Salon (gathering)

This article is about the type of gathering. For the type of salon where hair is cut and styled, seebeauty salon.

Réunion de dames,Abraham Bosse,17th century

Asalonis a gathering of people held by a host. These gatherings often consciously followedHorace's definition of the aims ofpoetry,"either to please or to educate" (Latin:aut delectare aut prodesse). Salons in the tradition of the French literary and philosophical movements of the 17th and 18th centuries are still being conducted.

Historical background

The salon first appeared in Italy in the 16th century, then flourished in France throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. It continued to flourish in Italy throughout the 19th century. In 16th-century Italy, some brilliant circles formed in the smaller courts which resembled salons, often galvanized by the presence of a beautiful and educated patroness such asIsabella d'EsteorElisabetta Gonzaga.

Salons were an important place for the exchange of ideas. The wordsalonfirst appeared in France in 1664 (from the Italiansalone,the large reception hall of Italian mansions;saloneis actually the augmentative form ofsala,room). Literary gatherings before this were often referred to by using the name of the room in which they occurred, likecabinet,réduit,ruelle,andalcôve.Before the end of the 17th century, these gatherings were frequently held in the bedroom (treated as a more private form of drawing room):a lady, reclining on her bed, would receive close friends who would sit on chairs or stools drawn around.

This practice may be contrasted with the greater formalities ofLouis XIV'spetit lever,where all stood.Ruelle,literally meaning "narrow street" or "lane", designates the space between a bed and the wall in a bedroom; it was used commonly to designate the gatherings of the "précieuses",the intellectual and literary circles that formed around women in the first half of the 17th century. The first renowned salon in France was theHôtel de Rambouilletnot far from thePalais du LouvreinParis,which its hostess, Roman-bornCatherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet(1588–1665), ran from 1607 until her death.She established the rules ofetiquetteof the salon which resembled the earlier codes of Italianchivalry.

In Britain, mathematician and inventorCharles Babbageis credited with introducing the scientific soirée, a form of salon, from France.Babbage began hostingSaturday evening soiréesin 1828.

Studying the salon

The history of the salon is far from straightforward. The salon has been studied in depth by a mixture offeminist,Marxist,cultural,social, andintellectualhistorians. Each of these methodologies focuses on different aspects of the salon, and thus have varying analyses of its importance in terms ofFrench historyand theEnlightenmentas a whole.

Major historiographical debates focus on the relationship between the salons and thepublic sphere,as well as the role of women within the salons.

Breaking down the salons into historical periods is complicated due to the various historiographical debates that surround them. Most studies stretch from the early 16th century up until around the end of the 18th century. Goodman is typical in ending her study at the French Revolution where, she writes: 'the literary public sphere was transformed into the political public'.Steven Kale is relatively alone in his recent attempts to extend the period of the salon up until Revolution of 1848:

A whole world of social arrangements and attitude supported the existence of French salons: an idle aristocracy, an ambitious middle class, an active intellectual life, the social density of a major urban center, sociable traditions, and a certain aristocratic feminism. This world did not disappear in 1789.

In the 1920s,Gertrude Stein's Saturday evening salons (described inErnest Hemingway'sA Moveable Feastand depicted fictionally inWoody Allen'sMidnight in Paris) gained notoriety for includingPablo Picassoand other twentieth-century luminaries likeAlice B. Toklas.

Her contemporary Natalie Clifford Barney's handmade dinner place setting is on display at The Brooklyn Museum. Like Stein, she was also an author and American ex-pat living in Paris at the time, hosting literary salons that were attended by Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald as well. She bought a home with an old Masonic temple in the backyard which she dubbed Temple d’Amitié, the Temple of Friendship, for private meetings with attendees of her salons.

In 2018, Barnard College professor Caroline Weber's book “Proust's Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siècle Paris” was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize was the first in-depth study of the three Parisian salon hostesses Proust used to create his supreme fictional character, the Duchesse de Guermantes.

