Exposition

“ It was fitting that such an achievement should be celebrated with an exposition of the arts, the resources, the productions, and the inventions of the civilised world. It was the vivid drama of international achievement. There were more than eighty thousand single exhibits, and groups of related exhibits, representing every phase of the highest efforts of man in contemporary progress. Industries and economics, inventions and discoveries, arts and sciences, education and ethics, met under the striking architectural beauty and in a scenic setting never before equalled in any land. ”

“ The visitor is at once stirred by the many manifestations of art, presented so harmoniously by the architect, the sculptor, the landscape architect, and the painter-decorator, and his attention is kept throughout by artistic appeals at every turn. It must be said in the very start that few will realize what is the simple truth - that artistically this is probably the most successful exposition ever created. ”

“ Suppose, for example, that an art gallery is devoted to an exhibition illustrative of some great historical subject, like the career of Napoleon I. The value of the pictorial side of the subject at once stands forth with great prominence, and one can realize the educational value of art in the exposition of history. ”

“ You have here an Exposition of which you may be justly proud. Nothing like it has ever been known in the annals of the world. Skilled workmen from all parts of the earth are here to aid in its success. ”

“ I think the great Exposition which you are soon to see may give you a liberalizing hint. There, the industry of all nations will be exhibited. All are bent, honestly and earnestly, upon one point,—the development of the human energies in that direction. ”

“ The useful and the beautiful, the products of skill and of industry, of the studio, the factory, the field and the mart, are here blended happily together, for the inspection of the curious and the study of the thoughtful. Such exhibitions are of the greatest value to all classes of the people. They instruct and inspire. They suggest new ideas. They diffuse a better knowledge of the natural resources of the country, and of the methods, industries and progress of its people. The Exposition, therefore, needs no orator. It speaks for itself. It is its own advocate and eulogist. ”

“ The exhibitions at this Exposition are not the haphazard gatherings of convenient material, but the outline of a plan to illustrate the productiveness of mankind at this particular time, carefully digested, thoroughly thought out, and conscientiously executed. The exhibit, therefore, in each of the departments of the classification, as well as in the groups of the different departments, are of such character, and so arranged as to reflect the best that the world can do along departmental lines, and the best that different peoples can do along group lines. ”

“ The measure of the value of an international exposition is determined by the number of important countries represented by exhibits, the characteristics and comprehensive nature of these exhibits, or the excellence in quality according to the standards of the countries from which they come. ”

“ Any city-builder, by the respectful use of the great fundamental principles of balance, harmony, and unity, cannot help but do on a large scale what the Exposition presents in a more condensed fashion. ”

“ The great exposition now in progress is notable not only for its material illustration of the arts and industries of the world, but chiefly because in its conception the place of first importance has been given to education. ”

“ In drawing up and publishing my Exposition, it will be a great convenience to be near the press—also to have books at hand to consult, and learned men to converse with, for my own improvement. 6. I have followed Providence in this affair, and referred myself to its disposal. 7. I have asked the advice of many ministers, and judicious christians. 8. I have some reason to hope that my poor endeavours may be more useful to those to whom they are new. 9. I have not been without my discouragements at Chester, which have tempted me to think my work there in a great measure done ”

“ Enterprises of all kinds have been encouraged. The result was shown in the Exposition 160 of two years ago, when there was collected in this city such a display of the products of all lands, as the world had never seen. ”

“ Not only in the handling of light and in freshness of coloring has the whole of painting been profoundly changed, but there is a general tendency to paint the impression rather than the actuality, the harmonious effect rather than the literal fact-and these things are notably illustrated in the Exposition galleries. ”

“ THE GREAT WORLD’S FAIR.—Being a Complete History of the Stupendous Exposition that will be Thrown Open in 1893, when the Peopled World Will be Called Upon to View the Progress of the Future Metropolis—How the Exposition will be Opened in the Fall of the Present Year—The Colossal Buildings and Their Contents—Hints for the Wayfarer to Follow in His Strolls About the City During Fair Time. ”

“ Experience has shown that a half day devoted to looking at exhibits, where there is410 such a plethora of objects of interest as in the Exposition, taxes the faculties of observation to the full extent of their pleasurable employment. ”

“ The expositions held in our country have celebrated great epochs of our advancement, and they will be pointed out to future generations as evidences of the onward march of a people unparalleled in the history of the human race. ”

“ But before beginning to explain their natural properties, I will prefix the motives which originally gave rise to buildings and the development of inventions in this field, following in the steps of early nature and of those writers who have devoted treatises to the origins of civilization and the investigation of inventions. My exposition will, therefore, follow the instruction which I have received from them. ”

“ There are few books, in the English language, written in a more concise, sententious style, than Henry's Exposition. On examination, very few expletives will be found. Every word speaks, and every sentence is pregnant with meaning; so that I do not know how the book could be abridged in any other way than by leaving out a part of its contents. And we must distinguish between a long discourse and one which is diffuse: a short work may be very diffuse, while one of great length may not have a superfluous word.
2. Another quality of the style of this Commentary is vivacity. ”

“ The arrangement of the galleries should be mastered before one starts to study. In general there are three divisions of exhibits. At each end is a group of foreign sections, and the great middle space is given up to American art. ”

“ Expositions are the timekeepers of progress. ”

