Poe, Doré, their Raven and Paris.

January 14, 2014 7:12 AM

If you're planning to visit Paris, le Musée d'Orsay, after the polemic Masculin/Masculin, will open next month a new exhibition: Gustave Doré (1832-1883): The Power of the Imagination, and it’s likely there will be a renewed focus on the dark romanticism of the 19th-century French artist. Some of Gustave Doré’s most haunting engravings were for Edgar Allan Poe. And about Poe's Raven that inspired Doré, you can see more at Hyperallergic. Now you know: From February 18 to May 11. Musée d'Orsay, Paris
posted by gbenard (13 comments total)

These posters are everywhere in Paris. I couldn't take one Metro trip without turning a corner and then BAM, dude-butt.
posted by The Whelk at 7:14 AM on January 14, 2014

Musee d'Orsay is the most beautiful Museum I have ever been in and when I saw it, it was half under construction. It is also far less crowded than that other museum. It was the best tourist thing in Paris IMO.
posted by srboisvert at 7:19 AM on January 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

It has air conditioning and if you have children, it is the best because you get a separate entrance. It also helps that it is one of the few museums that I do not suffer nosebleeds while viewing art.
posted by jadepearl at 7:28 AM on January 14, 2014

The D'Orsay can also be held in your mind as a single unit and used to illustrate a complex but thankfully limited section if art history, if you can keep a three hour narrative tour in your head then you can say to have to have seen and groked the whole of the D'Orsay and the period it covers.

The other one not so much.
posted by The Whelk at 7:43 AM on January 14, 2014

"The other one" referring to Musée Édith Piaf, I presume.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 7:56 AM on January 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

I will be in Paris in April (chestnuts in blossom), so I will definitely be seeing this.

The Orsay isn't my favorite museum in Paris (that would be either Carnavalet or Cluny) but it is absolutely stunning.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:37 AM on January 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

I find the museum building itself as beautiful as the art it houses [google images].
posted by xqwzts at 8:47 AM on January 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

Shit. I have to work. In America. I'll miss it. I love Doré. I used to be hypnotized as a child by a giant copy of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner illustrated by his full page illustrations.
posted by kozad at 8:53 AM on January 14, 2014

Le musée Gustave Moreau is no slouch, either. Great post, thanks for sharing!
posted by malocchio at 9:17 AM on January 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

I used to be hypnotized as a child by a giant copy of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner illustrated by his full page illustrations.

As a child, I was hypnotized by his full page illustrations for the Divine Comedy.
posted by ogooglebar at 9:25 AM on January 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have a Doré print hanging in my living room. (this one)

This makes me want to go to Paris. (Along with 10,000 other things)
posted by DigDoug at 11:08 AM on January 14, 2014

It might not have been a giant copy, you might have been a small child.

Dover have some wonderful volumes.
posted by glasseyes at 1:36 PM on January 14, 2014

It'll be at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa this summer.
posted by betsybetsy at 6:37 PM on January 14, 2014