International Exhibitions: Linking Culture, Commerce, and Nation

International exhibitions reshaped the visual world's relation to social and economic forces and portrayed and imagined interconnections among nations around the world. International exhibitions mapped a new visual regime that embraced an early form of globalization while also generating heightened nationalism. This visual world of goods and images began to circulate globally in periodical press illustrations and advertising, as well as in international exhibitions that occurred every two or three years somewhere in Europe, North America, or the empire. International exhibitions and their vast visual culture were part of the process of defining national identity, however imagined that national community might be. After 1851, the fine arts became more prominent at international exhibitions, still linked to manufacturing design and considered an alternative to technology and science. Works of art could be sold at exhibitions, entering exhibitions' mercantile and commercial functions.