Invalides, and in the halls of the Grand Palais. The isolated pavilions, reserved for associations of artists, craftsmen, and manufacturers had to represent village and countryside homes, hotel businesses, schools, and even churches and town halls. In short, all the framework of contemporary life could be found here. Shops marked the importance attached to urban art and offered the possibility of presenting window-dressings, as well as displays, spanning one or more units. The galleries, particularly for architecture and furniture, allowed compositions connected to the Court of Trades, which were managed by the theatre and the library. They were meant to constitute the largest part of the Exhibition. At last, the interior installations of the Grand Palais were systematically categorised.
The Exhibition aroused new activity long in advance, as a consequence of the emulation it caused among artists and manufacturers. The creator’s efforts were significantly encouraged by groups of ‘modern’ minds, which grew in number and made engaging and effective propaganda. Foreign exhibitors attach no less importance than the hosts to an opportunity that would allow most countries to compare their efforts and enrich their designs. Thus, the frame of mind of the exhibition was not a centralising narrow-mindedness, a formal modernism of the time. Far from imposing rigid and concrete specifications of style, the Exhibition of 1925 became apparent as an overview intended to reveal the tendencies in contemporary art, and to showcase their first achievements. The only stipulation was for it to be an ‘original production’, appropriate to the needs, universal or local, of the time. This phrase could be used to refer to any previous century, which may have only been said to be great because it was thought to be innovatory.
Antiquity
1. Anonymous. Bee-shaped pendant, Royal Necropolis, Malia, 1700–1600 BCE. Gold. Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Heraklion (Crete). Greek Antiquity.
It is widely accepted that the first traces of civilisation and, by extension, the first features of characteristic styles, are to be found in Egypt. The day when man determined that one substance was more precious than another, he worked on it as on a labour of love and devoted it to the embellishment of temples which he reared to his gods, or the adornment of his own person. All written records unite in proving this, Holy Scripture, Homeric poems, and even the oldest narratives of the Far East. Museums have also confirmed the fact and bear authentic testimony to this innate sentiment of luxury inherent in all people of the earth. Who has not stood astonished before the perfection of the Greek jewels displayed in the Louvre or before the first attempts of unknown people of the Americas, as barbaric and almost similar to those of Asia Minor? Is it not well-known that, among ourselves the artistic forms given to the precious metals were but a provisional garb intended to impart an agreeable appearance to the portable wealth of our ancestors? Capital accumulated in this shape was readily moveable, and, alas still more readily alienable. War, emigration, casual wants, all brought gold and silver to the smelting-pot, which had erewhile been proudly displayed in vases, furniture, and jewellery. Nor is it simply ancient times which had to undergo such vicissitudes of which we have spoken. There is not an epoch in history which has not had its hecatombs of works of art whenever the pressure of public requirements made itself sensibly felt.
Styles emerge from a mix of ideas and take on the universal cloak of timeless beauty. Whether they are cheerful or solemn depends on contemporary fashions and events as the style will pick and choose from preceding styles to satisfy current whims. Vanity, the early signs of which we discussed when describing the prehistoric cavewoman in her necklaces of coloured stones, animal teeth, and perforated shells, will now come into its own as not only the Egyptians and Assyrians, but the Hebrews and peoples throughout Asia perfected the goldsmith’s arts. Egyptian tombs have yielded perfectly-chased pectorals, scarab necklaces, symbolic fish, lotus flowers, and so on. However, these cannot compete with Greek jewellery.
The goldsmith’s trade was a school which produced masters. Lysippos hammered metal before he became sculptor; Alexander, third son of Perseus, king of Macedon, did not think it disparaging to make chasings in gold and silver. The large votive vase in the temple of Minerva has immortalised the name of Aristotle of Hiton. Calumis, sculptor as he was, used to embellish silver vases with bas-reliefs, which, in the days of Nero, were, at Rome and among the Gauls, an article of luxury for the rich and a subject of emulation for artists. However, magnificent works, crowns, vases, and jewellery, have honoured our museums and suffice to prove that the songs of Homer and the descriptions of Pliny were not exaggerated.
The Greeks excelled in the working of metal, which they decorated with repoussé work and did not solder, while the Egyptians were the masters of pictorial representation in jewellery.
However, we are more familiar with Roman and Etruscan gold work thanks to the excavations of the necropolis of Etruria and particularly those carried out in the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Amongst other objects, the clips, earrings, hooks, mirrors, and brooches recovered there are admirable for their shape, taste, and beauty. The Romans, in fact, loved gold and precious stones and brought a delicate good taste to their jewellery which Eastern peoples, who were more preoccupied with originality than with the aesthetic aspects of their art, lacked. The Byzantine emperors, too, would further emphasise luxury and their strange heavy jewellery is often accused of lacking taste. However, Byzantium at least has the excuse of achieving real luxury and the magnificent abundance it expresses perhaps makes amends for other deficiencies. It is “a dazzling jumble of enamels, cameos, niellos, pearls, garnets, sapphires, and gold and silver indented work”. (Théophile Gautier.) The Gauls and Franks seem to have been fond of the necklaces and rings made of precious metals of which so many examples have been found in their tombs. Gallo-Roman gold and silver smiths have left us many examples of bracelets and armbands in the shape of coiled snakes, necklaces, badges, brooches, and so on. Generally speaking, the style of these pieces is closely aligned with the building style and decoration of the period. We suggested earlier that a piece of furniture is a miniature architectural monument. Similarly, a piece of jewellery is a miniature monument in gold or silver. We will recognise the designs used from the pediments of temples or the columns of the time and the shape from one or other detail of a building or the curve of a typical amphora.
The list of Egyptian furniture includes chests, pedestal tables, armchairs, stools and tables which are relatively similar in shape to our own. They are decorated with metals, ivory, mother-of-pearl, and precious woods. They have brightly-coloured coverings and there are cushions on the armchairs and stools. The beds have a kind of bed base made of strips of fibres or leather which show that comfort was a consideration. The chests take the form of miniature dwellings or temples. In summary, the Egyptian style is characterised by the hieratical, monumental nature of its statuary, by its columns and capitals (palm tree or lotus), by its sphinx, by the colossi with the heads of the pharaohs and its animal-headed gods, by its obelisk and by its pyramids, by its decoratively-deployed hieroglyphs, and finally by the huge size of its buildings. Furthermore, the widely-used decorative sacred scarab motif should not be forgotten.
The weaving of textiles dates from the earliest ages of the world, and even now we are struck with amazement at the perfection of the works produced by the hands of the ancient Egyptian craftsmen. With the primitive looms and materials spun by hand, they obtained wonderful fabrics. We learn, from the description of yarn found in the Louvre, about the fine long pile and fringed material, called fimbria and the transparent fabric styled by the Latins, nebula linea, which we will again meet with in the East at Mossoul, whence it reaches us under the name of muslin.
Whether from a civil or religious point of view, the most ancient decoration of buildings and interiors consists of hangings, the accompaniment of statues, paintings, and mosaics. However far we go back into antiquity, we can trace their use; from the heroic ages, the Phrygian and Grecian women succeeded in representing flowers and human figures, not only by means of embroidery, but in the elegant fabric itself. The young girls summoned to take part in the Panathenaic procession embroidered beforehand the veil or peplum of Minerva, an enormous hanging which was used to cover the roofless area in the temple of the goddess.
