Lesson Learned

« previous article | next article »

DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_article_1246
dc.title	Lesson Learned. American Art at the Paris World’s Fair of 1867
dc.contributor.author	Colombari Lucia
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing
dc.type	Research Article
dc.language.iso	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/mdccc-1800/2017/1numero-monografico/lesson-learned/
dc.description.abstract	Displaying the most impressive recent inventions at the World’s Fair of 1867 in Paris, the United States projected a strong idea of a modern country. The board responsible for selecting art works was equally ambitious. Even though the Americans sent their best art to France with the specific goal of showing that their art was as great as their industrial achievements, the exhibition must be considered a complete failure on this ground. Most of the paintings, compared to the European examples, were behind current movements and altogether unimpressive. While American artists did not achieve the recognition they had hoped for, this essay investigates the reasons why the World’s Fair was a fundamental turning point for American art. The article also analyzes how the failures at the Paris event gave American artists a vision for improvement, illustrating that in the decades that followed many factors combined to elevate the quality of their works.
dc.relation.ispartof	MDCCC 1800
dc.relation.ispartof	Vol. 6 \| July 2017
dc.issued	2017-07-31
dc.dateAccepted	2017-04-28
dc.dateSubmitted	2017-02-12
dc.identifier.issn
dc.identifier.eissn	2280-8841
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.identifier.doi	10.14277/2280-8841/MDCCC-6-17-8
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	American Art
dc.subject	American Art
dc.subject	American Artists
dc.subject	American Artists
dc.subject	Art Exhibition
dc.subject	Art Exhibition
dc.subject	Paris 1867
dc.subject	Paris 1867
dc.subject	World’s Fair
dc.subject	World’s Fair

Research Article
open access peer reviewed

Lesson Learned

American Art at the Paris World’s Fair of 1867

Lucia Colombari University of Virginia, USA

VIEW PDF DOWNLOAD PDF

abstract

Displaying the most impressive recent inventions at the World’s Fair of 1867 in Paris, the United States projected a strong idea of a modern country. The board responsible for selecting art works was equally ambitious. Even though the Americans sent their best art to France with the specific goal of showing that their art was as great as their industrial achievements, the exhibition must be considered a complete failure on this ground. Most of the paintings, compared to the European examples, were behind current movements and altogether unimpressive. While American artists did not achieve the recognition they had hoped for, this essay investigates the reasons why the World’s Fair was a fundamental turning point for American art. The article also analyzes how the failures at the Paris event gave American artists a vision for improvement, illustrating that in the decades that followed many factors combined to elevate the quality of their works.

Published

July 31, 2017

Accepted

April 28, 2017

Submitted

Feb. 12, 2017

Language

Keywords: American Artists • World’s Fair • Art Exhibition • American Art • Paris 1867

permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/2280-8841/MDCCC-6-17-8

Copyright: © 2017 Lucia Colombari. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

References to this chapter

How to cite