Built in 1900, the beautiful Orsay train station which was the terminus for the railways of southwestern France until 1939 has been spectacularly renovated from 1977 to 1986 to host the Orsay Museum.
Musée d'Orsay has been opened to the public in 1986 in order to show the artistic creation of the western world from 1848 to 1914. It is famous for its famous impressionists collections. In the 1870, the "Impressionism" was a French "Avant-garde" painters group rejected by the official academy. The impressionists (Cézanne, Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Seurat, Gauguin and Van Gogh). painted ordinary life and people on the spot and in the open air.
They rejected historical and mythological subjects. They used light colors. Above all, they are famous for having departed from the tradition of painting "reality". They instead used color spots and strokes to suggest their "impression" of the reality that only reveals itself from the distance.
Besides painting, sculpture, graphic arts and decorative arts, the museum has also established collections of furniture, architecture and photography.