Today, people associate the word “salon” with a place to get your hair, makeup, or nails done. It is also a place for women to gossip and talk about the latest fashions, music, and other pop culture. When you think about it, modern-day salons actually seem very similar to salons of the 18th century in France. Salons in the 18th century were held for discussions relating to art, fashion, politics, etc. These salons played a fundamental role in the cultural and intellectual development of France. Although salons provided a place for both women and men to congregate for intellectual discourse, women were the center of the life in the salon. These women carried a very important role as regulators. They selected their guests and decided the subjects of their meetings. Women also had the role as mediator by directing the discussion. The salon was an informal university for women in which they were able to exchange ideas, receive and give criticism, read their own works and hear the works and ideas of other intellectuals. These gatherings are responsible for the advancement of female expression and power in France.
There are many important women pertaining to 18th century salons in France. But, it is important to introduce one woman in particular who had a big impact on the salons. She is Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin, better known as Madame Geoffrin. Madame Geoffrin's popularity in the eighteenth century came during a time where the center of social life was beginning to move away from the French court and toward the salons of Paris. Instead of the earlier, seventeenth-century salons of the high nobility, Madame Geoffrin's salon catered generally to a more philosophical crowd of the Enlightenment period. In her book, Enlightenment Salons...
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...scussion of the men. In this way, the ideas of the Enlightenment bore great influence on women's involvement in the salons.
The Parisian salons of the 18th century allowed women to play a positive role in the public sphere of French society. Salons provided a unique outlet where women's ideas could be heard. Women, in addition to conversing with men at an academic level, had the power to influence the topics major philosophers studied. The cross-class communication that salons promoted also allowed social groups, which had never before interacted, to share ideas. Women's contributions to the development of intellectual and scientific ideas through their role as salonnières marked a cultural shift in how women should be accepted and involved in society. Though still limiting, salons forged the way for women's rights and leadership in the arts, sciences and politics.
Through the analysis of Thérésia Cabarus’s portrait, Amy Freund attempts to examine Cabarus’s failure to “create a feminine version of political agency through portraiture” in order to provide insight into the unfulfilled promises of female citizenship during the French Revolution. She asserts that, through the use of a combination of imagery associated with revolutionary femininity, including the emphasis on the sitter’s physical passivity and sentimental attachments, and conventions usually associated with male portraiture, Cabarrus and Laneuville, the painter, attempted to present her portrait as an argument for women to be granted an active role in revolutionary politics. Freund suggests that the portrait failed to achieve its goals because it recalled the Terror and the disunity of France in addition to invoking the “anxiety surrounding the increased visibility of women in post-Thermidorean social life and visual representation.” Because of its relative failure, Freund considers Cabarrus’s portrait a symbol of the “possibilities and limitations of female agency in Revolutionary portraiture and politics” as well as a shift in portraiture; as she remarks, “portraiture after 1789 shouldered the burdens formerly borne by history
...ing of home crafts, as the 17th and 18th century progressed, women became more than just a homemaker; they could own property, vote, and get a job.
In this essay I’ll be exploring various concepts of women and will deeply criticise the way women are seen and portrayed through advertising. My primary resource I’ll be referring to throughout this essay is a book called ‘Ways of seeing’ by John Berger, which highlights the role women during the early renaissance and onwards. In addition to this I will explore the various beliefs of women from a wide range of secondary resources, and will include references from books, websites, and various images to help clarify my statements.
This essay, written by Ann of France, entitled "Lessons for my Daughter" explores the pains of being a woman in her society. Anne was the daughter of King Louis XI of France and was profoundly influential in French politics and policy throughout her life. The author composed this essay to be utilized as a handbook to guide her daughter through the patriarchal, aristocratic environment of French politics. Anne began her guide by urging her daughter to be the manifestation of complete virtue, to not show weakness, and to be worthy of having a reputation worth perpetual remembrance. She told her daughter to be humble, be honest, and above all be true. Anne urged her daughter to be magnificent, to show honor and to be brave. She insisted that the moment a woman makes a mistake her voice and her reputation are squandered. She insisted that she had to be refined, and she had to be excellent in order to be heard. Anne of France knew how treacherous the road was to be a woman in politics at this time. The essay is a beautiful distillation of her understanding and experiences within influential French society. Having been a successful and authoritative figure, Anne 's caution and judgment proved to be a great path of preparation for her
Her chief arguing points and evidence relate to the constriction of female sexuality in comparison to male sexuality; women’s economic and political roles; women’s access to power, agency, and land; the cultural roles of women in shaping their society; and, finally, contemporary ideology about women. For her, the change in privacy and public life in the Renaissance escalated the modern division of the sexes, thus firmly making the woman into a beautiful
The French Neo Classical era of theatre has influenced today’s society in a number of ways including woman’s fashion, dance, architecture and theatre performance. We have seen this throughout history and it still has continued into today’s society.
