Paris: The Musee de Rodin and les Invalides

Today's visit was to the Musee de Rodin, which has a huge collection of Auguste Rodin's work and is in the workshop he used to use in the former Hotel Biron.   

The museum has been restored downstairs and gives an indication of what it must have looked like as a hotel, and thus provides a rather grand setting.

The collection of Rodin's sculptures is interesting because it gives the viewer an indication of how he worked on an idea

 and developed an idea.

("Sleep")

It includes works in plaster, clay,

("Young Girl with Flowers in her Hat")

bronze,

( "Bellona")

and marble.  

("The Tempest")

("The Kiss")

The museum also exhibits some of his collections of antique sculptures .  Apparently, he loved collecting Roman, Greek and Asian art, and often was influenced by what had gone before.

Included in the exhibition are some of Rodin's paintings, like "Male Nude Seen from Behind" and this one:

(Golden Twilight)

But the museum also has the works of other artists associated with Rodin.  These include Camille Claudet, Van Gogh' s "Pere Tanguy" , Laurens, who painted this picture, "August Rodin with a Turban", 

Renoir, Maillol and Munch who is represented by "Rodin's Thinker".  He also did collaborations.

This last is a collaboration with Jean Clos, "Camille Claudet with a Bonnet"

As well as the works in the Museum, there are more sculptures dotted around the gardens, which, by the way are beautiful and very relaxing.

This is the famous "The Thinker"

and the garden contains one of the many portraits he did of Balzac as well as the "Monument to the Burghers of Calais".

After that, we wandered across the road to see Les Invalides, which includes Napoleon 1's tomb, the Musee de l'Armee, a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans. We didn't go in, but admired the gardens and the wide avenues leading up to it.

When we returned to Montparnasse, we discovered that the market now contained artists, selling their work to the public.  Some of it was very good indeed.

PS.. The internet is so weak here, I cant download pictures very well.  I'll try to add them at a later date