Conversation, content and the form of the salon

Contemporary literature about the salons is dominated by idealistic notions of politeness, civility and honesty, though whether they lived up to these standards is a matter of debate. These older texts tend to portray reasoned debates and egalitarian polite conversation.Dena Goodman claims that, rather than being leisure based or 'schools of civilité', salons were at 'the very heart of the philosophic community' and thus integral to the process of Enlightenment.In short, Goodman argues, the 17th and 18th century saw the emergence of the academic, Enlightenment salons, which came out of the aristocratic 'schools of civilité'. Politeness, argues Goodman, took second-place to academic discussion.

"Abbé Delille reciting his poem, La Conversation in the salon of Madame Geoffrin" fromJacques Delille,"La Conversation" (Paris, 1812)

The period in which salons were dominant has been labeled the 'age of conversation'.The topics of conversation within the salons - that is, what was and was not 'polite' to talk about - are thus vital when trying to determine the form of the salons. The salonnières were expected, ideally, to run and moderate the conversation (See Women in the salon). There is, however, no universal agreement among historians as to what was and was not appropriate conversation.Marcel Proust'insisted that politics was scrupulously avoided'.Others suggested that little other thangovernmentwas ever discussed.The disagreements that surround the content of discussion partly explain why the salon's relationship with thepublic sphereis so heavily contested. Individuals and collections of individuals that have been of cultural significance overwhelmingly cite some form of engaged, explorative conversation regularly held with an esteemed group of acquaintances as the source of inspiration for their contributions to culture, art, literature and politics, leading some scholars to posit the salon's influence on thepublic sphereas being more widespread than previously appreciated.

The salon and the "public sphere"

Recent historiography of the salons has been dominated byJürgen Habermas' work,The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere(triggered largely by its translation into French, in 1978, and then English, in 1989), which argued that the salons were of great historical importance.Theaters of conversation and exchange – such as the salons, and thecoffeehousesin England – played a critical role in the emergence of what Habermas termed thepublic sphere,which emerged incultural-political contrasttocourt society.Thus, while women retained a dominant role in the historiography of the salons, the salons received increasing amounts of study, much of it in direct response to, or heavily influenced by Habermas' theory.

The most prominent defense of salons as part of the public sphere comes from Dena Goodman'sThe Republic of Letters,which claims that the 'public sphere was structured by the salon, the press and other institutions of sociability'.Goodman's work is also credited with further emphasizing the importance of the salon in terms of French history, theRepublic of Lettersand the Enlightenment as a whole, and has dominated the historiography of the salons since its publication in 1994.

Habermas' dominance in salon historiography has come under criticism from some quarters, with Pekacz singling out Goodman'sRepublic of Lettersfor particular criticism because it was written with 'the explicit intention of supporting [Habermas'] thesis', rather than verifying it.The theory itself, meanwhile, has been criticized for a fatal misunderstanding of the nature of salons.The main criticism of Habermas' interpretation of the salons, however, is that the salons of most influence were not part of an oppositional public sphere, and were instead an extension of court society.

This criticism stems largely fromNorbert Elias'The History of Manners,in which Elias contends that the dominant concepts of the salons –politesse,civilitéandhonnêteté– were 'used almost as synonyms, by which the courtly people wished to designate, in a broad or narrow sense, the quality of their own behavior'.Joan Landes agrees, stating that, 'to some extent, the salon was merely an extension of the institutionalized court' and that rather than being part of the public sphere, salons were in fact in conflict with it.Erica Harth concurs, pointing to the fact that the state 'appropriated the informal academy and not the salon' due to the academies' 'tradition of dissent' – something that lacked in the salon.But Landes' view of the salons as a whole is independent of both Elias' and Habermas' school of thought, insofar that she views the salons as a 'unique institution', that cannot be adequately described as part of the public sphere, or court society.Others, such as Steven Kale, compromise by declaring that the public and private spheres overlapped in the salons.Antoine Lilti ascribes to a similar viewpoint, describing the salons as simply 'institutions within Parisian high society'.

Debates surrounding women and the salon

Portrait ofMme Geoffrin,salonnière, byMarianne Loir(National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC)

When dealing with the salons, historians have traditionally focused upon the role of women within them.Works in the 19th and much of the 20th centuries often focused on the scandals and 'petty intrigues' of the salons.Other works from this period focused on the more positive aspects of women in the salon.Indeed, according to Jolanta T. Pekacz, the fact women dominated history of the salons meant that study of the salons was often left to amateurs, while men concentrated on 'more important' (and masculine) areas of the Enlightenment.

