On A Roll: Part II - The World of Wheels

Richly decorated and tailored to elite customers, royal coaches were undeniably works of art - and, as such, timeless. However, as functional vehicles, they firmly belong in their own time. Even the very first motor car to ever circulate in Portugal (a French-made 1895 four-seater Panhard-Levassor in the cover picture) would put the speediest coach to shame by being about 5 times faster, and the same tendency applied to every aspect of one's daily life. The most powerful medieval rulers would have to send messengers and wait for weeks if they wanted to send or receive a message - and connecting by phone towards the end of the 19th century only included an up-to-three-minutes' wait. Nowadays, electronic messages crisscross the entire world in mere seconds, and approximately 6 billion people have access to the service. Likewise, royal castles and even palaces, while often imposing and sometimes flaunting their splendor, were cold and poorly lit - as opposed to modern houses belonging to common people, yet served by thermostat-regulated heaters and lit by sensor-managed smart lamps.

The implied inferiority of the above-mentioned and other objects of the past potentially results in a case of cognitive dissonance: it's easy to appreciate art objects that are meant to be decorative - skillfully crafted and aesthetically pleasing but, so-to-say, practically useless. Things that are supposed to be useful and functional but aren't (or aren't anymore), present a certain psychological challenge because one's subconscious mind tends to perceive them as "unworthy". It's fascinating to see how National Coach Museum in Lisbon resolves that challenge by juxtaposing the far past with the much more recent past to emphasize the connection between them.

To start with, there is similarity of design. Royal coaches and motor cars two centuries apart often look like they were cast from the same mould before horses were replaced with a motor.

Creativity and variety came next. Once carriages ceased to be a sole privilege of rulers, both individuals and communities would engage in experimenting with vehicle concepts and adjusting them to specific purposes. Some of them inevitably immortalized their name in models they created - such as "landau promenade vehicle" named after the town of Landau in Germany

or "brougham" designed by a British statesman who opted for privacy (the cabin was fully enclosed and separated from the driver's seat outdoors) and efficiency (a lighter vehicle, it could be pulled by a single horse).

Versatility followed. Monarchs traveling in their exquisite carriages could hardly imagine such an outrage as this

or even a more neutral application of the wheels

Combined, tradition and innovation resulted in continuity thus connecting early horse-drawn carriages with first motor cars and, indirectly, even with all the wonders of modern technology. The seemingly narrow focus exhibition does, in fact, help the "dinosaurs on wheels" to claim their rightful place not only in history of arts but also in history proper.