Musee d'Orsay

The Musee d'Orsay is clearly my favorite art museum in Paris, and probably the entire world. And after taking a class last semester on French impressionism, I am in love with artists such as Manet, Courbet, Pissarro, Monet, Van Gogh...and to see the paintings that I studied in person is an experience unmatched by anything else. 

I'm a giddy child - with this wild ecstatic look in my eye as I wander through the galleries of the d'Orsay. I weave in and out of the crowds, darting across each room, feeling more awake than ever. First I see Seurat's Cirque. I bring my face 3 inches in front of the painting and marvel at the seemingly effortless brush strokes. I run past the crowd in front of Van Gogh's famous self portrait and Monet's Rouen Cathedral series and I almost miss it - my favorite Manet painting, The Asparagus. The painting is small and obscure, most would probably not give it the attention it deserves. Though the painting appears to be just a small white asparagus, it's so much more! I look as closely as I can and see the colors of blue, green, purple, pink all together -

 who'd have thought an

asparagus could be all of those colors? I'm practically dizzy from excitement. It's a strange sight I am sure, a girl staring intently at a tiny painting of an asparagus. 

And after I see Manet's other masterpieces - Olympia, Deujeuner sur l'Herbe, and Courbet's ridiculously massive works - Burial at Ornans and the Artist's Studio, I have to take a break. My senses are overwhelmed and I'm on some kind of ecstatic drug trip, my head feels like it's exploding -  a definitively holy experience.