself. She refuses to even consider herself as beautiful and is blindsided by self-doubt. I think for many people this is a common personal belief--maybe even more so in today's society where apperances are oftentimes more valued than their substance of character.

From the morose to the mystical, the third painting I have chosen is "Solitude" by Thomas Alexander Harrison.  There is not a lot of variety of colors in the painting, dark navys and greens, almost borderline black; but the one spot of light in the painting is the wooden cream boat with the naked person standing up in it.  The other source of light is a natural one; a beam of light illuminates the paddle of the oar.  I think Harrison captured a private moment of somebody releasing themselves (maybe just momentarily) to nature.  The person is one with their surrounding, or really just one with nature--what a beautiful thing.