French Salons, the Enlightenment, and Room for Women to Intellectually Maneuver (4)

​

Early French salons served as a sort of haven for exchanging and receiving information. [However,] salons were more than just a place for the exchange of information. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France was still under much male dominance. Salons served as a place for women to escape the tight structuring of French society, and seek out a place of freedom. Salons were a place where French women could not only show off their beauty and seduce others, but a place where they could also [boost] their intellectuality. (5)

​

Salons had a long history in Paris’ intellectual culture. These gatherings first became popular during the 17th and 18th century as a product of the French Enlightenment movement. They provided a place for scholarly discourse on philosophical and artistic topics. Historically, women were included in these spaces as hostesses, often serving to regulate the conversation and agenda of subjects discussed. Men allowed this female governance in the salons of Paris because they believed that a so-called ‘feminine touch’ would create both harmony and order. This in turn reduced the marginalization of women in the public sphere of male-dominated France, while also encouraging intellectual conversation in which women could take part. (6)

​

Gertrude and Leon Stein, the Lost Generation, and the Studio at Montparnasse
 

After moving to Paris in 1903, Stein and her brother Leo settled in Montparnasse where they gathered an art collection that would become distinguished, including works from Cezanne, Renoir, Delacroix, Matisse, Picasso, and Gaugin. Stein had a unique ability to detect talent; as Henry McBride, a well-known art critic put it, “she collected geniuses, not just masterpieces.” As a result, both of the Stein siblings quickly became prominent in the art world[, and her] apartment became famous for its salons, gatherings that brought together confluences of talent and thinking that would help define modernism in literature and art. ….

 

These salons first began as a result of her art collection: people would come to her apartment unannounced to see artworks by Henri Matisse and Paul Cezanne; after reaching her wits end with these impromptu visitors, Stein set Saturday evening as the fixed time for these gatherings so she could continue her own writing without being constantly interrupted by unannounced guests. Frequent attendees at the Saturday night events included Sinclair Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Ezra Pound, Henri Matisse, and Earnest Hemingway, whom Stein mentored. These congregations could be seen as the epicenter for the Lost Generation, a place where artistic and literary ideas germinated and disseminated. (7)

 

 

​

(1)  https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/salons 

(2)  https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/salons/  

(3)  Id., showing Ben Franklin in attendance

(4)  In this context, “women” means solely women from the upper crust of society.

(5)  http://historyofjournalism.onmason.com/2016/02/02/a-place-for-both-beauty-and-brains-french-salons/ 

(6) Caroline Nowlin, Gertrude Stein: The Opportunities of Montparnasse, https://omeka.wlu.edu/wluparis/items/show/51,

(7)  Id.

​