|
Jean-Bernard, Abbé Le Blanc
Jean-Bernard, abbé Le Blanc (1707–1781, Paris) was a French art critic and one of the Parisian ''literati''. Through his patron Mme de Pompadour, he was appointed historiographer of the Bâtiments du Roi, the defender of state expenditures and official French policy in the arts, and was also an advocate before the Parlement of Paris. Le Blanc was born in Dijon. His minor orders were strictly ''pro forma'', and he made his reputation with the ''Lettres d'un François'' (1745), a collection of letters detailing his perspectives on English society, of which he also made an English translation. Le Blanc had been invited to England by a nobleman in 1737 and remained for a year and a half, passing easily at every level of society, and expressing his observations in ninety-two letters that concerned the English almost entirely, and concentrated on social observation, with a minority of letters on politics and literature. The letters were based on the notebooks he carried with him ever ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, fourth-most populous city in the European Union and the List of cities proper by population density, 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2022. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, culture, Fashion capital, fashion, and gastronomy. Because of its leading role in the French art, arts and Science and technology in France, sciences and its early adoption of extensive street lighting, Paris became known as the City of Light in the 19th century. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region, or Paris Region, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 inhabitants in January 2023, or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles-Nicolas Cochin
Charles-Nicolas Cochin (22 February 1715 – 29 April 1790) was a French engraver, designer, writer, and art critic. To distinguish him from his father of the same name, he is variously called Charles-Nicolas Cochin le Jeune (the Younger), Charles-Nicolas Cochin le fils (the son), or Charles-Nicolas Cochin II. Early life Cochin was born in Paris, the son of Charles-Nicolas Cochin the Elder (1688–1754), under whom he studied engraving.Charles-Nicolas Cochin the Younger at britannica.com (accessed 11 February 2008) His mother was Louise-Magdeleine Horthemels (1686–1767), who herself was an important engraver in Paris for some fifty years. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1781 Deaths
Events January–March * January – William Pitt the Younger, later Prime Minister of Great Britain, enters Parliament, aged 21. * January 1 – Industrial Revolution: The Iron Bridge opens across the River Severn in England. * January 2 – Virginia passes a law ceding its western land claims, paving the way for Maryland to ratify the Articles of Confederation. * January 5 – American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia is burned by British naval forces, led by Benedict Arnold. * January 6 – Battle of Jersey: British troops prevent the French from occupying Jersey in the Channel Islands. * January 17 – American Revolutionary War – Battle of Cowpens: The American Continental Army, under Daniel Morgan, decisively defeats British forces in South Carolina. * February 2 – The Articles of Confederation are ratified by Maryland, the 13th and final state to do so. * February 3 – Fourth Anglo-Dutch War – Captur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1707 Births
In the Swedish calendar it was a common year starting on Tuesday, one day ahead of the Julian and ten days behind the Gregorian calendar. Events January–March * January 1 – John V of Portugal, John V is crowned King of Portugal and the Algarves in Lisbon. * January 16 – The Acts of Union 1707, Treaty (or Act) of Union, of the two Kingdoms of Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland and Kingdom of England, England, is ratified by the Parliament of Scotland by a vote of 110 to 68. * February 4 – Great Northern War: Eighteen months after losing the Battle of Warsaw (1705), Battle of Warsaw, while leading a cavalry charge for Electorate of Saxony, Saxony against the army of Sweden, General Otto Arnold von Paykull, Otto von Paykull of Swedish Livonia is decapitation, beheaded outside of Stockholm, following his conviction for treason. * February 15 – As part of the process of the Acts of Union 1707, unification of Scotland and England as Great Britain, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurice Quentin De La Tour
Maurice Quentin de La Tour (; 5 September 1704 – 17 February 1788) was a French painter who worked primarily with pastels in the Rococo style. Among his most famous subjects were Voltaire, Rousseau, Louis XV and the Madame de Pompadour. Biography Maurice Quentin de La Tour was born in Saint-Quentin, Aisne, Saint-Quentin, the third son of a musician, François de La Tour. François was from Laon and he was the son of a master mason, Jean de La Tour, of Laon and Saint-Quentin, who died in 1674. François de La Tour apparently was successively a trumpet-player for the rifle regiment of the Duc du Maine, and musician to the master of the collegiate church of Saint-Quentin. He is popularly said to have disapproved of his son taking up the arts, but there is nothing to support this. According to François Marandet in 2002, an apprenticeship was arranged for the young Maurice, with a painter named Dupouch, from 12 October 1719, but it is not known when this contract was terminated. Lit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit and his criticism of Christianity (especially Criticism of the Catholic Church, of the Roman Catholic Church) and of slavery, Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a versatile and prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including Stageplay, plays, poems, novels, essays, histories, and even scientific Exposition (narrative), expositions. