September Excursion

During September, my lovely group and I went on many additional adventures into the heart of Paris. These include going thrift shopping, visiting the Eiffel tower at night, and taking a day trip to Montmartre and Sacre-Coeur. One particular day, we had an afternoon free and decided to visit a museum. After doing a lot of research, we chose a smaller called Musée Marmottan Monet dedicated to impressionist art. This museum turned out to be the highlight of my trip so far. Last year I took Art History 2 at ORU with Professor Opp. In this class, we studied the nineteenth century impressionists and neo-impressionists artists. Before this time, most artwork had political or religious agendas. Portraits of kings, saints, and stories from the Bible represent most of the art before this time period. However, the concept of “art for art’s sake” immerged and people began appreciating paintings for their beauty alone. Likewise, impressionism evolved as a means of pushing back against realist art, which impressionist artist deemed boring. Impressionism was focused on communicating the emotion one feels when looking at a scene. Monet is a prime example of this in his water lily paintings.

Because of Professor Opp, I was able to deeply appreciate each piece of art in this museum. There were several rooms filled just with Monet’s water lilies. Several rooms were also dedicated to neo-impressionists Georges Seurat, Camille Pissarro, and Henri Matisse. I have memorized these pieces, but it was incredible to see paintings up close because we could see each brush stroke. From far away, it is very beautiful, but my favorite is studying the details up

close because I feel like I am talking with the artist. This experience made us art students very giddy with happiness. In the gift shop, I spent over sixty dollars and I still don’t regret it.