Artists' Reactions to the Eiffel Tower

Many artists and writers in France were not enthusiastic about the Eiffel Tower, which was presented as a marvel of iron construction at the World's Fair in 1889.

Here are some of the reactions:

Léon Bloy called it: “this truly tragic street lamp”

Paul Verlaine: “this belfry skeleton”

Francois Coppée: “this mast of iron gymnasium apparatus, incomplete, confused and deformed”

Guy de Maupassant: “this high and skinny pyramid of iron ladders, this giant ungainly skeleton”
Joris-Karl Huysmans: “this hideous column with railings”

It was meant to be a temporary structure but it has become a famous symbol of Paris. 

A group of influential artists and architects lobbied against it. Ernest Meissonier, the first president of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts joined with Charles Garnier, architect of the Paris Opera, and academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau to publish a letter that said: 

"Will the city of Paris continue to associate itself with the baroque and mercantile fancies of a builder of machines, thereby making itself irreparably ugly and bringing dishonor to itself? Because the Eiffel Tower that even the commercial Americans didn’t want, will without a doubt dishonor Paris."

But the architect Gustave Eiffel stood his ground:

"What are the reasons given by the artists for protesting against the maintenance of the tower? How useless, how monstrous! What a horror! We’ll talk about usefulness later. Let us concern ourselves, for the moment, only with the aesthetic merit, on which the artists are more particularly competent. I would like to know on what they base their judgment. Because, mark it, sir, my tower, nobody saw it and nobody, before it was built, could say what it will be."

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