Paris 1889

Paris 1889: American Artists at the Universal Exposition by Annette Blaugrund

Review by: Piri Halasz
Art Journal, Vol. 49, No. 3, Computers and Art: Issues of Content (Autumn, 1990), pp. 306-
309
Published by: College Art Association
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Paris1889
Annette Blaugrund, Paris 1889: Ameri- the exhibitionof oil paintingssent to Paris works that faithfully reflected the tastes
can Artists at the Universal Exposition, in 1889 by the United States. The original and styles of currentEuropeanpainting,
with essays by AnnetteBlaugrund,Albert exhibitionwas staged in the great Galerie which they seem to have interpretedpri-
Boime, D. Dodge Thompson,H. Barbara des Beaux-Arts, which housed most marily as the kind of work shown at the
Weinberg,and RichardGuy Wilson. Phil- (though not all) of the art exhibitions (as Paris Salons, or producedin Holland by
adelphia: PennsylvaniaAcademy of the opposed to the machinery exhibits; the the Hague School.
Fine Arts, in association with Harry N. shows of fabrics, fashions, and furnish- As a result, there is no work by Albert
Abrams, New York, 1989. 304 pp., 100 ings; the agricultural,scientific, and edu- PinkhamRyderin this exhibition(noteven
color ills., 233 black-and-white.$49.95; cational exhibits; architecture; and so a mentionof him in the catalogue-he was
$29.95 paper forth). too faroutsidethe artisticestablishmentto
Exhibition schedule: Chrysler Museum, Guest curatorAnnette Blaugrund,who be even considered).There is no Winslow
has done an extraordinarydetectivejob in Homer painting. Homer exhibited one
Norfolk, Virginia,September29-Decem-
ber 17, 1989;PennsylvaniaAcademyof the roundingup so manyof the paintingsorig- grisaille in the drawings section, but the
Fine Arts, Philadelphia,February2-April inally shown, was able to locate (and ex- presentexhibition attemptsto reconstruct
15, 1990; Memphis Brooks Museum of hibit) 90 of the 336 oils originally put on only the oil paintings section; the cata-
Art, Memphis,Tennessee,May6-July 15,
view. The Pennsylvania Academy, de- logue explains that Homersubmittedonly
signed in the VictorianRomanesquestyle the grisaille to thejuryandsuggeststhathe
1990
by FrankH. Furnessandoriginallyopened was not doing much paintingin the 1880s,
in 1876, could hardly have been a more but in fact the rules of submission stated
appropriateplace to show off these paint- only that paintings must have been done
ings, together with the memorabiliathat since May 1, 1878.
vividly re-createdtheiroriginalsetting. In ThomasEakinswas representedin 1889
he Universal Exposition at Paris in reconstructingthe event, one key element by threepictures,of which the currentex-
1889 must have been quite a sight. of the original plan was recapitulated: hibition includes two-a fine but rather
This wasthe one forwhich the Eiffel Tower American artists resident in the United small portrait, The Veteran,and a scene
hadbeen erected,to soar986 feet abovethe States were put in a separategallery from titled Negro Boy Dancing. Unfortunately,
228-acre fairground. More than forty the Americanexpatriates,and the expatri- the first picture would have been pretty
countries and their colonies were repre- ates were far largerin number. well lost amidthe big Salon machinesthat
sented, from Russia, Great Britain, and While the pictures were not skied, as made up the bulk of the show, and the
Austro-Hungaryto Japan,Peru,New Zeal- was done in the original installation,nev- second, alas, presents a racial stereo-
and, Argentina,and Siam. Franceherself ertheless the ornate, spacious rooms of type-that of the happy, dancing darky.
contributedthe most, building not only the PennsylvaniaAcademy and the sky- This subject has not worn well with the