Historians tended to focus on individual salonnières, creating almost a 'great-woman' version of history that ran parallel to the Whiggish, male dominated history identified byHerbert Butterfield.Even in 1970, works were still being produced that concentrated only on individual stories, without analysing the effects of the salonnières' unique position.The integral role that women played within salons, as salonnières, began to receive greater - and more serious - study in latter parts of the 20th century, with the emergence of a distinctly feminist historiography.The salons, according to Carolyn Lougee, were distinguished by 'the very visible identification of women with salons', and the fact that they played a positive public role in French society.General texts on the Enlightenment, such as Daniel Roche'sFrance in the Enlightenmenttend to agree that women were dominant within the salons, but that their influence did not extend far outside of such venues.

It was, however, Goodman'sThe Republic of Lettersthat ignited a real debate surrounding the role of women within the salons and the Enlightenment as a whole.According to Goodman: 'The salonnières were not social climbers but intelligent, self-educated, and educating women who adopted and implemented the values of theEnlightenment Republic of Lettersand used them to reshape the salon to their own social intellectual, and educational needs'.

Italian in exile, Princess Belgiojoso1832, salonnière in Paris where political and other émigré Italians, including composerVincenzo Bellini,gathered in the 1830s. Portrait byFrancesco Hayez

Wealthy members of the aristocracy have always drawn to their court poets, writers and artists, usually with the lure ofpatronage,an aspect that sets the court apart from the salon. Another feature that distinguished the salon from the court was its absence ofsocial hierarchyand its mixing of different social ranks and orders.In the 17th and 18th centuries, "salon[s] encouraged socializing between the sexes [and] brought nobles and bourgeois together".Salons helped facilitate the breaking down of social barriers which made the development of the enlightenment salon possible. In the 18th century, under the guidance ofMadame Geoffrin,Mlle de Lespinasse, andMadame Necker,the salon was transformed into an institution ofEnlightenment.The enlightenment salon brought together Parisian society, the progressivephilosopheswho were producing theEncyclopédie,theBluestockingsand other intellectuals to discuss a variety of topics.

Salonnières and their salons: the role of women

At that time women had powerful influence over the salon. Women were the center of life in the salon and carried very important roles as regulators. They could select their guests and decide the subjects of their meetings. These subjects could be social, literary, or political topics of the time. They also served as mediators by directing the discussion.

The salon was an informal education for women, where they were able to exchange ideas, receive and give criticism, read their own works and hear the works and ideas of other intellectuals. Many ambitious women used the salon to pursue a form of higher education.

Two of the most famous 17th-century literary salons inPariswere theHôtel de Rambouillet,established in 1607 near thePalais du Louvreby themarquise de Rambouillet,where gathered the originalprécieuses,and, in 1652 inLe Marais,the rival salon ofMadeleine de Scudéry,a long timehabituéeof the Hôtel de Rambouillet.Les bas-bleus,borrowed from England's "blue-stockings,"soon found itself in use upon the attending ladies, a nickname continuing to mean" intellectual woman "for the next three hundred years.

A reading ofMolière,Jean François de Troy,about 1728

Paris salons of the 18th century hosted by women include the following:

• Adèle and Aurore de Bellegarde
• Madame Geoffrin
• Madame de Tencin
• Jeanne Quinault,hostess of the Bout-du-Banc
• Madame Dupin
• Constance Pipelet,later Constance de Salm following herdivorce
• Françoise de Graffigny,author ofLettres d'une Péruvienne
• Julie de Lespinasse:her chief draw wasd'Alembert,but "though the name of M. d'Alembert may have drawn them thither, it was she alone who kept them there."
• themarquise du Deffand,the friend ofHorace Walpole
• themarquise de Lambert
• theduchesse du Maine
• Madame d'Épinay
• Madame Necker,the wife of the financierJacques Necker
• Madame de Staël,daughter of the Neckers, took over from her mother and in exile hosted the internationalCoppet group
• Madame Helvétius,the wife ofHelvétius
• Sophie de Condorcet,wife of the mathematician and philosopherCondorcet,visited by foreign notables and French thinkers alike
• Juliette Récamier,socialite and friend of Germaine de Staël
• Madame Roland,the political salon that was the resort of theGirondistsat the first stages of theRevolution
• Madame Swetchine,wife of General Swetchine
• Julie Talma,a friend ofBenjamin Constant

