Lippincotts Magazine, March 1876 | Page 9

so
far as the effect of the mass went. It needed a facade as badly as does a
confectioner's plum-cake. Had the vitreous mass been dumped upon the
Champs de Mars from the clouds in a viscous state like the Alpine
_mers de glace_, it would have assumed much such a thick disk-like
shape as it actually wore. Then decorate it with some spun-sugar
pinnacles and some flags of silver paper, and the confiseur stood
confessed. Nevertheless, motive was there. Catch anything French
without it.
[Illustration: FLORENCE EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1861]

The pavilion consisted of seven concentric ovals, the arcs and their
radii effecting the duplicate division of objects and countries. Outside,
under the eaves and in the surrounding area, the peoples were
encamped around their possessions. The gastric fluid being the
universal solvent, the festive board was assigned the position nearest
the building, a continuous shed protecting the restaurants of all nations,
each with its proper specialty in the way of viands and service.
Necessarily, there was in the carrying out of the latter idea a good deal
of the sham and theatrical. But that gave the thing more zest, and the
saloons were by no means the least effective feature of the appliances
for introducing the races to each other. Tired of the tender intercourse
of chopsticks, forks and fingers, they could exchange visits in their
drawing-rooms; most of the known styles of dwelling-place, if we
except the snow-huts of the Esquimaux, the burrows of the
Kamtchadales and the boats of Canton, having representatives.
The United States government took particular interest in this exposition,
and published a long and detailed report made by its commissioners.
Our contributions were not worthy of the country, and showed but little
novelty. Implements of farming and of war, pianos, sewing-machines
and locomotives attracted chief attention. The pianos were
"unreservedly praised." The wines, California having come to the
rescue, were pronounced an improvement on previous specimens. The
only trait of our engines that was admired or borrowed appears to have
been that which had least to do with the organism of the machine--the
cab. In cars our ideas have fruited better, and Pullman and
Westinghouse have gained a firm foothold in England, with whose
endorsement their way is open across the Channel. In the arts we are
credited with seventy-five pictures, against a hundred and twenty-three
from England and six hundred and fifty-two from France.
[Illustration: PARIS EXPOSITION BUILDING AND GROUNDS,
1867.]
Here France was at home, and felt it. The works of Dubray, Triquetti,
Yvon, Giraud, Gérôme, Dubufe, Toulmouche, Courbet, Troyon, Rosa
Bonheur and others exhibited the route toward the naturalistic taken by
her modern school, so different from that pursued by the
Pre-Raphaelites in England. The Düsseldorf school has been drawn into
the same path--France's one conquest from Prussia, who made at the

same time a stout struggle in defence of the classic manner through
Kaulbach. The drawings and paintings of art-students maintained by
the French government in Italy attested an enlightened liberality other
governments, general or local, would do well to imitate. The cost of
supporting a few score of pupils in Rome could in no way be better
bestowed for the promotion of commerce, manufactures and education.
Taste has unquestionably a high economic value. But this is only one of
France's ways of recognizing the fact. The government École des
Beaux Arts at Paris contained, in 1875, a hundred and seventy-two
students of architecture, a hundred and eighty-three of painting, forty of
sculpture and two hundred and fifty of engraving.
As a corollary to this assiduous culture, French art collectively was at
the exposition "first, and the rest nowhere." The old works sent by Italy
stood by themselves; and in mosaic, Salviati's glass, and statuary led by
Vela's _Last Moments of Napoleon_, the modern studios of that
country ranked in the front. Prussia had some heliographic maps, then a
new thing, and chromos, also in the bud; Austria and England, fine
architectural drawings; and Eastlake, Stanfield, Landseer, Frith and
Faed crossed pencils with the French. But nothing modern of the kind
could stand by the porcelain of Sèvres, the glass of St. Louis and
Baccarat, the bronzes of other French producers, the vast collection of
drawings of ancient and mediaeval monuments and architecture in
France, her book-binding and illustration by Bida and Doré, her jewelry
and her art-manufactures as a whole. In carriages she had obviously
studied the turnouts of American workshops to advantage.
In agricultural machinery all civilized exhibitors had gone to school to
our artisans.
One of our specialties, a postal-car, appeared under the Prussian flag.
So did things more legitimately the property of the nascent empire. The
Krupp gun cast its substance, as well as its shadow, before. A
locomotive destined for India made Bull rub his eyes. Chemicals