“ These exhibits represent in concrete form the artistic and industrial development of this country, and in viewing them one cannot but be impressed with the great improvement in the conditions affecting our material and physical welfare and with the corresponding advancement in our intellectual and esthetic life. ”

“ Here the first answer is tonal, the first note being shortened (§ 57) ; but the second answer (still forming part of the exposition, in which strictness is expected) is real. In the later entries of a subject, we continually meet with real answers where tonal have been given at first.
110. We saw in § 104 a subject which, except the first note, was in the key of the dominant, the answer being in the key of the tonic. We have also seen, in discussing real answers, how an extension of the same relation of subject and answer rendered an answer sometimes possible in the subdominant key (§ 71) . ”

“ The Great Exhibition constitutes the one absorbing topic in which, for the time being, all other topics are merged. Go where you will, nothing else is thought of, talked of, or heard of, from one end of London to the other—this magnificent display of the achievements of art and industry forms the sole theme of conversation, calling forth the most animated descriptions, the most energetic discussions, the warmest and most enthusiastic praise. ”

“ Now is the time to prepare for a great Exhibition—an Exhibition worthy of the greatness of this country, not merely national in its scope and benefits, but comprehensive of the whole world; and I offer myself to the public as their leader, if they are willing to assist in the undertaking. ”

“ The reception given to it having so far justified our plea for the due recognition of the arts and crafts of design, and our belief in their fundamental importance—the amount of public interest and support accorded to the Exhibition having, in fact, far exceeded our anticipations, it was determined to hold a second on the same lines, and to endeavour to carry out, with more completeness than was at first found possible, those principles of work, ideas, and aims in art for which we contended, and to make the Exhibition a rallying point, as it were, for all sympathetic workers. ”

“ July 26th.—Day before yesterday we went to the Arts' Exhibition, of which I do not think that I have a great deal to say. The edifice, being built more for convenience than show, appears better in the interior than from without,—long vaulted vistas, lighted from above, extending far away, all hung with pictures; and, on the floor below, statues, knights in armor, cabinets, vases, and all manner of curious and beautiful things, in a regular arrangement. Scatter five thousand people through the scene, and I do not know how to make a better outline sketch. ”

“ The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry and Art of all Nations is, then, the first attempt to dignify and refine toil; and, by collecting the several products of scientific and æsthetic art from every quarter of the globe into one focus, to diffuse a high standard of excellence among our operatives, and thus to raise the artistic qualities of labour, so that men, no longer working with their fingers alone, shall find that which is now mere drudgery converted into a delight, their intellects expanded, their natures softened, and their pursuits ennobled by the process. ”

“ As the strata of the earth preserve in rows the beings which lived in former times, so do the shelves of a library preserve in a like manner the errors of the past and expositions concerning them. ”

“ Now, the Great Exhibition, looked at in its true light, is, we say once more, a huge academy for teaching men the laws of the material universe, by demonstrating the various triumphs of the useful arts over external nature. ”

“ If one wishes to form an idea of the vast numbers of indifferent paintings which are annually produced in England, he should visit, as I did, another exhibition, a large gallery lighted from above, in which each artist, most of them of the younger or obscurer class, takes a certain number of feet on the wall and exhibits just what he pleases. Every man is his own hanging committee, and if his pictures are not placed in the most advantageous position, it is his own fault. ”

“ An exhibition, as I have already insisted, is but a small part of the Arts & Crafts movement, which is a movement in the main of ideas and not of objets d'art, & there is a danger in the constant repetition of exhibitions, civic, national, and international, of public attention being diverted from the movement of ideas, & action thereupon, to the mere production and exhibition of exhibits. ”

“ Well, we have now covered, in an elementary way, about every important species of art show, except one, the most human perhaps of all, that held annually on Fifty-seventh Street. We should hardly have time to go up there to-day. I'll tell you about it. There are several reasons why this exhibition is the most human perhaps of all. One is that more people go than to any other. And these people, taken by and large, are more human, too, than one sees at most art exhibitions, that is more like just ordinary people. ”

“ When The Fine Art Society’s Exhibition was first planned the intention was to confine it to samplers, which, in themselves, formed a class sufficiently large to occupy all the space which experience showed should be allotted to them in any display with which it was not desired to weary the visitor. ”

“ The spectacle was so new that it made a considerable impression upon the public, and the favourable reception these works experienced impressed the artists with an idea of forming a public exhibition, which scheme was carried into full effect with the help of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, who lent their great room for the purpose. ”

“ In visiting the Exhibition, there are many sentiments which Christians might indulge as means of impression or improvement to themselves. It is hardly necessary, after having gone through the foregoing argument, to press upon the reader the duty of seeing and remembering God in all that will be displayed of the riches of nature and the products of art. It is true, indeed, that it is to be the Exhibition of the Industry of the Nations,—that is, it is, in a manner, to reveal and magnify MAN by accumulating and displaying his wonderful works. ”

“ One has but to open the door to any forces of exhibition at all worthy of the name in order to see the imaging and qualifying agency called at once into play and put on its mettle. We may traverse acres of pretended exhibitory prose from which the touch that directly evokes and finely presents, the touch that operates for closeness and for charm, for conviction and illusion, for communication, in a word, is unsurpassably absent. ”