Madame de Staël at Coppet (Debucourt 1800)

Some 19th-century salons were more inclusive, verging on the raffish, and centered around painters and "literary lions" such asMadame Récamier.After the shock of the1870 Franco-Prussian War,French aristocrats withdrew from the public eye. However,Princess Mathildestill held a salon in her mansion, rue de Courcelles, later rue de Berri. From the middle of the 19th century until the 1930s, a lady of society had to hold her "day", which meant that hersalonwas opened for visitors in the afternoon once a week, or twice a month. Days were announced inLe Bottin Mondain.The visitor gave his visit cards to thelackeyor themaître d'hôtel,and he was accepted or not. Only people who had been introduced previously could enter thesalon.

Marcel Proustcalled up his own turn-of-the-century experience to recreate the rival salons of the fictional duchesse de Guermantes and Madame Verdurin. He experienced himself his first social life insalonssuch asMme Arman de Caillavet's one, which mixed artists and political men aroundAnatole FranceorPaul Bourget;Mme Straus' one, where the cream of the aristocracy mingled with artists and writers; or more aristocraticsalonslikeComtesse de Chevigné's,Comtesse Greffulhe's, Comtesse Jean de Castellane's, Comtesse Aimery de La Rochefoucauld's, etc. Some late 19th- and early 20th-century Paris salons were major centres for contemporary music, including those ofWinnaretta Singer(the princesse de Polignac), andÉlisabeth, comtesse Greffulhe.They were responsible for commissioning some of the greatest songs and chamber music works ofFauré,Debussy,RavelandPoulenc.

Until the 1950s, somesalonswere held by ladies mixing political men and intellectuals during the IVth Republic, like Mme Abrami, or Mme Dujarric de La Rivière. The last salons in Paris were those ofMarie-Laure de Noailles,withJean Cocteau,Igor Markevitch,Salvador Dalí,etc., Marie-Blanche de Polignac (Jeanne Lanvin's daughter) and Madeleine andRobert Perrier,withJosephine Baker,Le Corbusier,Django Reinhardt,etc.

Salons outside France

Salon sociability quickly spread through Europe. In the 18th and 19th centuries, many large cities in Europe held salons along the lines of the Parisian models.

Belgium

Prior to the formation of Belgium,Béatrix de Cusancehosted a salon inBrusselsin what was then theSpanish Netherlandsin the mid-17th century. In the late 18th century, the political salon ofAnne d'Yvesplayed a role in theBrabant Revolutionof 1789.

InBelgium,the 19th-century salon hosted byConstance Trottiattracted cultural figures, the Belgian aristocracy and members of the French exiled colony.

A Reading in the Salon of Mme Geoffrin, 1755

Denmark

InDenmark,the salon culture was adopted during the 18th century.Christine Sophie HolsteinandCharlotte Schimmelmanwere the most notable hostesses, in the beginning and in the end of the 18th century respectively, both of whom were credited with political influence.During theDanish Golden Agein the late 18th century and early 19th century, the literary salon played a significant part in Danish culture life, notably the literary salons arranged byFriederike BrunatSophienholmand that ofKamma RahbekatBakkehuset.

Jewish culture in Central Europe

In the German-speaking palatinates and kingdoms, the most famous were held by Jewish ladies, such asHenriette Herz,Sara Grotthuis,andRahel Varnhagen,and inAustriain the late 18th and early 19th centuries by two prominent Jewish Patrons of the Arts: Adele Bloch-BauerandBerta Zuckerkandl.Increasingly emancipated German-speaking Jews wanted to immerse themselves in the rich cultural life. However, individual Jews were faced with a dilemma: they faced new opportunities, but without the comfort of a secure community. For Jewish women, there was an additional issue. German society imposed the usual gender role restrictionsandantisemitism, so cultivated Jewish women tapped into the cultural salon. But from 1800 on, salons performed a political and social miracle.The salon allowed Jewish women to establish a venue in their homes in which Jews and non-Jews could meet in relative equality. Like-minded people could study art, literature, philosophy or music together. This handful of educated, acculturated Jewish women could escape the restrictions of their social ghetto. Naturally the women had to be in well-connected families, either to money or to culture. In these mixed gatherings of nobles, high civil servants, writers, philosophers and artists, Jewish salonnières created a vehicle for Jewish integration, providing a context in which patrons and artists freely exchanged ideas. Henriette Lemos Herz, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Dorothea Mendelssohn Schlegel, Amalie Wolf Beer and at least twelve other salonnières achieved fame and admiration.

