What Your Bones Have in Common With the Eiffel Tower

Everyone loves the Eiffel Tower. Its classic, iconic shape is an instantly recognizable symbol of Paris. So you might be surprised to learn that while the tower was being built, art critics were not quite as glowing in their praise. Here are some of the more colorful phrases they used to describe it.

“this truly tragic street lamp” (Léon Bloy)

“this belfry skeleton” (Paul Verlaine)

“this mast of iron gymnasium apparatus, incomplete, confused and deformed” (François Coppée) 

“this giant ungainly skeleton upon a base that looks built to carry a colossal monument of Cyclops, but which just peters out into a ridiculous thin shape like a factory chimney” (Maupassant)

“a half-built factory pipe, a carcass waiting to be fleshed out with freestone or brick, a funnel-shaped grill, a hole-riddled suppository” (Joris-Karl Huysmans)”