Paris has over a hundred museums. It is difficult to make a choice between the essentials such as the Louvre, Orsay, Grévin, Guimet, Pompidou or Picasso and those who are quieter like the Hunting Museum, the Letters and Manuscripts or the Dolls. This is all the more so when the French capital organizes its Autumn Festival. A demonstration that makes contemporary art in no less than 44 Parisian places.
The star is the Louvre!
In Paris, the most frequented museum is the Louvre. It is difficult to present the world's most famous museum in a few lines. It finds its origins in the twelfth century, on the initiative of Philippe Auguste who builds a strong place. François I in fact makes his luxurious residence and Henri IV turns it into a palace. By building the Château de Versailles, Louis XIV abandons the Louvre. The idea of opening a public museum emerges under Louis XV, but the project is not effective before the Revolution. At the end of the twentieth century, under the chairmanship of François Mitterrand, the architect Peï implant in the cour du Carrousel a trio of glass pyramids. Of the 160,106 m 2, 58,470 m 2 host the collections. It is impossible not to get lost once or twice in the maze of corridors, staircases and huge halls, but the Louvre prides itself very well. Eight major departments, divided into three wings, serve as benchmarks: Oriental, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiques, Islamic arts, sculptures, art objects, paintings and graphic arts. Next to almost neighbors, the Museum of Decorative Arts. The art of wood, metal, ceramics, glass, leather and painting is discovered with great pleasure.
Modern and contemporary stars, left bank…
With the Louvre, we approached art until the eighteenth century. Modern and contemporary periods are mainly divided into three museums: Orsay, the Museum of Modern Art and the Pompidou Center. The magnificent Orsay railway station was inaugurated on July 14, 1900 at the Universal Exhibition. She served the southwest lines for over 40 years and then began a new life: center for shipping packages to prisoners during the Second World War, reception center for prisoners at Liberation, film decor, theater company and even auction house! Finally classified as a historic monument, it became the current museum in December 1986, with the aim of showing the public the artistic creation of the western world from 1848 to 1939. To see absolutely: the part of the Decorative Arts where the examples of Art Nouveau are shining.
A few steps further, the Musée du Quai Branly. Jean Nouvel's building presents its gigantic silhouette facing the Seine in an astonishing metal and glass mass, color of land, fire and wood. Here, vegetation seems to invade the facade and flip like a waterfall. In an organic maze, neophytes will discover collections of objects from civilizations in Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas.
… like the right bank!
On the other side of the Seine, we find ourselves at the Trocadéro. Two museums deserve a visit: the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris and the City of Architecture and Heritage. The first is located in Tokyo Palace, built for the 1937 Universal Exposition. Its collections, rich in over 8,000 works, are all representative of art in the twentieth century. Nearby, the Cité de l 'Architecture et du Patrimoine allows you to discover the iconic works of French architectural heritage and contemporary international creation.
A little further, the Guimet Museum. It was a great industrialist in the eighteenth century, Émile Guimet, who wanted to create a museum of religions of Egypt, classical antiquity and Asian countries. The rich collections of millennia of art reported from his travels constitute the museum fund inaugurated in 1889.
Finally, contemporary creation has had its temple since 1977. The Pompidou Center has become one of the emblems of Paris, with its unique silhouette. It contains an incredible collection of modern and contemporary art, comparable to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In this area, the visit of the Carnavalet Museum is required. The Carnavalet Hotel, built in the Renaissance, was inhabited by the Marquise de Sévigné. In 1866, the City of Paris acquired it to create a museum devoted to its history. Exciting!
Not far from there, the Picasso Museum offers the world's largest public collection: 5,000 works, 200,000 pieces of personal archives, and his special collection bringing together 150 works by other artists (Renoir, Matisse, Cézanne, Le Douane Rousseau…). Nothing but that!
Among other museums not to miss, that of Hunting and Nature or that of the Letters and Manuscripts, located on the other bank in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The Arab World Institute, designed by the architect Jean Nouvel, is designed to develop and deepen the study, knowledge and understanding of the Arab world. The permanent collection is full of treasures and on the 9 th floor the terrace offers breathtaking views! Finally, some museums are run for their gardens where it is nice to walk or even enjoy a drink. This is the case in particular the Auguste-Rodin Museum, just a few steps from the Invalides, located in a hotel of the eighteenth century.
Children will be spoiled
Children are not always easy to drag into museums. However, some are dedicated to them. Between fairy-tale and soft nostalgia, the Dolls Museum is the unique opportunity to discover a rich collection of more than 500 beautiful French dolls presented in old life scenes. Another museum that won all the votes of the small, but also the big ones, for years it was the inevitable Grévin Museum, opened in 1882. There is no longer the concept or collection of more than 300 historical wax characters or celebrities who become richer in the news. Finally, the children and teenagers Géo Trouvetou will take great pleasure in the Arts and Crafts Museum and the Cité des Sciences et de l 'Industrie at La Villette. Around the latter is the planetarium, the aquarium, the Cité des enfants and the Geode. For its part, the National Museum of Natural History, founded under Louis XIII in the former Royal Botanical Plant Garden, has always had the task of providing greater knowledge of the Earth and of living. The great gallery of evolution, which puts the specimens of animals more true than nature, wins all the juvenile votes.
For contemporary art, live the fall!
And the artistic news of this return to the capital is rather rich. Created in 1972 by Michel Guy, the Autumn Festival in Paris is an important meeting of contemporary creation. In no less than 44 places of the City Lumière, you can see many new works in theater, dance, music, cinema and visual or visual arts. Some of them are signed by renowned artists, others by young talent. The search for new forms is one of the main objectives of the organizing team today led by Pierre Richard and Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota. Another exciting programming axis is to invite each creator of a country or a non-Western cultural area. Discovered from September 10 to December 31!
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When is it? All year round, of course, but to attend the various events of the Autumn Festival in Paris 2018, go to the capital from September 10 to December 31.
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