Salon (gathering)

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For other uses see salon.

A salon is a gathering of stimulating people of quality under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation and readings, often consciously following Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "to please and educate" (aut delectare aut prodesse est). The salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical salons of the 17th century and 18th century, were carried on until quite recently in urban settings among like-minded people of a 'set': many 20th-century salons could be instanced.

The word salon first appears in French in 1664 (from the Italian word sala, used to designate the large reception hall of Italian mansions). Literary gatherings before this were often referred to by using the name of the room in which they occurred, like cabinet, réduit, ruelle and alcôve ¹. 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 is even found with Louis XIV's petit levée). The expression ruelle, literally meaning "little street", designates the space between a bed and the wall in a bedroom, and more generally the entire 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, whose affectations were ridiculed by Molière.

Nobles' courts have always drawn to themselves poets, writers and artists, usually with the lure of patronage, an aspect that sets the court apart from the salon. In 16th-century Italy some scintillating circles did form in the smaller courts, often galvanized by the presence of a beautiful and educated patroness such as Isabella d'Este or Elisabetta Gonzaga. In 16th century France, literary and artistic circles formed around royal women such as Marguerite of Navarre, Marie de Medici, Marguerite de Valois, among others. But in the late 16th century, as a result of the Wars of Religion, the official royal literary circles were increasingly superseded by more private circles.

The most famous of the literary salons of Paris formed in the 1620s were the Hôtel de Rambouillet by Madame de Rambouillet and the rival salon that gathered around Madeleine de Scudéry. Here gathered the original "blue-stockings" (les bas-bleues), whose nickname continued to mean "intellectual woman" for the next 300 years. In the salons of Paris, the précieuses refined the French language even before the Académie Francaise was founded.

The 18th century salons brought together Parisian society and the progressive philosophes who were producing the Encyclopédie. Marmontel's remark about Julie de Lespinasse suggests the secret of the salon in French culture:

"The circle was formed of persons who were not bound together. She had taken them here and there in society, but so well assorted were they that once there they fell into harmony like the strings of an instrument touched by an able hand."

Such a woman in German circles, inspiring to writers and artists, perhaps without an artistic bent herself, was called a "muse".

Galante manners of the mid 18th century were less formal. Horace Walpole's correspondent, Sir Horace Mann, the British envoy at Florence, chafed at the formality of Florentine salons, or conversazioni, where the tall chairs were drawn in a circle and a subject was introduced by the hostess, at which each member was expected to shine in turn.

A reading of Molière, Jean François de Troy, about 1728

Paris salons of the 18th century:

Madame Geoffrin
Madame de Tencin
Julie de Lespinasse: her chief draw was d'Alembert, but "though the name of M. d'Alembert may have drawn them thither, it was she alone who kept them there."
Madame du Deffand, the friend of Horace Walpole
The Marquise de Lambert
The Duchesse du Maine
Madame d'Épinay
Madame Necker, the wife of the financier Jacques Necker
Madame Helvétius, the wife of Helvétius
Madame Roland, the political salon that was the resort of the Girondists at the first stages of the Revolution.
Madame Swetchine, wife of General Swetchine.

Some 19th century salons were more inclusive, verging on the raffish, and centered around painters and "literary lions" such as Mme Récamier. After the shocks of 1870, French aristocrats tended to withdraw from the public eye. Marcel Proust called up his own turn-of-the-century experience to recreate the rival salons of the fictional Duchesse de Guermantes and Madame Verdurin.

American "society hostesses" such as Perle Mesta have performed a function similar to the host or hostess of the European salon.

Other uses of the word

Main article: Paris Salon.

The word salon also refers to art exhibitions. The Paris Salon was originally an officially-sanctioned exhibit of recent works of painting and sculpture by members of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, starting in 1673 and soon moving from the Salon Carré of the Palace of the Louvre.

The name salon remained, 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.

Another contemporary usage is in "beauty salon".

External links

Private salons

[Mlle de Scudéry]
[Les Contes de Fées: The Literary Fairy Tales of France]: 17th-century Paris salons of Mme d'Aulnoy, the comtesse de Murat and others by Terri Windling.
[Julie de Lespinasse, Mme Geoffrin in memoirs.]
[Americans in Paris: Natalie Barney, Gertrude Stein, and Sylvia Beach.] Three 20th century salons.

Art exhibitions

[Paris Salon of 1769:] photos illustrate some of the paintings shown that year.
[Comic art: The Paris Salon in Caricature]: Getty Museum exhibition, 2003.
[Jewish Women and Their Salons]

References

Dictionaire des lettres françaises: le XVIIe siècle, revised edition by Patrick Dandrey, ed. (Paris: Fayard, 1996), p.1149.

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