| Nineteenth century international expositions were mainly commercial in nature; their function was to bring together an array of objects to create a comprehensive view of the world, then to select those that were most praiseworthy. The 1876 Centennial Exhibition, however, was also commemorative, as it memorialized the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It represented an opportunity to show American goods---a manifestation of the country's present---along with a call to reflect upon its past and to "revise history," as it was put in a newspaper article of the period.;This was no less true for American art. The United States art exhibition provided not just an opportunity, but a mandate to create a canon of the country's art from the past century, along with a historical narrative that would join the past to the present and enshrine a national "American School." This challenge came at a time that one critic called "an era of revolution," as the nativists of the Hudson River School of landscape painting were challenged by expatriates who studied abroad and favored figural subjects. Artists from these two camps competed fiercely to determine who would represent the "American School" and inherit the mantle of history at the Centennial Exhibition. However, the display that they presented was impossibly large and confusing, and riddled with absences.;Their attempted canon was overtaken by the written accounts of critics, who were claiming new authority over the nation's cultural life. The shortcomings that they discerned in the exhibition led them to create their own interpretations that reached far beyond the display itself to present rudimentary narratives of American art, and to debate questions of national identity in the face of foreign influences. Their discussions resonated through the rest of the century in new histories of art that departed from earlier biographical models and followed the Centennial ideal of progress, weaving narratives of continual advancement that addressed the inescapable reality of European influences. At the same time, world's fairs emerged as occasions to define the American school. Both written and exhibited accounts show that the discourses inspired by the Centennial Exhibition shaped the perception of American art through the rest of the century. |