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets. Voltaire was one of the first authors to become renowned and commercially successful internationally. He was an outspoken advocate of civil liberties and was at constant risk from the strict censorship laws of the Catholic French monarchy. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist who was best known for his highly influential system of empiricism, philosophical scepticism and metaphysical naturalism. Beginning with '' A Treatise of Human Nature'' (1739–40), Hume strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Hume followed John Locke in rejecting the existence of innate ideas, concluding that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. This places him with Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and George Berkeley as an empiricist. Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. Hume argued that inductive reasoning and belief in causality cannot be justified rationally; instead, they result from custom and mental habit. We never actually perceive that one event causes another but only experience ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques-Germain Soufflot
Jacques-Germain Soufflot (, 22 July 1713 – 29 August 1780) was a French architect in the international circle that introduced neoclassicism. His most famous work is the Panthéon in Paris, built from 1755 onwards, originally as a church dedicated to Saint Genevieve. Biography Soufflot was born in Irancy, near Auxerre. In the 1730s he attended the French Academy in Rome, where young French students in the 1750s would later produce the first full-blown generation of Neoclassical designers. Soufflot's models were less the picturesque Baroque being built in modern Rome, as much as the picturesque aspects of monuments of antiquity. After returning to France, Soufflot practiced in Lyon, where he built the ''Hôtel-Dieu'', like a chaste riverside street facade, interrupted by the central former chapel, its squared dome with illusionistic diminishing coffers on the interior. With the Temple du Change, he was entrusted with completely recasting a 16th-century market exchange bui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mme De Pompadour
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (, ; 29 December 1721 – 15 April 1764), commonly known as Madame de Pompadour, was a member of the French Royal court, court. She was the official maîtresse-en-titre, chief mistress of King Louis XV from 1745 to 1751, and remained influential as court favourite until her death. Pompadour took charge of the king's schedule and was a valued aide and advisor, despite her frail health and many political enemies. She secured titles of French nobility, nobility for herself and her relatives, and built a network of clients and supporters. She was particularly careful not to alienate the popular Queen, Marie Leszczyńska. On 8 February 1756, the Marquise de Pompadour was named as the thirteenth lady-in-waiting to the queen, a position considered the most prestigious at the court, which accorded her with honors. Pompadour was a major Patronage, patron of architecture and decorative arts, especially porcelain. She was a patron of the ''p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Académie Royale De Peinture Et De Sculpture
The Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (; ) was founded in 1648 in Paris, France. It was the premier art institution of France during the latter part of the Ancien Régime until it was abolished in 1793 during the French Revolution. It included most of the important painters and sculptors, maintained almost total control of teaching and exhibitions, and afforded its members preference in royal commissions. Founding In the 1640s, France's artistic life was still based on the medieval system of guilds like the Académie de Saint-Luc which had a tight grip on the professional lives of artists and artisans alike. Some artists had managed to get exemptions but these were based on favoritism rather than merit. According to the 17th century ''Mémoires'' about the founding of the ''Académie royale'', a few "superior men" who were "real artists", suffered and felt humiliated under the guild system. In view of increasing pressure by the Parisian guilds for painters and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris Salon
The Salon (), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world. At the Salon of 1761, thirty-three painters, nine sculptors, and eleven engravers contributed. Levey, Michael. (1993) ''Painting and sculpture in France 1700–1789''. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 3. From 1881 onward, it was managed by the Société des Artistes Français. Origins In 1667, the royally sanctioned French institution of art patronage, the (a division of the Académie des beaux-arts), held its first semi-public art exhibit at the Salon Carré. The Salon's original focus was the display of the work of recent graduates of the École des Beaux-Arts, which was created by Cardinal Mazarin, chief minister of France, in 1648. Exhibition at the Salon de Paris was essential for any artist to achieve success in France for at le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
