Paris' Musée d'Orsay: Highlighting French Impressionism with Laurent Bonneval
Description How did a Paris train station become the mecca of Impressionism? This question summarizes the incredible transformation undergone in the early 1980s by an abandoned train station in the heart of the City of Light. First inaugurated for the 1900 world trade fair, the building is typical of this transitional period: a carved limestone envelope around a structure of riveted iron beams. Turning it into a museum was no easy task, but the stunning result is that it now hosts the world’s largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, as well as sculptures by the period’s most appraised artists such as Rodin, Carpeaux, Camille Claudel, and Maillol. The period covered by the d’Orsay collections is key to the canon of French and global art history. During our conversation, we will journey from 1848 and the rise of modernist emperor Napoleon III to 1918 and the end of WWI. This period witnessed the birth of impressionism and its evolution towards modern art. Man