Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille

This morning we visited Lille Métropole Museum of Modern Art and viewed the current exhibition, The Magical City. This proposes to be an exploration of different urban myths of the inter-war years, when the city seems to have bocome the focus of all the western world's phantom and fears.

After lunch we headed back into the city to visit the Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille. Lille's Fine Arts Museum is a giant - only the Louvre tops it for size among France's museums, and its collection is suitably illustrious. It was instituted in 1801 as part of Napoleon's push to bring art to the masses. It's housed in a splendid Belle Époque building dating from the late 1890s.

This is a photograph of one of the major staircases within the museum. I like the shape and form created from this angle.