Carnival Arts
As soon as you step into the Department of Carnival Arts, you will forget everything that belongs to your daily life. This extraordinary site takes you to discover a unique collection of objects from the performing arts of the 19th and 20th centuries.
David Niven, 1910-1983.
Keep the circus going inside you, keep it going.
Advertisement for the Barnum & Bailey Circus, 1900
Barnum & Bailey Circus was born in 1881 out of the merge of P.T. Barnum and William Cameron Coup’s circus and ‘Cooper and Bailey Circus’, founded by James Anthony Bailey and James E. Cooper.
The spectacle they travelled was of such mammoth proportions that they started to use three rings they were also one of the first circuses to move by train and probably the first one to own his own train. Barnum and Bailey split up in 1885, but they reunited in 1888 with the ‘Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show On Earth’ and later ‘Barnum & Bailey Circus’ which toured the world.
“No more kings, no more priests, no more noble lords, no more almighty church, no more taxes without the people’s consent!”
— Anonymous, The French Revolution (1789—1799)
Carousel
The word “carousel” has been traced to twelfth-century Arabian games of horsemanship called “carosellos” or “little wars.” The game consisted of riders tossing a small perfumed clay ball from one rider to another.By the 16th century these games spread to France where the events were elaborated; people wore fanciful costumes and engaged in tournaments of drama called “Carrousels.” Eventually the art form became more tactile, as artists began to sculpt crudely shaped horses. In the late nineteenth century American artists broke from European tradition. To the dashing horses, artists added an entire menagerie of elegant animals, often accompanied by flowers, bells, plump cherubs, and flashing mirrors.
Swing Boats
Swing boats are among the first fairground rides. The boats were attached to a wooden frame and could be easily stopped by a manual brake formed by lifting a platform under each boat. In France, during the second Empire, swing boats were used along with carousels as a form of street furniture.
The swing boat ride on display is a German model from 1920 create for both children and adults by a manufacture named Bothmann. Its main decoration is composed of 6 large painted canvas banners depicting Venice, its gondolas, canals, palaces and symbolic scenes themed around water, inspired by the swinging motion that evokes the feeling of a boat ride.
The noblest art is of making others happy.
P. T. Barnum (1810-1891)
Fortune Teller Machine
The fairground world is closely related to the Gispy community in which most of the women practice the art of divination. The fairground fortune tellers used and popularized a wide range of divination technics from crystal balls tocards, reading palms and tea-leaves. Depending on their reputation and clientele, they officiated in wagons or luxurious travelling consulting rooms.
Showmen also designed fortune teller machines with tarot cards that reproduced the divination ritual with an automaton.