A GREAT SUCCESS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 108, 3 November 1937, Page 32

A GREAT SUCCESS

PARIS EXHIBITION

FRENCH INVENTION & TASTE

THE LOCAL SECTIONS

There were 467,000 people at the Paris Exhibition recently, says a correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian.'" The figure was registered on the big "thermometre" at one of the entrances —an instrument constructed on the "tote" principle. I do not know whether the' exhibition will', strictly speaking, ' have been a financial success; probably not. It has cost about £15,000,000 to build, and, with 20,000,000 visitors to date, each paying four francs on the average, the "box oftice" receipts can have covered only a tiny proportion of the cost of the exhibition. But indirectly the exhibition has done France immense goocj. Paris, and many other parts of France for that matter, are enjoying a huge tourist boom, after "tourism" had almost been given up as a dead trade during the years of depression and unfavourable exchange and when hotel after hotel and shop after shop went into liquidation. But the exhibition has, above all, been a moral triumph for France. No doubt for various reasons, some more avoidable than others, the exhibition was two months late in being properly completed, but it is doubtful whether M. Campinchi, the Radical leader, who in his outburst against the building trade described the exhibition last May as: "a national humiliation," is still 61 the same mind. It is not only the largest but probably the most brilliant exhibition ever produced. If it is not as genuine a symbol of international co-operation as it should be, if Picasso felt the irresistible urge to give to the Spanish' Pavilion—nestling in the shadow of the "German House"—his tremendous panel, that grim nightmare called "Guernica," and so added a word of truth to a vastly pleasant lie, it is tvot the fault of those who made the exhibition, but of the world at large. FOREIGN OSTENTATION. / On the whole there has been' too marked a tendency, both in the Press and among the public visiting the exhibition, to concentrate on the foreign pavilions. On arriving there nine persons in tap dash to the German and Soviet pavilions, which dominate the show with deliberate ostentation. The Germans and Russians are very proud of their success, but one may actually wonder whether this propaganda— which, in any case, is not what the exhibition was meant for—does not defeat its own ends. One does not think more kindly of Russia and Germanyfar from it. It is perhaps the essence Of totalitarian propaganda to produce all kinds of feelings except feelings of Kindliness and friendliness, miserable little human emotions not worth bothering about. And yet these are precisely the feelings some of the democratic countries and, above all, the French produce at the Paris Exhibition. It is too often forgotten that at least twothirds of the exhibition is the wort: of French genius, talent, and craftsmanship., Here are richness of invention, splendid workmanship, ' and, nearly always, infallibly good taste. And all of it is presented with neat ■ simplicity, without the slightest suggestion of "look what wonderful blokes we are." It is rather: "If you can't see it without being told, 'tant pis pour toi.'" Apart from the big pavilions for radio, shipping, and a few others east of the Alma Bridge, the principal French parts of the exhibition are the Centre dcs Metiers, the Centre Regional, and the delightful colonial part oh the He dcs Cygnes. In addition to these there are the new Trocadem and the Musee dArt Moderne, the two chief "permanent'^ structures of the exhibition and certainly the two most beautiful modern buildings In Paris—in spite of the fussy golden statue in front of the museum,, which is an eyesore deserving prompt re-1 moval. THE FASHIONS PAVILION. The prtee for brilliant invention it, the Centre dcs Metiers should go to the Palais de I'Elegance, the fashions pavilion. Before you go in an amusir>| little statue of Adam and Eve on oi»d side of the building puts you at once into a good humour. It .would be dreadful if the fashions pavilion were merely a collection of tailors' dummies. But it is nothing of the sort. Instead, you enter a sort of grotto with fantastic trees made of clay, and among these trees quaint clay figures' with featureless clay faces but, most expressive arms and legs sit and stand about in the most amusing attitudes, showing off their gowns and cloaks. Among them is a clay horse wrapped in precious furs. It is all like an unwritten chapter from "Alice in Wonderland." Almost next to it is a.building called the Lacquer Pavilion. 'You expect to see some ; boring > imitation Chinese boxes. Not a bit of it! There is hardly a lacquer box in the place, and nothing even remotely Chinese. Instead, the first thing you see is a large panel by Jean Dunand, probably the greatest French lacquer artist: a field of golden corn, sweeping across the panel into an invisible infinity, and strong, brown peasant bodies, stripped to the waist, cutting the heavy golden ears. In the room next to it are more lacquer panels by Dunand—brown sailing-ships, with brown men inside them, sailing on a golden sea. Here is poetry expressed in an altogether unexpected medium. It is the rich invention, the unexpectedness, the "imprevu" that make the French parts of the exhibition so fascinating. It is the same in the Palace of Light, with its infinite variety in lamps and other forms of interior lighting, in the wood pavilion, the leather pavilion, the pottery and glass and itapestry pavilions. THE REGIONAL CENTRE. As reconstructions of "local colour" —that "local colour" so lacking in so many of the foreign pavilions—the Regional Centre, with its houses of the different French provinces, is remarkable. Brittany, with its brownsailed tunny boats on the Seine outside; Provence, with its palm-tree promenade'along the Seine and the smell of "bouillabaisse" coming from the kitchen; Artois, with its brick houses and belfry, and all the other provinces, with their characteristic buildings and their respective wines and dishes and smells, give one a good general idea of provincial France. "Fake," no doubt, but good "fakei" And then on the Ile dcs Cygnes is the Colonial Section. This is hardly an exhibition; it is better. It is a succession of genuine Eastern bazaars; a bit of Morocco, with Moors dabbing specks of paint with the tip of their little finger on to crude clay water-jars; a bit of Tunisia, with camels and cameldrovers who object to being; snapshot except on payment of half a franc; a bit of Algeria, with a white Moorish colonnade and eating-places where you sit on cushions and are served RussRuss on low brass ' tables; a bit of Africa, where, young negroes carve ivory elephants, where genuine Congo totems are sold at a low price, and where laughing Senegalese sell "the miraculous Senegalese dentifrice"' for a franc—a stick for rubbing your teeth and gums! Last comes Indo-|