17th Century France was spearheaded and administrated by kings owing to its kind of government: absolute monarchy, wherein the king has total control and the power to assign his advisors and other officials that will help him rule the nation. Like most of the countries in Europe on that era, France, with its monarchial regime, was filled with nobilities and aristocrats. The French are rapidly progressing and strengthening their foundation as a nation and due to this fact, they are slowly gaining power and influence all over the world. This era was primed by the utilization of arts and talents, including visual arts, theatre, dance and many literary works. Considering this, France stepped into the age of inspiration and greatness. In fact, this era served as their Golden Age in Literature. Kings and the general public of 17th Century France loved and admired such arts and even patronized and supported it. Salons and academies of literature and arts are now starting to become evident in the French society, by this, literary authors and other artists are prioritized and are given much importance. The expression of philosophies and ideas about arts and knowledge in life are manifest in such salons, in which speakers and actors put an enjoyable and entertaining spice on what they are trying to imply to increase the audience’s interest.
Historically the idea of feminine beauty has reflected the standard and values of that era, “from the Rebenesque women of the 17th century to the contemporary symbols of fashion, different body shapes have been selected for, and associated with, desirable socia...
The Market Revolution caused many women now to see that they were capable of more than just tending to the home. As the
Working at her father’s clothing shop, she became very knowledgeable about expensive textiles and embellishments, which were captured in her works later in career. She was able to capture the beauty and lavishness of fabrics in portraits of aristocratic women.
One of women’s constant struggles is upkeep with culture and society’s ever-changing definition of beauty. Although both genders have hair on their bodies, the views and acceptability of the amount or the location of body hair vary immensely. In fact, women are often thought to be hairless and men to be hairier (DeMello, 2014). Women must then put in effort to uphold a standard, in which the idea that being feminine is natural and effortless (Toerien and Wilkinson, 2003). That being the case, I will argue that the hairless female body has been transformed over time to represent beauty and youth. More importantly, I will argue that it has now become normative in Western society and deemed unacceptable if women do not conform to the hairless
The French Revolution, indeed, changed the structure of economics and social sphere of the old regime, and also the ideology of that time. In the years that followed the Revolution, the always increasing senses of both freedom and individuality were evident, not only in French society, but also in art. As stated by Dowd, “leaders of the French Revolution consciously employed all forms of art to mobilize public sentiment in favor of the New France and French nationalism.” In between all the artistic areas, the art of painting had a special emphasis. After the Revolution, the French art academies and also schools were now less hierarchical and there was, now, more freedom of engaging into new themes, not being the apprentices so tied up to their masters footsteps, not being so forced to follow them.
Zundel, Hannah, Sophie DuPont, Emily Olsen, and Marisa Rondinelli. "Women's Involvement in the French Salons (Early 18th Century)." Women's Involvement in the French Salons (Early 18th Century) - ILS202_fall11. N.p., 2011. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.
Fashion plays an important role in the lives of billions all over the world; people, as part of a status craving society, turn to “fashion capitals” of the world for ways in which to dress and carry themselves. New York, Milan, and Paris are leaders among this fierce industry that the world lusts after. Fashion can speak volumes about ones personality, or also about the condition the world is in at the time. In France, fashion changed rapidly and feverously as the times changed.
The social lives of people were greatly influenced by advancements in education during the Renaissance. More people then ever before were send to schools and educated. Schools for girls were built, and they were taught sewing, reading, writing, and dancing. Some of these schools even had teachers for singing and playing instruments. Upper class women were taught language, philosophy, theology and mathematics. But their education only prepared them for social life at home. Women lost political power, access to property and their role in shaping society.