The Weekly Baguette: Musée de Beaux-Arts, or Museum of Beautiful Art

On Sunday, Adam, Sarah and I visited the Musée de Beaux-Arts which is located across the street from the castle. I really didn’t know what to expect from this museum because the only thing I’d heard about it was that there was a special exhibit called, “The faces of Rodin.” The museum was really quite wonderful and its collection was a lot larger than I expected. The building itself is from the 16th century though it has undergone renovations and paintings since then.

The first piece of art was a statue in front of the museum; it clearly told me that this museum would be a treat. I couldn’t find a name (or rather, I didn’t bother to look for a name) so I’ve dubbed it “The Friendly Hydra.” As you can see, it’s very colorful; it immediately brightens one’s day. However, it definitely evokes the mythical with either the hydra or Medusa. A strange conglomerate of evil and colorful goodness, but that’s art for you.

The unique thing about this museum was that it featured contemporary art alongside older pieces. I’d never seen any other museums do that. For example, if there were twenty Dutch 18th century paintings in a room there would also be one contemporary piece. I thought this was a great way to showcase new pieces as well as old ones.

The Rodin exhibit was nice, but it also wasn’t what I expected. Rodin is the renowned sculptor of “The Thinker,” “The Kiss,” and “the Burghers of Calais” so I’d kind of expected some larger statues. Instead it was mostly busts of his contemporaries: Balzac, Georges Clemenceau, George Bernard Shaw, etc. The cool thing was that we got to see the process behind his artwork. Like the exhibit had many bronze busts, but it also had the plaster molds along with his sketches and drawings.

I have to say that my favorite room was the first room I visited. It contained primarily local artifacts from the 1st and 2nd centuries all the way up till the Renaissance. There were also some representations of Angers from the Middle Ages. Seriously, the history of this area is awesome--in every sense of the word.