Bonjour, Paris! Great Art Museums in the City of Light   

Pining for Paris? Jonesing for a bite of good art (along with a fresh pain au chocolat)? Take an imaginative journey to the great museums of the French capital with art historian and Denver Art Museum educator Molly Medakovich. For centuries, Paris has been a cultural darling of Europe and an international center for art, and its famous museums house some of the most treasured masterpieces in the world. Explore the backstories of the Louvre’s Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa (how’d they get there, anyway?), Monet’s water lilies at the Musée de l’Orangerie, the dazzling “unicorn tapestries” at the Musée Cluny, and other must-see paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts housed in the city’s museums. Brush up on the long, fascinating history of the Louvre (did you know it served as the palace of the French kings for centuries?) and jump head-first into the once-shocking Centre Pompidou, a center for modern and contemporary art whose radical design was pejoratively described as an “oil refinery” by some critics when it debuted in the l970s. Discover some of the hidden gems on Paris’s map of museums with virtual visits to the Musée Rodin and its verdant gardens, the intimate environment of the Musée Jacquemart-André, a wonderland of 18th-century decorative arts and painting, or the new kid on the block in the Bois de Boulogne, La Fondation Louis Vuitton. In addition to savoring these art historical highlights, learn how Paris’s museums shed light on the rich, layered history of this dynamic city of art and culture.