InSpain,byMaría del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva y Álvarez de Toledo, 13th Duchess of Albaat the end of the 18th century; and inGreecebyAlexandra Mavrokordatouin the 17th century.

Italy

Italy had had an early tradition of the salon;Giovanna Dandolobecame known as a patron and gatherer of artists as wife ofPasquale Malipiero,the doge in Venice in 1457–1462, and the courtisanTullia d'Aragonaheld a salon already in the 16th century, and in the 17th century Rome, the abdicatedQueen Christina of Swedenand the princess Colonna,Marie Mancini,rivaled as salon hostesses. In the 18th century,Aurora Sanseverinoprovided a forum for thinkers, poets, artists, and musicians in Naples, making her a central figure inbaroque Italy.

The tradition of the literary salon continued to flourish in Italy throughout the 19th century. Naturally there were many salons with some of the most prominent being hosted byClara Maffeiin Milan,Emilia Peruzziin Florence andOlimpia Savioin Turin. The salons attracted countless outstanding 19th-century figures including the romantic painterFrancesco Hayez,composer Giuseppe Verdi and naturalist writersGiovanni Verga,Bruno SperaniandMatilde Serao.The salons served a very important function in 19th-century Italy, as they allowed young attendees to come into contact with more established figures. They also served as a method of avoiding government censorship, as a public discussion could be held in private. The golden age of the salon in Italy could be said to coincide with the pre-unification period, after which the rise of the newspaper replaced the salon as the main place for the Italian public to engage in the room of sex.

Latin America

Mariquita Sánchez's salon inBuenos Aires,1813

Argentina's most active female figure in the revolutionary process,Mariquita Sánchez,wasBuenos Aires' leadingsalonnière.She fervently embraced the cause of revolution, and hertertuliagathered all the leading personalities of her time. The most sensitive issues were discussed there, as well as literary topics. Mariquita Sánchez is widely remembered in the Argentine historical tradition because theArgentine National Anthemwas sung for the first time in her house, on 14 May 1813.Other notablesalonnièresin colonial Buenos Aires were Mercedes de Lasalde Riglos andFlora Azcuénaga.Along with Mariquita Sánchez, the discussions at her houses led up to theMay Revolution,the first stage in the struggle for Argentine independence from Spain.

Poland-Lithuania

In the vastCommonwealth of Poland-Lithuania,DuchessElżbieta Sieniawskaheld a salon at the end of the 17th century. They became very popular there throughout the 18th century. Most renowned were theThursday Lunchesof KingStanisław II Augustusat the end of the 18th century, and among the most notablesalonnièreswereBarbara Sanguszko,Zofia Lubomirska,Anna Jabłonowska,a noted early scientist and collector of scientific objects and books,Izabela Czartoryska,and her later namesake, PrincessIzabela Czartoryskafounder of Poland's first museum and a patron of the Polish composerFrederic Chopin.

Russia

The salon culture was introduced to Imperial Russia during the Westernization Francophile culture of the Russian aristocracy in the 18th century. During the 19th century, several famous salon functioned hosted by the nobility in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, among the most famed being the literary salon ofZinaida Volkonskayain 1820s Moscow.

Sweden

In Sweden, the salon developed during the late 17th century and flourished until the late 19th century. During the 1680s and 1690s, the salon of countessMagdalena Stenbockbecame a meeting where foreign ambassadors in Stockholm came to make contacts, and her gambling table was described as a center of Swedish foreign policy.

