Its effect was a burst of almost ethereal clarity, of the kind only metal creates, piercing the architectural landscape of Paris.

Its honesty and plainness of appearance intensified the artistic debate that had been opened thirty years earlier, giving form to the division between architects and engineers, between art and science, and embodying a new type of expression through structure and space.

Its abstract qualities, without practical purpose in themselves, and the purity of its design, made it a subject for the many forms of artistic expression of the city and country which had created it.

Georges Seurat painted it in 1888, even before its completion. The pointillist style of the picture, with coloured marks juxtaposed to draw light and movement out of the shapes, is exactly consistent with the Tower's own style of architectural expression.

Later the Tower was also celebrated by Le Douanier Rousseau, Signac, Bonnard, Utrillo, Gromaire, Vuillard, Dufy and Chagall. Robert Delaunay gave it cubist facets in a whole series of canvases started in 1910.

Right from the beginning the popular success of the Tower manifested itself in a multitude of varying forms: miniature models, bottles and candles, bracelet charms and watches, paper cutters and lamp stands...

Eiffel had thought about exploiting the image of the Tower commercially himself, but faced with a general outcry from hordes of goods producers, he gave up his rights and let the image fall into the public domain.

The Tower was also copied on a large scale, most notably at Lyon-Fourviere, Blackpool, New-Brighton near Liverpool, Tokyo, Berlin and most recently at Sttenzhen in China.