Musée des Beaux-Arts (Fine Arts Museum)

Musée des Beaux-Arts (Fine Arts Museum) Review

In the elegant 17th-century Palais St-Pierre, formerly a Benedictine abbey, this museum houses one of France's largest art collections after that of the Louvre. Byzantine ivories, Etruscan statues, Egyptian artifacts, and top-notch sculptures (most notably Rodin's Walker) are all on display; however, paintings remain the highlight. Amid old master, Impressionist, and modern paintings are works by the tight-knit Lyon School, characterized by exquisitely rendered flowers and overbearing religious sentimentality. Note Louis Janmot's Poem of the Soul, immaculately painted visions that are by turns heavenly, hellish, and downright spooky. A recent legacy has endowed the museum with a new trove of treasures including works by Manet, Monet, Degas, Bacon, Braque, and Picasso.