dozens of structuresto house the displays, lights-admitting natural light-proved passage of time. FredericRemingtonsent
but also restaurants,shops, theaters, and the ideal setting for the works on display. only one painting,now lost (the 1989exhi-
other facilities to make the whole event Among other things, this lighting clearly bitionincludesan engravingof it); the sub-
botheducationalandpleasurableforthe 32 demonstratedhow inaccuratethe color re- ject, a handfulof soldiers sitting atop the
million fairgoers (including150,000 from productionsin the catalogueare:generally arrow-riddledcorpses of their ponies and
the U.S.). photographedin artificiallight, the plates awaitingexecution by hordes of invading
The investmentappearsto havepaidoff. almost always make the pictures appear Indians, is thoroughlydepressing. It may
The estimated cost of the Exposition to too warm and golden. As a result, these haveflatteredParisiansto thinkof the Wild
France was $8.3 million, yet its receipts reproductionslook much more like Im- West as a place where white men got
(based on daytime admissions charges of pressionist paintings of the same period slaughteredby savages,butthatwas hardly
one franc,or 20 cents, with highercharges thanthe real picturesdo. the whole story, or even a representative
for evenings and special events) came to Admittedly,the picturesin "Paris1889" slice of it.
$9.9 million. In addition,it was estimated were, in the judgment of history,not the There were some fine picturesby Wil-
that more than 60,000 exhibitors spent best America was producingat that time. liam Merritt Chase, including a partic-
$600 per exhibit, nearlyall of it in France, Blaugrund'silluminatingcatalogue essay ularlyhandsomescene in a park-but the
for another$36 million. Finally,the popu- explains just how the exhibition was park scene is anotherone of those small
lationof Parisincreasedby 200,000 people selected-with two juries, one in the U.S. pictures that was probably lost amid the
duringthe whole 180 daysthatthe Exposi- and anotherin Europefor the expatriates. bigger canvases. Therewas a nice George
tion was open, and on the assumptionthat The U.S.-based jury, in particular,was Inness, but one that the artist had to be
they spent at least $6 a day for board, carefullychosen to include both the more forced into exhibiting (he didn't want to
lodging, and cab hire, plus another$3 for conservativeand moreprogressiveorgani- participateat all, but the organizersbor-
amusements, operas, theaters, meals at zations in the artisticcommunity,and the roweda pictureby him fromthe American
restaurants,and excursionsin the vicinity Europe-basedjury seems to have been Art Association). MaryCassattis not rep-
of Paris, these visitors pumped a total of comparably sophisticated-and yet, and resented(the cataloguesays she was recu-
$324 million into the local economy.1 yet. . . peratingfroma ridingaccident,butas with
The closest thing to going back a hun- Bothjuries appearto havebeen terrified Homer, she could have sent earlierwork,
dred years in a time capsule to view this of sending art that might have appeared had she been so inclined).
stupendousevent is having visited "Paris "provincial," which had been the criti- JamesMcNeill Whistleroriginallysub-
1889" at the PennsylvaniaAcademyof the cism leveledat the Americansectionof the mitted one oil and twenty-sevenetchings;
Fine Arts. The 1989 exhibition, staged in 1867 Paris Exposition. Both juries, espe- when the jury rejectedten of the etchings,
honor of the bicentennial of the French cially the one in Europe,were determined the artistwithdrewin a huff and woundup
Revolution, was designed to reconstruct to appear"cosmopolitan"-e.g., to send exhibitingtwo oils and nine etchings with

