Flaubert and the EXPO

So finally the dreaded Shanghai EXPO is upon is – cue extreme security, cancelled art exhibitions, censored music events and the continued destruction of old Shanghai.  Given the sub-title of this blog – the probably spurious Twain quote about history – it’s fascinating to see an event so dated and out of whack with the times desperately being regurgitated on the Huang Pu; never again will Shanghai be able to claim for itself the cutting edge of modenity now it has firmly retreated into the nineteenth century.  I’m sure lots of businesspeople and those who defend the concept of the world as just a bunch of segregated national states will enjoy the EXPO, like so many things that should be about so much more EXPO is just another event reduced to a name card swapping session. Culture and freedom of expression once more sacrificed on the altar of grubby commerce.  I wonder if any true geniuses will visit the EXPO? – they have in the past and there’s a China link.

Gustave Flaubert – he of Madame Bovary, A Sentimental Education, and my favourite, Salammbo – visited the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. Interestingly Flaubert, who had long yearned to visit China, spent most of his time visiting the Indian and Chinese exhibits. The Chinese exhibit (which was actually organised by British businessmen looking to open up the China trade rather than China itself) was much praised in the press 1851 and by Flaubert. The Chinese exhibition was at the Albert Gate in Hyde Park.

Flaubert wrote quite extensive notes on the Chinese exhibit, particularly noting the pictorial images on show with Chinese screens and shawls capturing his imagination and approval. He noted the peculiar Chinese style of marrying art with nature, the uniqueness of Chinese grotesques, sculptures that featured real human hair and carvings that used the natural features of the wood. To be fair he also enjoyed a giant stuffed elephant in the India section of the Great Exhibition.

If you want to know more about Flaubert’s experiences in the Chinese pavilion at the 1851 EXPO in London there’s notes in his collected letters as well as a small book (that admittedly is a bit tough to find these days) Flaubert a l’exposition de 1851, edited and with an introduction by Jean Seznec,that was published by the Clarendon Press in Oxford in 1951 – good luck if you can find it outside a good library.