During the SwedishAge of Liberty(1718–1772), women participated in political debate and promoted their favorites in the struggle between theCaps (party)and theHats (party)through political salons.These forums were regarded influential enough for foreign powers to engage some of these women as agents to benefit their interests in Swedish politics. The arguably most noted political salonnière of the Swedish age of liberty was countessHedvig Catharina De la Gardie (1695–1745),whose salon has some time been referred to as the first in Sweden, and whose influence on state affairs exposed her to libelous pamphlets and made her a target ofOlof von Dahlin's libelous caricature of the political salon hostess in 1733.Magdalena Elisabeth Rahmwas attributed to have contributed to the realization of theRusso-Swedish War (1741–1743)through the campaign for the war she launched in her salon.Outside of politics,Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflychtacted as the hostess of the literary academyTankebyggarordenandAnna Maria Lenngrendid the same for theRoyal Swedish Academy.

During the reign ofGustavian age,the home ofAnna Charlotta Schröderheimcame to be known as a center of opposition. Salon hostesses were still attributed influence in politic affairs in the first half of the 19th century, which was said of bothAurora Wilhelmina Koskullin the 1820s as well asUlla De Geerin the 1840s.

In the 19th century, however, the leading salon hostesses in Sweden became more noted as the benefactors of the arts and charity than with politics. From 1820 and two decades onward,Malla Silfverstolpebecame famous for her Friday nights salon in Uppsala, which became a center of the Romantic era in Sweden and, arguably the most famed literary salon in Sweden.During the 1860s and 1870s, theLimnell Salonof the rich benefactorFredrika Limnellin Stockholm came to be a famous center of the Swedish cultural elite, were especially writers gathered to make contact with wealthy benefactors,a role which was eventually taken over by theCurman ReceptionsofCalla Curmanin the 1880s and 1890s.

Spain

InIberiaorLatin America,atertuliais a social gathering with literary or artistic overtones. The word is originallySpanishand has only moderate currency in English, in describing Latin cultural contexts. Since the 20th century, a typicaltertuliahas moved out from the private drawing-room to become a regularly scheduled event in a public place such as a bar, although some tertulias are still held in more private spaces. Participants may share their recent creations (poetry,short stories,other writings, even artwork or songs).

Switzerland

In Switzerland, the salon culture was extant in the mid-18th century, represented byJulie Bondeliin Bern andBarbara Schulthessin Zürich, and the salon ofAnna Maria Rüttimann-Meyer von Schauenseereached in influential role in the early 19th century.

InCoppet Castleclose toLake Geneva,the exiledParisiansalonnière and author,Madame de Staël,hosted a salon which played a key role in the aftermath of theFrench Revolutionand especially underNapoleon Bonaparte's Regime. It has become known as theCoppet group.De Staël is author of around thirty publications, from whichOn Germany(1813) was the most well known in its time. She has been painted by such famous painters asFrançois GérardandElisabeth Vigée-Lebrun.

United Kingdom

In18th-centuryEngland, salons were held byElizabeth Montagu,in whose salon the expressionbluestockingoriginated, and who created theBlue Stockings Society,and byHester Thrale.In the 19th century, the Russian BaronessMéry von Bruiningkhosted a salon inSt. John's Wood,London,for refugees (mostly German) of therevolutions of 1848(theForty-Eighters).Clementia Taylor,an early feminist and radical held a salon atAubrey HouseinCampden Hillin the 1860s. Her salon was attended byMoncure D. Conway,Louisa May Alcott,Arthur Munby,feministsBarbara Bodichon,Lydia Becker,Elizabeth Blackwell,and Elizabeth Malleson.Holland HouseinKensingtonunder theFox familyin the late 18th and early 19th centuries was akin to a French salon, largely for adherents to the Whig Party.Charles Babbage's Saturday night soiréesfrom 1828 and into the 1840s were a related phenomenon attracting men and women, scientists and writers.

United States

Martha Washington,the first AmericanFirst Lady,performed a function similar to the host or hostess of the European salon. She held weekly public receptions throughout her husband'seight-year presidency(1789–1797). At these gatherings, members ofCongress,visiting foreign dignitaries, and ordinary citizens alike were received at the executive mansion.More recently, "society hostesses" such asPerle Mestahave done so as well. The Stettheimer sisters, including the artistFlorine Stettheimer,hosted gatherings at their New York City home in the 1920s and '30s. During theHarlem Renaissance,Ruth Logan Roberts,Georgia Douglas JohnsonandZora Neale Hurstonhosted salons that brought together leading figures in African-American literature, and in the culture and politics ofHarlemat the time.

