Guided tour of the musée d’Orsay
The musée d’Orsay, located in an old railway station, built for the universal exhibition of 1900, holds a collection of European works going from 1848 to 1914. The museum has around 6000 works (as well as a photographic collection) and is full of masterpieces: paintings, sculptures, furniture or works of art presented in chronological order and by style.
The XIXth century was an abundant century for art with the emergence of a new manner of representation, less coded and freer but also the time of the development of new techniques such as photography, electroplating, or even the tube of paint!
Throughout your visit, you will discover the works of Edouard Manet, Gustave Courbet, a gallery dedicated in its entirety to the impressionism of Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir or Alfred Sisley, passing via Paul Cézanne or Edgar Degas. A section is also dedicated to the works of Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin.
What does a guided tour of the Musée d’Orsay by With’art include?
We will start with the central nave which houses the sculptures and then we will discuss the different movements which preceded impressionism such as the Barbizon school and Realism. We will also discuss the great artistic tendencies of the XIXth century: classical or oriental influences, and also touching on the unique style of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
In the nave it is also possible to explore XIXth century architecture and the different trends thanks to the building itself, qualified in 1900 as a “station which looks like a Palais des beaux arts”. We will also discuss the construction of the Garnier Opera and new Haussmannian urbanism thanks to models.
In the second part of the tour, we will visit the gallery dedicated to impressionist painters, and will end with the pointillism and cloisonnism of Van Gogh and Gauguin.
Why doing a family tour ?
Sometimes museums can be a little bit boring for children, that’s why adding a little bit of fun to a tour can be better to involve them!
With the help of a little booklet, the children are looking for clues to answer the different questions and win the treasure!