THE PARIS EXHIBITION
TN one sense, of course, all Paris, in the month of May, -I- is an exhibition. For the chestnuts are out in the Bois, the long pleached avenues in the boulevards arc of a greenness'as yet'unsoiled, and the whole city seems to throb with the activities of the pursuit of pleasure. Everything is en pleine saigon. Everybody seems to be enjoying himself. And most people, Most French people at any rate, actually are doing so. For they do not regard pleasure as a sinful thing, furtively, guiltily tn be attained. They seek it openly, rationally, almost methodically, and since they posSessthe real arts of Life they probably do attain it 'as often as is permitted to poet. 'Inman beings.
Paris in Maythe glitter of sunshine on the Champs Elyseei, the bewildering interweaving dance of the flying taxis; the sparkling heels of • the midinette, or the hUshed, pious ritual of the meal times at the great restaurants, where the priestlike waiters minister, it seems; more to the ' gods of perfect food and drink than at the mere mundane meals of their customers ; or those other, those sylvan shrines dedicated to the same deities, the Pre Catalan, or the Chateau de Madrid, the restaurants Of the Bois, where the bouquet of the oldest cognac mingles hauntingly with that of the chestnut flowers ; what need of exhibitions has such a city, which possesses attractions such as these ?
And yet this year an exhibition is being held. It is an exhibition of decorative art, and its pavilions, its towers and even its scenic. railways have been cunningly woven into the very heart of Paris. They have been laid out along both banks of the Seine. It is as if Wembley had been built along the Embankment from the Houses of 'Parliament and the County Hall- down the river as far as, say, Charing Cross railway bridge. Naturally, this means that the Paris Exhibition is nothing like so big as the British. But the advantage of having it in the very centre of the city is very great. There is no tedious journey along dreary suburban roads or in crowded undergrounds. You may, if so inclined, turn into the Exhibition out of the Place de la Concorde itself and visit some fountain or statuette which has interested you and be out again in ten minutes.
• As to the Exhibition itself, it has only been open for about three weeks and so, of course, it is not yet even half finished. It is evidently beyond the wit of man to arrange that an exhibition shall be even approximately ready by the opening day. Why this should be so I have never been able to understand. We practical Britons did not succeed in doing it at Wembley so we can hardly complain if the temperamental French have failed at Paris. But it makes the task of the enquiring English journalist very difficult. More than half the pavilions, each allotted to a European State, are not open to the public, and of those that are open, few have their exhibits, their objets d'art, assembled or in place. I should advise anyone intending to visit the Exhibition to wait at least another month.
But from what one can gather by peering through hoardings and crawling under ladders, the Exhibition, when it is finished, will be worth seeing. If you go in at the main entrance on the Place de la Concorde, you come first of all to the Pavilions of the Central and Eastern European States—Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, Yugo-Slavia, Rumania. Here are the Allies, it is almost true to say the tributaries, for they are all deeply in her debt, upon whom France relies for the main- tenance of her European predominance. And certainly the exhibits of these new Republics give an impression of real vitality. It is all very well to deplore the Balkan- ization of Europe and to laugh at the rather crude politics of these new countries. But each of them does after all represent a real nation with a real culture and real art-forms of its own. For centuries these national cultures have been suppressed by the sullen rule of the Hapsburgs, the Romanoffs or the Hohenzollerns. But now they are all breaking out into life. In Prague, the Capek brothers are writing their interesting plays, such as R.U.R. or the Insect Play, and in Yugo-Slavia a new school of sculpture has grown round the genius of Mestrovie. All these cultured movements look to Paris—to French civilization—for leadership and guid- ance. And the French Government takes very good care that they shall not look in vain.
After the pavilions of the New States, you come to the Pavillon d'Autriehe. It is a modest, unpretentious affair as befits that much diminished State. But I noticed that on the wall facing the somewhat elaborate 'erection of Yugo-Slavia was carved the single word- _" Mozart." Certainly it was only. chance, but I could not help feeling that it seemed the quiet, dignified epitaph of the old Vienna. Proud in defeat, it seemed to say to the new countries, " Yes, you have won your freedom. But when will you produce anything so great as Mozart ? " A little further on you come to the strange erection of Soviet Russia. The bold, bad Bolshevists are evidently determined to show how completely they reject all capitalist superstitions such as those which make a flight of stairs go straight from the bottom to the top, or put the words of a notice one after the other.
The British Pavilion is not yet open. The outside gives a somewhat strange effect ; however, it is gaily painted and decorated and shows that we are not afraid of bright colours. Down another alley you are reminded that France, too, though her exhibitors may be inter- national,- has an. Empire. As M. Poincare _significantly remarked, " France is not now a nation of thirty-five millions but of one hundred millions." And the teeming millions of dusky French citizens arc represented by the Pavilions of Morocco, of Central Africa, of Madagascar and of Tunisia. On the other side of the river are to be found the exhibits of France herself, the more typically Parisian products. The great French shops, the Prin- temps, the Louvre, &c., all have big exhibits. The huge china works at Sevres have covered a big area with enormous pots and with tiled fountains and shallow pools of water lying in hollows of coloured earthenware.
Then there is a place for relaxation in the gaily painted houseboats which the decorative genius of M. Paul Poiret has designed. They float peacefully on the current of the Seine and are pleasant to turn into from the dusty pathways of the Exhibition.
Altogether the Exhibition is, as exhibitions go, a good one. It should serve as well as anything else as an excuse for a visit to Paris, though I doubt if it can ever vie with the other and more permanent pleasures of that city. But I cannot end this article without mentioning a delightful exhibition of French landscape painting which is now being held at the Petit Palais. The Corots and Watteaus must not be missed by anyone who is
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