It was not a way that fitted into the vision of the Exposition Universelle. This can be seen most clearly in the galleries of landscape and city paintings. Two of the exhibition's thirteen galleries feature exclusively pieces on display in Paris. Certain stylistic and thematic currents are identifiable. Many of the pieces bear the stamp of a pedantic realism and deal with neo-classical or religious subjects, often in deliberately anachronistic construction.
Historical narrative lingers on, and many of the paintings are cloyingly sentimental.
Hand in hand with this is an extensive use of mythological material, popular with many symbolist artists in the late nineteenth century. Outside of these two galleries the rest of the exhibition is constructed along thematic or technical lines. Everywhere the same glaring contradictions emerge. That demi-monde recurs in the gallery of paintings about the city. Toulouse-Lautrec and Maurice de Vlaminck both painted prostitutes at bars.