ART ET RACE. LES GRAVURES DES PEUPLES PRIMITIFS À L’EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE DE PARIS DE 1878
ART AND RACE. THE ENGRAVINGS OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLE AT THE 1878 PARIS WORLD'S FAIR

Summary/Abstract: Based on a case study, this paper aims to examine the scientific, industrial and political interests that intertwine at the 1878 Paris World’s Fair. We will focus on a graphic composition that was elaborated from various copies of rock art presented in several pavilions of the Exhibition and published by a science magazine. This figure was composed to compare the artistic capacities of European prehistoric and African contemporary primitives, all belonging, in the discourse of the French anthropologists, to the same race. The article considers the construction of anthropology in public space as a science claiming to be capable of analysing racial relationships in their environment and therefore capable of scientifically directing the French colonial project.

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