306 Art Journal

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 Figure 1 RobertHattonMonks, A GrayDay, 1880s, oil on canvas, 51/2 x 91/
inches. Collection of Allen P. Crawford.

the British contingent at the Exposition bly pretty and fashionably vacuous lady, duced into the landscapes(and areusually
(one of the oils, Arrangementin Black, comparedwith which Sargentgavehis Por- paintedwith finished, finicky detail-the
#7, was included at the Pennsylvania trait of Mrs. EdwardD. Boit much more famous "licked surface"of the Academy).
Academy-an excellent picture, but not brio and endowedhis sitterwith a pouter- Almost invariably,these figures are too
part of the original U.S. show). Albert pigeon plumpness, which, though not the sweet and prettyto appearplausible. The
Bierstadt'sentry was rejected by the jury acme of fashion, has the delightfulring of picturesareparticularlycloying when reli-
(he was considered old-fashioned). Also truth. Also shown in Paris was Sargent's gious personages (complete with gilded
not to be seen, for one reason or another, memorableportraitof the Boit children, halos) are introduced(as Bastien-Lepage
were Frank Duveneck, Frederick E. but its currentcondition forbadeits being haddone withhis well-knownJoanofArc).
Church,and ThomasMoran. lent to "Paris1889." The result-for example,in GeorgeHitch-
Under the circumstances,one might be One Frenchartistincludedin the current cock's Annunciation-is a smarmyinsin-
inclined to wonderwhat was left to make exhibition, Jules Bastien-Lepage,was not cerity that illustrates,betterthan any anti-
up the show.The answeris, both a number at the original Paris Exposition of 1889 clerical tract could, how hackneyed the
of paintings of genuine merit and a lot becausehe haddied five yearsearlier.Still, conventional pieties of Roman Catholi-
more that are truly fascinating and illu- his influence is manifest in many of the cism had become and how drasticallyin
minatingbecause they illustrateso vividly Americanpaintings. Bastien-Lepage'sin- need of revivalthe Churchitself stood at
what fashionableFranco-Americanpaint- novation was to introduce the freer and thatpoint in time.
ing in the 1880s reallylooked like. Most of morerelaxedImpressionistbrushworkinto
the picturesin the Americansection must Salon painting,wherehe used it to portray here were no paintings by any of the
have been very similar to those of the nature in a spectrum heavily laced with Impressionistsin the Frenchsection of
Frenchsection, the presidentof whose jury grays, browns, blacks, and dankviridians the Exposition, thoughClaudeMonet was
was that grand old pompier Jean-Louis- (for grass and foliage). This was evidently given a mammothretrospectiveat the Gal-
Ernest Meissonier (William Adolphe considered more attractive by the aca- erie Georges Petitin June 1889, and Cam-
Bouguereauwas vice-president).To under- demic establishment,but we in posterity ille Pissarrowas at least representedin the
line the similarities,the currentexhibition have gotten so used to the Impressionist historical survey of Frenchpainting from
thoughtfully includes thirteen French palette (and, in addition,to color photog- 1789 to 1889 at the Exposition that com-
paintings by some of the darlings of the raphy, which admits no black in nature plementedthe contemporaryFrenchselec-
establishment-many of these paintersdi- either) that the cooler, grayerSalon color tion. The American section, as seen in
rected atelierswhereAmericanartistshad scheme is now apt to appearratherfaded "Paris 1889," did include at least two
studied. and musty. small Impressionistpaintings, as well as a
In at least one case, the American stu- Plenty of pictures in "Paris 1889" fol- pictureby TheodoreRobinson that is not
dent stands up favorablyby comparison low Bastien-Lepage'sexample, and on oc- Impressionistin mannerbut is the handi-
with his maitre. JohnSinger Sargentstud- casion they still manage to come off work of an artistwho, by the time of the
ied with Emile Carolus-Duran,and yet the commendably-for example, in Eugene exhibition, had begun to paint in an Im-
Sargent paintings in the Paris Exposition LawrenceVail'sFishingHarborthe brush- pressioniststyle. The betterof the two Im-
would have put Carolus-Duran in the work is very well done, and the subject- pressionist pictures is A Gray Day, by
shade, to judge from the example by the boats, sky, and water-presents few prob- RobertHattonMonks (fig. 1). It is small,
Frenchmanincluded at the Pennsylvania lems. Where the Bastien-Lepageformula yet decisively done, with graceful ara-
Academy.This is a portraitof an implausi- runs into troubleis when figuresare intro- besques for the tree trunksand a subtleyet

Fall 1990 307

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Figure 2 TheodoreRobinson, TheForge, 1886, oil on canvas, Figure 3 WalterGay, The Weaver,1886, oil on canvas,
60 x 50 inches. Berry-HillGalleries, New York. 593/4 x 46?4 inches. Museumof Fine Arts, Boston.

