Description of the attraction
If a tourist loves impressionism and post-impressionism, he simply must visit the Orangerie Museum. Here are paintings by Matisse, Cézanne, Renoir, Utrillo, Gauguin, Rousseau, Sisley, Picasso, Modigliani and other artists. The pearl of the collection is the famous "Water Lilies" by Monet.
For decades, Claude Monet painted a pond with water lilies, which he himself planted in his garden at Giverny. Monet told - once he realized how magical this pond looks, and since then he has not written anything else. He created about 250 paintings in this series. By the end of his life, Monet was almost blind due to cataracts in both eyes, but continued to paint in a pond with water lilies. In 1922, he completed eight large-format panels, on which he depicted a pond at different times of the day. The panels, which the artist considered his spiritual testament, he offered as a gift to the French state in honor of the end of the First World War on the condition that they never share the paintings. To accommodate them, the building of the former greenhouse in the Tuileries Garden was chosen.
This greenhouse was built in 1852 by Firmina Bourgeois for the orange trees from the Tuileries. The building is the architectural twin of the Jets de Pommes ball court, built a year earlier and located in the other corner of the garden. Both the Jeux-de-Pomme and the Orangerie became museums, but not immediately. The greenhouse was used in a variety of ways: it served as a warehouse, and an examination room, and a place to accommodate mobilized soldiers. Exhibitions were also organized in it - mainly equipment, animals, plants.
To place the "Water Lilies" here, the building had to be altered. The main architect of the Louvre, Camille Lefebvre, with the help of Monet himself, developed plans for the reconstruction. Now "Water Lilies" occupy two connected oval halls, which in the museum are called the Sistine Chapel of Impressionism. From above, even natural light pours, the entire room is designed in pale gray tones, and a riot of colors on the walls. People sit on sofas in the middle of the hall and contemplate, then they leave to inspect another part of the museum's collection, then they return and admire the Water Lilies again.
