Impressive Impressionism You might only have a short time in Paris, have been to the Louvre and be wondering how whether a trip to another gallery is worthwhile - and it definitely is. No trip to Paris is complete without a visit to the Musée d’Orsay.  The Orsay houses the largest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of art in the world. In terms of history, it picks up where the Louvre leaves off at around 1848 - the Impressionist movement is just kicking off, and you can stroll from room to room taking in Pissarro, Manet, Degas, Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, van Gogh, Gauguin and many others. It documents the Impressionist revolution completely.  Gare d’Orsay The original Gare d’Orsay’s short platforms became unsuitable for longer trains in around 1939, and the station declined in use until 1970 when French minister Jacques Duhamel saved it from demolition in favour of creating a gallery to celebrate the French artists who led the Impressionist movement.  Don’t miss any of the three floors of art, which include Cézanne’s Apples and Oranges, Monet’s Water Lilies, Renoir’s Bal du Moulin de la Galette, which celebrates the bohemian district around Montmartre, and Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe. Glance up at the magnificent old Orsay Station clock, and in the Orsay Square outside take a look at the six bronze allegorical sculptures from the Exposition Universelle.

Starry Night Over the Rhone is among Vincent Van Gogh’s most beautiful works. He painted it at a spot on the bank of the Rhone just two minutes from the Yellow House, where he was living at the time. The night sky and the light on the water were favoured subjects of Van Gogh: he returned to them in Cafe Terrace at Night and another, later canvas from Saint-Rémy, The Starry Night. Van Gogh was a troubled man, and much of what we know of him comes from his correspondences with his brother, Theo, and his unrequited love. His letters paint the scene almost as well as his brush, and he has an artist’s sensitivity to colour: “The sky is aquamarine, the water is royal blue, the ground is mauve. The town is blue and purple. The gas is yellow and the reflections are russet gold descending down to green-bronze. On the aquamarine field of the sky the Great Bear is a sparkling green and pink, whose discreet paleness contrasts with the brutal gold of the gas. Two colourful figurines of lovers in the foreground.” You can visit the same site in Arles, in the south of France, today; it remains quite similar to how it was in 1888, when Van Gogh painted it. You will still see the distinctive shore line, the Trinquetaille bridge and, at night, the Ursa Major constellation glowing overhead. The painting itself is exhibited at the Musée d’Orsay, in Paris. There is a lovely but sadly untrue story that Van Gogh used to paint these night sky scenes with lit candles on the brim of his hat. Just imagine: what a neighbourhood eccentric he would have been. Unfortunately he actually used gas lanterns instead.

Bal du Moulin de la Galette was painted by Pierre-August Renoir in 1876. It is one of the great impressionist masterpieces. It’s an extraordinary depiction of something very ordinary indeed: a typical Sunday afternoon at Moulin de la Galette in the Montmarte district in Paris. It’s an impressionistic snapshot of daily life, with all the richness of form, fluidity of brush stroke and dappled light that one expects from Renoir. The painting is one of France’s national treasures and very rarely leaves its home, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. In 1879 Edmond Renoir, the artist’s younger brother, gave the following description of how the painting came to be: “He took up residence there for half a year, became acquainted with the little world of the place and its particular life that no models would have conveyed and, having got into the atmosphere of that popular little restaurant, he depicted with amazing enthusiasm the unrestrained hurly-burly that prevailed there.” However, the scene does in fact contain a number of Renoir’s friends too. His biographer, Georges Rivière, has identified some of them. At the compositional centre of the painting there is a striking pair: Margot Legrand and a tall, immaculate gentleman in a top-hat — this was the Cuban painter, Don Pedro Vidal de Solares y Cardenas (some name!). Margot was a frequent model for Renoir and a bit mad; the well-bred Don was a bit stiff. The story told by their figures is absolutely typical of Renoir’s style. You will find such stories in every corner of this painting.

After ImpressionismOne painting from this series was sold in 2012 to the Royal Family of Qatar for around $250 million, making it the second most expensive work of art ever sold. Luckily, you can see one of the series for rather less in the Musée d'Orsay.Cézanne's 'Card Players' are regarded as cornerstones of the French post-Impressionist movement, which arose at the turn of the century as a reaction to Impressionism’s concern for ‘natural’ light and colour. Each of the series depicts Provençal peasants immersed in smoking pipes and playing cards. The subjects are all male and are displayed in an intellectual, solemn light; rather than gambling, their eyes are cast downward, quietly intent on their game. A simple sceneIt is said that Cézanne adapted a thematic from the 17th-century Dutch genre which often depicted card games with rowdy, drunken gamblers in taverns, replacing them instead with sombre-faced workmen in a simplified setting. Cézanne's portraits are admired for their lack of drama, narrative, and conventional characterization. In the Musée d’Orsay version, there are no other props apart from the two players, the cards, the pipes and a wine bottle. By eliminating spectators and other unnecessary detail, Cézanne displayed only the absolute essentials: two players immersed in their game. The peace contained in the scene is tangible; one critic even described the work as a ‘human still-life.'

Claude Monet, the famous French Impressionist artist, painted a series of oil paintings of the Houses of Parliament in London over the course of several stays between 1899 and 1901. All the paintings in the series share the same viewpoint overlooking the Thames, but are painted at different times of day and with different weather. The contrasts between them are wonderful. Although the main residence in his life was in Giverny, Monet and his family had actually lived in England briefly when they sought refuge during the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1871). Monet returned again in the late eighties and stayed with his two artist friends James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent. Both were famous artists in their right and, although they were expatriate Americans, they acted as his guide to the city. Whistler’s fixation on the Thames clearly had an effect on his friend Monet. Monet always tried to go to London during the winter, when the city sky would be thick with fog and the smoke of coal fires. "Without fog," Monet said, "London would not be a beautiful city. It is the fog that gives it its magnificent breadth.” In this series the ghostly outline of the Parliament buildings emerges from the fog, and its great stone bulk seems strangely weightless. Thousands of coloured patches knit together to give an impression of the density of the air, as sky and river blend seamlessly. Paintings from this series by Monet are scattered all over the world, but you can see one here in Paris at the Musée d’Orsay. Whether or not you have seen the scene in the flesh, this depiction is triumphant.

Presented at the impressionist exhibition in 1881, is the only sculpture that Edgar Degas would ever exhibit in public.

The plaster model in the Musée d'Orsay dates from 1917 and was inspired by the famous doors that Ghiberti had made for the baptistery in Florence.

Though a seemingly mundane scene, by placing an anonymous unclothed woman in an everyday setting, Manet re-contextualized the age-old subject and redefined what constitutes fine art, with a hint of irony.