Meet the impressionists:
Musée d'Orsay tour: Van Gogh, Monet, and the stories behind the brushstrokes
Destination
Paris, France
Duration
2 hours
Tour size
Max 6
Language
English
Overview
Walk into a former Belle Époque train station and stand in front of the world's deepest collection of Impressionist art. This Musée d'Orsay tour puts an art historian beside you to connect the work on the walls to the lives, rivalries, and radical ideas that produced it.
- •Appreciate the masterpieces through the eyes of an art historian who brings the painters' private lives and public scandals into the room
- •Stand behind the Musée d'Orsay's iconic clock face for a view of Montmartre and the Seine that most visitors never find
- •Trace the Impressionist revolution through handpicked works by Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Renoir, and Degas
- •Hear the provocations, personal rivalries, and rejected Salon submissions behind canvases you thought you already knew
- •Pause at Cézanne's fractured landscapes and Courbet's provocations, where Impressionism gave way to something wilder
What's included
- Skip-the-line ticket for the Musée d'Orsay
- Local English-speaking art historian guide
- Expertly guided tour of the Orsay Museum highlights
You will visit
- The Musée d'Orsay's Impressionist galleries
- Van Gogh's Self Portrait and Starry Night Over the Rhône
- Manet's Olympia and Luncheon on the Grass
- Monet's Water Lilies series
- The Orsay clock face and its view across Paris
- Works by Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, and Courbet
Get a taste of Meet the impressionists
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What to expect
The Gare d'Orsay, a building designed for arrivals
The Musée d'Orsay opened in 1986 inside a Beaux-Arts railway station built for the 1900 World's Fair. Your guide will point out the architectural details that most visitors walk past, from the vaulted glass ceiling in the nave to the ornamental ironwork. The station was nearly demolished in the 1970s before its conversion, and the original train platform canopy still arches over the ground-floor sculpture hall.
The Impressionists, and the scandal that made them
The Impressionist collection lives on the upper floors, and this is where your Musée d'Orsay guided tour spends most of its time. Manet's Olympia stared down the 1865 Salon audience so boldly that guards had to be posted beside it. Monet's studies of light on water redefined what a painting could be. You'll see Van Gogh's Self Portrait and Starry Night Over the Rhône in the context of his final, prolific years in Arles and Saint-Rémy.
"Everyone rushes to the Van Goghs. I start in the Manet room. That's where the whole revolution began."
Adrien,
WalksDevour Paris guide
"People take photos through the clock and then move on. I always tell them to turn around. The Renoirs on that floor look different every time the light shifts."
Anna,
WalksDevour Paris guide
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Frequently asked questions
Our guides love answering your questions. Here are some things they’d like you to know before you arrive.
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