Arab world

Main article:Women's literary salons and societies in the Arab world

Modern-day salons

Modern-day versions of the traditional salon (some with a literary focus, and others exploring other disciplines in the arts and sciences) are held throughout the world, in private homes and public venues.

Sally Quinnand her husbandBen Bradleehosted influential salons in Washington DC from the 1970s until the 2000s. "An invitation to the couple’s historic Georgetown home was one of the most coveted status symbols in the nation’s capital, an entry to an elite salon of the powerful, talented and witty."In the 1980s, former nun, and musicianTheodora di Marcoand her sister Norma hosted musical and debating soirées in their home inNotting Hill,London.

In 2014, in response to the isolation of the digital life, in-person events and salons grew in popularity.In 2021 response to the isolation of the pandemic,Susan MacTavish Best,who was part of the movement, launched an educational resource for those who wish to host salons in their community called The Salon Host.

Other uses of the word

Main article:Paris Salon

The wordsalonalso refers to art exhibitions. TheParis Salonwas originally an officially sanctioned exhibit of recent works of painting and sculpture by members of theAcadémie royale de peinture et de sculpture,starting in 1673 and soon moving from theSalon Carréof thePalace of the Louvre.

The namesalonremained, even when other quarters were found and the exhibits' irregular intervals became biennial. A jury system of selection was introduced in 1748, and the salon remained a major annual event even after the government withdrew official sponsorship in 1881.

The related termssalon-style exhibitionorsalon-style hangdescribe the practice of displaying large numbers of paintings, thus requiring placing them close together at multiple heights, often on a high wall.

See also

• Coffeehouse
• English coffeehouses in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
• French art salons and academies
• Levee (ceremony)
• Paris Salon
• Salon.com
• Salon d'Automne
• Salon des Indépendants
• Salon des Refusés
• Social center
• Stammtisch
• Charles Babbage's Saturday night soirées

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• Pekacz, Jolanta T., Conservative Tradition In Pre-Revolutionary France: Parisian Salon Women (New York: Peter Lang, 1999)
• Roche, Daniel, (Trans Arthur Goldhammr), France in the Enlightenment, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: HUP, 1998)
• Tallentyre, S. G., Women of the Salons (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1926)
• Von der Heyden-Rynsch, Verena, Europaeische Salons. Hoehepunkte einer versunken weiblichen Kultur (Düsseldorf: Artemis & Winkler, 1997)

Further reading

• Beasley, Faith E.Salons, History, and the Creation of Seventeenth-Century France.Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Company,2006.
• Bilski, Emily et al.Jewish Women and Their Salons: The Power of Conversation,Jewish Museum New York, 2005.
• Craveri, Benedetta.The Age of Conversation.Trans. Teresa Waugh. New York: New York Review Books,2005.
• Benet Davetian "The History and Meaning of Salons"
• James Ross,'Music in the French Salon'; in Caroline Potter and Richard Langham Smith (eds.),French Music Since Berlioz(Ashgate Press, 2006), pp. 91–115.ISBN0-7546-0282-6.
• Mainardi, Patricia.The End of the Salon: Art and the State of the Early Republic.New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
• Laure HILLERIN,La comtesse Greffulhe, L'ombre des GuermantesParis, Flammarion, 2014.Archived2014-10-19 at theWayback Machine

External links

Private salons

• Hum Salonby Falling Apple Charitable Trust, Auckland, New Zealand
• Mlle de Scudéry
• Julie de Lespinasse, Mme Geoffrin in memoirs.
• The Women of the French Salonsby Amelia Ruth Gere Mason
• Charlottetown Conversation Salon
• Benet Davetian's Article on the History and Meaning of Salons
• La comtesse Greffulhe, a french salonnière of theBelle EpoqueArchived2014-10-19 at theWayback Machine
• Comic art: The Paris Salon in Caricature:Getty Museum exhibition, 2003.
• Jewish Women and Their Salons