Two Museums

This morning we started at the Marmottan Museum, which has a remarkable collection of Monet's own paintings that were willed by Michel Monet, his son, and by a few other collectors. There are several paintings by his friends and many by Monet himself. The museum is in a palatial private home that belonged to a family of industrialists in the 19th century. Their collections reflect a very different taste from the impressionists that line the walls of their elegant dining room, living room, and so on.

After a quick lunch in a cafe, we went to the Guimet Museum, a museum of Asian art. It's grand and large, also in the home of a wealthy collector. First we saw a special exhibit of works by Rosanjin, a Japanese ceramicist (examples above). In the exhibit was also a really entertaining ultra-modern art work that was a projection of videos of Japanese foods (Sushi, a Kaiseki dinner) onto a table where you sat and saw the food as if you were about to eat it. Pictures of someone's hands came from where your arms might be, and picked up the food and took it towards you, all in the projection. It's hard to describe, fun to watch.

The rest of the museum has monumental sculptures from Cambodia, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese art, and many other wonderful things.

Southeast Asian sculptures.

Southern Song Dynasty ceramics