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EIFFEL TOWER |
Eiffel Tower History
The plan to build a tower 300 metres high was conceived as part of
preparations for the World's Fair of 1889. With the construction work barely
begun, there appeared the Artists' Protest - details below - In 1889
the tower was a colossal fairground attraction, but during the 1920s
it became a symbol of modernity and the avant-garde, inspiring poets
such as Guillaume Apollinaire, film-makers, photographers and numerous
painters...
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Eiffel Tower History |
Signed by several
big names from the world of literature and the arts: Charles Gounod,
Guy de Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas junior, Charles Garnier and others
to whom posterity has been less kind. "this high and skinny pyramid of iron ladders, this giant
ungainly skeleton upon a base that looks built to carry a colossal
monument of Cyclops, but which just peters out into a ridiculous thin
shape like a factory chimney" (Maupassant). Once the Tower was
finished the criticism burnt itself out in the presence of the
completed masterpiece. |
