Today.... if I lived in Paris, France... I would visit the Musee D'Orsay. While I love the Louvre, and the Orangerie is my favourite gallery in Paris, I haven't visited the Musee D'Orsay since 1994. I have no idea why we didn't go there in 2006. My son would have loved it, since it was originally a train station!

If I visited the Musee D'Orsay today, I would make a beeline for the Manet's Olympia (pictured above, picture borrowed from the Musee D'Orsay website - what an amazing site - almost as good as being there....)

Today there is a concert of Brahms, Mendlesohn and Reger to complement an exhibition of Gerome's paintings. It's amazing to think that the tide turned so dramatically against the academic painters as soon as the art establishment and the wider community realised that the Impressionists et al were the future....interesting!

MUSEE D'ORSAY website --- http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/visits/welcome.html

I read Ross King's THE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS recently and the last chapter talks about the rejection of the academic art in favour of the avant garde. Perhaps now the art community and art critics are so prepared to accept anything as art...sure an upturned urinal is art...sure a shark in a tank is art....sure an unmade bed is art....because they are dead scared of turning their noses up at the next Manet (will there ever be another?) that EVERYTHING is the next big thing. Incidentally I read Tracey Emin's book 'Strangeland' recently and now I understand her work a whole lot better,,, especially the 'My Bed' installation that so impressed the Tate judges http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/history/1999.shtm

does art always have to be so controversial??