Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World's Fairs, 1851—1939

by Paul Greenhalgh

The Great Exhibition of 1851 transformed everyone's vision of what an exhibition might be. The first truly international event of its kind, it was an encyclopedic attempt to sum up the progress of the world so far. But it was not simply a cultural manifestation aiming to educate and enlighten: it also had very particular social and political motives. At the core of the Exhibition was the imperial idea, that Europe in general and Britain in particular led and controlled the world. After 1851, other Western nations staged their own exhibitions, these frequently larger and more flamboyant than the British prototype. Amongst these, the Expositions Universelles held in France and the World's Fairs held in America were the most impressive. Into the twentieth century the scale and opulence of the exhibitions reached a pitch which now defies imagination. Socio-political motives often dominated, the objects on display conveying a plethora of coded messages to their massive audiences. Ephemeral Vistas attempts to understand these messages, returning the exhibitions as far as possible to their original historical contexts. Many exhibitions which have fallen into obscurity are reassessed, and new material on well know events is presented. Much of this is of interest not only to art and design historians, but also to anthropologists, sociologists, social and political historians, and all those interested in popular culture. In a wider sense, the book is of general interest for the way it reveals exhibitions as creators of lasting monuments. Cities were transformed to accommodate exhibitions, and in many instances features remain to mark the places where these extraordinary events took place.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Art

257 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 1988

About the author

Paul Greenhalgh is Head of Research at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He is an expert on the Art Nouveau period and a leading scholar in the field of decorative arts.

Reviews

[Tamara]

So these were like the Olympics, but even bigger, (several early Olympics were actually sideshows in World Fairs. So was the Second Internationale, at one point.) But instead of showing off just their athletes, countries would come on down and show ALL OF THEIR STUFF. ALL of it. Cheese, chairs, art, technology, 'whistles made out of pig's tails', New Zealand, New Zealanders...whatever. To me is sounds like a completely mad pileup of random stuff, like the garage sale of the universe, but evidently it kind of made sense to them? Not just made sense, but was a concerted effort to shape the image of the world (in their own imperialist image, naturally.) The most interesting bits are the way this image would get subverted, the street finding it's own uses for, er, streets - like the "Cairo Souk" bit, which should have been a model staffed by obesquieous natives, but took on an actual seedy, commercial life of it's own.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative (though it relies almost exclusively on English sources and according to the American Historical Review contains various errors in basic facts?) but the writing is not great — both passive writing and anthropomorphizing of the kind historians should avoid. "Only the remnants of the previous exhibition, the Eiffel tower and the Galerie des Machines, appeared to have any confidence in themselves" (156) — since when do buildings have self-confidence anyway? What is this even supposed to mean? When he says "France" exhibited such-and-such I can assume he means the French government, but I really am not sure what actual agent is being represented by the Eiffel Tower in this sentence. Also, abundant moralizing (which is sometimes contradictory as well). Still, as an overview of the exhibition tradition it's a not a bad starting point.

[Iben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Straightforward work on the World's Fairs of the 19th century. A good place to start, but while it brings them up, the book fails to really sink it's teeth into the meatiest issues.