lively color scheme.The otherImpression- or cloudy-daywinter scenes (as done by servablein the religiouspictures(butrela-
ist picture,by EdwardHenryPotthast,rep- JohnH. Twachtman). tively absentfrom Millet). In WalterMac-
resents a young Breton girl seated in sun- In any event, TheodoreRobinson, best Ewen'sReturningfrom Work,for example,
light; all the colors are too bright and known as an American Impressionist, is we see a pretty, charming peasant lassie
artificial, even for an Impressionist representedby a wonderfulpicturecalled bending over perhapsto adjusther stock-
picture-they look like ribboncandy. The Forge (fig. 2). While the brushwork ing, and gazing romantically back at a
One reason why AmericanImpression- here is quitefree, this is not an Impression- healthy,stalwartpeasantboy. It is all too
ists like Potthasthad such difficultyadapt- ist picture,for the dominanttones arerela- saccharinand idyllic, and this is not the
ing the style to theirAmericanvision may tively somber pinks and beiges and way peasantswere in the 1880s-not even
have been that Americanlight is a lot yel- browns.Whatmakesit standout, however, in Holland, where MacEwen worked.
lowerandbrighterthanFrenchlight (espe- is the honesty with which Robinson pre- Thousands of people were emigrating to
cially the light of the north of France, sents his subject-a child laborer,about the cities-even a factoryjob and a home
where Monet worked).Skies in the U.S., whom it would havebeen easy to wax hor- in the slums were preferableto life on the
with a more southerly latitude than En- tatory. Robinson withstood the impulse, farm. Vincentvan Gogh caught the nasty,
gland or France, are so blue they can al- showing the child as neither lovelier nor brutish reality of that life in The Potato
most seem green to somebodywho's been uglier than he might have been-and al- Eaters (1885). Thereis little of thatreality
living in northernEuropefor a prolonged lowing the viewerto come to his or herown in "Paris 1889," though WalterGay did
period(the English-bornMalcolmMorley conclusion about the pathos of the scene capturea bit of it with The Weaver(fig. 3).
caught this vivid blue of American skies displayed. Gay's tonalities are again the grays and
very ingeniously in his picture-postcard Robinson'sapproachis Impressionistin browns so dear to the Salon, but at least
paintings of ocean liners in the 1960s). spirit and lives up to Matthew Arnold's they seem appropriatefor the threadbare
Peopleraisedin NorthAmericaapparently ideal-to see life steadily, and to see it setting and the aged figure of the weaver.
get used to thinking in terms of this light whole. Too many other artists in "Paris Still, on the whole, the paintingsof peas-
effect, and when the American Impres- 1889" did not do this: instead, they edi- ants andotherworking-classpeople in this
sionists triedto paintlike Monet, I suspect torialized,selecting theirsubjectsandcos- exhibition seem to be based on the nos-
they ran into trouble for this reason. The meticizingthem accordingto popularcon- talgic assumption that life "close to the
American Impressionist paintings that temporaryattitudes (howevererroneous). earth"is more spirituallyrewarding-and
were to come off best are those where this Withthe many picturesostensibly devoted a fondhope thatpoorpeople actuallyenjoy
crucial problem of a different light is to peasant life (and deriving originally, I being poor.
avoided,eitherby dealing with urbansub- should think, from Jean-FrancoisMillet), A number of the pictures in "Paris
jects (like Childe Hassam'sflag paintings) we get the same sugarysentimentalityob- 1889" attemptto meet the Impressionists

308 Art Journal

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on their own ground, with scenes fromthe P" aris 1889" indicates that pictures of "Paris 1889" also enables us to see how
life and leisure of the bourgeoisie. Once exotic locales, originally popu- many extremely skillful painters of that
again, one is remindedhow much better larized by French and English painters, periodfell into the trapof tryingto paintby
the better-knownartistsof the period had had their charm for American painters, prevailingtaste. Armed with this knowl-
done the same thing. JuliusLeBlanc Stew- too. On at least one occasion, an American edge and experience,we may even be able
art, for instance,gives us TheHuntBall, a was fully equal to his Europeancounter- to ask ourselves, how many equally tal-
scene of dancing that invites comparison parts:EdwinLordWeeksdepictsan Indian ented artists are falling into similar traps
with Auguste Renoir'sMoulin de la Gal- holy man being rowed to his final resting today? -Piri Halasz
ette (1876). Yet, in Stewart'srenditionall place in TheLast Voyage:A Souvenirof the
the ladies have unbelievablewasp waists, Ganges (fig. 4); it is painted in a vivid, Piri Halasz is assistantprofessorof fine
high-style dresses right out of the ladies' factualstyle that wears well. For the most and applied arts at Bethany College, in
magazines, bee-stung lips, and rosy part, though, this exhibition is as impor- Bethany,WestVirginia.Her most recent
cheeks. In a word, they'reall exceedingly tant for what's not in it as for what is
article, "GrowingUp Progressive,"
beautiful(accordingto the standardsof the included. It introducesus, in exemplary
appearedin the Winter1990 issue of the
day); the men are all well built, have manner, to the vast morasses of stylish VirginiaQuarterlyReview.
ramrod-straightposture, and fill out their paintingin the eighties and lets us see how
red-jacketedcostumes like a cataloguefor easy it was to be misled by tryingto appear
a costume maker.This may be as the sub- "cosmopolitan."
jects of the painting would have wished In the process, we may be able to arrive
Note
themselves to look, but it is almost cer- at a fresh appreciationof the relatively
tainlynot as they were. Somehowthe beef- small numberof artists, both in America 1 Reportsof the UnitedStates Commissionersto the
ier bodies, casual slouches, and less for- and France,who were willing to buck the UniversalExpositionof 1889 at Paris (Washing-
mal festivity of the Renoir seem much tide and create work that wasn't fashion- ton, D.C.: GovernmentPrintingOffice, 1890), 1:
more believable. able then, but has survived better since. 33-37.

Figure 4 Edwin Lord Weeks, TheLast Voyage:Souvenirof the Ganges, ca. 1884, oil on canvas, 831/2X 1211/4inches. Collection
of StuartPivar,New York,on extendedloan to the Bayly Art Museum, Universityof Virginia,Charlottesville.

Fall 1990 309

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