A Three-Museum Pilgrimage Through Paris

There is a particular species of art-history enthusiast, the kind who swears they will behave sensibly in museums and then dissolves into scholarly hysteria at the sight of a 17th-century foot. I am that species. Paris, with its triumvirate of the Musée d’Orsay, Centre Pompidou and the Louvre, provided the ideal ecosystem for this entirely predictable intellectual unravelling.
At the d’Orsay, I began respectably enough. Degas’ Little Dancer, encased like a small, formidable saint, lifted her chin with that uncanny mixture of adolescent determination and mild condescension. I assumed a suitably serious stance, hands clasped, brow concentrated, while internally whispering, My goodness, that’s her. Then came Manet’s Olympia, who does not simply hang on a wall but enters into a staring contest with your entire sense of control. Confronting her is not interpretation; it is an encounter, and one she reliably wins.
By the time I reached the Pompidou, any trace of cool detachment had evaporated. Before Warhol’s repeated visions of Liz Taylor, I found myself contemplating the existential exhaustion of celebrity while also thinking, This is extremely glamorous. Pollock’s frenetic webs of paint invited the classic art-historical lean: arms folded, head tilted, posture reading both deeply engaged and slightly unwell.
Finally, at the Louvre, I made a final effort at restraint. It lasted forty seconds, ending the moment I stood in front of Caravaggio’s Flagellation of Christ. The chiaroscuro was so intense it felt geological, and there I was, photographing individual toes like an unhinged connoisseur of baroque anatomy. One cannot claim scholarly dignity while zooming in on feet, but I attempted it nonetheless.
Somewhere in the slow shuffle toward the Mona Lisa, I realised the true revelation of Paris was not the canon itself, but the rediscovery of the inner child who once worshipped it, earnest, overexcited, and entirely unmoved by my adult façade.