So ends a joke which is very possibly the very worst joke in the entire world. So bad, in fact, that the beginning is really, really not worth repeating. But what is more interesting about that punchline is the fact that I saw paintings by all three of these artists and more today at the Museum d'Orsay. The museum was beautiful--an old train station that was rennovated and converted into the museum. Absolutely beautiful. There were several different sections, but three main floors with sculptures, paintings, furniture, and other stuff. I found the paintings the most interesting--we skipped over some of the furniture kinds of stuff.
The top floor was the Impressionism section, with some of the incredibly famous paintings. It was almost like meeting a celebrity--I couldn't believe that I was face-to-face with some of these paintings I have seen over and over. I could have reached out and touched Van Gogh's self portrait, or Monet's "Blue Waterlillies." (Yes, I know it would have been frowned upon, but they were right there! They weren't even behind glass or anything.) The cool thing about it was that they allowed photographs, so I have a bunch of photographs I took of the paintings. I was a bit star-struck, really, that I was seeing works by these people I learned about in art class in high school--Monet, Van Gogh, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Gauguin, Cassatt... images I've seen from art books and postcards--and I was seeing the "real live" originals!
If I get around to it, I might post some of the pictures I took. I thought it was really cool when I recognized some of the works, like Van Gogh's self portrait--the really famous one, like from art books and everything. The "Waterlilies" painting by Monet was not one of his best (in my opinion), but there was a fantastic one of one of his bridges, which I'm pretty sure I've seen before. There were some of Degas's dancers--not any of the really famous ones, but the style was very recognizable. That's true of a lot of it actually--I didn't always recognize exact paintings, but the style and subject matter of a lot of was very familiar. It was very cool.
Tonight after the museum we did a bit of shopping around and stuff and went out and had a really nice dinner at a little French place. It was excellent. It was one of those super-French three-course meals with the appetizer, main course, and dessert. I opted not to have the escargot, foie gras, or frog's legs, but I had French onion soup (I figure that's French, right?). For my main course I had this steak thing with potatoes and a pepper sauce, and chocolate ice cream for dessert. It was excellent. Dad went a bit more interesting with salmon tartar, duck steak, and creme brulee. I tried his duck and creme brulee, which was really good too. Everything was presented beautifully and arranged nicely. It's all about presentation, really. I love when food is pretty! It was a really nice meal and nice atmosphere and everything.
Tomorrow the plan is the Arc de Triomphe, Musee l'Orangerie, and Eiffel Tower. We've been doing pretty well on the whole planning thing. So far whole trip has been just about perfect.