A walk through Dreams & Reality

Title: Dreams and Reality: Masterpieces of Painting, Drawing and Photography from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Where?: National Museum of Singapore
Date: hmm..it's already over actually, last day on 5 Feb 2012 (oops)
What was I doing there?: Just looking (duh?)

It's not everyday that you get to look at (and take photos of) masterpieces up close and personal, not especially when you live in a tiny and very developed metropolitan city/country. Therefore, this exhibition is a major treat to many of us art farts (who are too poor to travel to Paris because we are budding, struggling and amateurish, well, you know, artists) who happen to be fans of impressionists such as Van Gogh, Manet, Gauguin and Cézanne.

So here's the deal, I thought it would be a good idea to visit when there is free admission (again, too poor, budding, struggling, blablabla, artist) to the Museum galleries and exhibitions. Boy, it was a huge mistake. The queue was so long, it reached level 1 (the exhibition was at basement 1).

Took about half an hour to get into the gallery and it was so crowded, it was almost impossible to stare into every painting. The audio guides were probably the most brilliant item of the whole exhibition, it was extremely user friendly and information was clear and specific. We still managed to snap some photos despite the rushing crowd pushing and shoving one another.

Sailboats by Claude Monet

The Card Players by Paul Cezanne

A Box at the Italians' Theatre by Eva Gonzales

Georges Clemenceau by Édouard Manet

How could we forget about the highlight of the exhibition (and you get all the 'kiasu'[will not lose] Singaporeans crowding around it making sure that every angle of the painting is shot)?

Starry Night over Rhone by Vincent Van Gogh

P/S: In fact, Musée d'Orsay in Paris is absolutely gorgeous and filled with beautiful masterpieces (OK! I was lying that I've got no money to get there). This exhibition in Singapore is indeed an eye opener especially when the pieces are curated and displayed aptly to the theme of "Dreams & Reality". 5 stars!

From Musée d'Orsay, Paris in December 2008