Enlightenment and New Understanding of the World

Essay

In 1781, French Artist Leonard Defrance created a painting called “At the Shield of Minerva.” The painting displayed a street scene that is in front of a bookstore called “Minerva.” Minerva was the name given to the Roman goddess of poetry, medicine, handicrafts, commerce and wisdom and also the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy (Cartwright, 2014). The scene also displays a mix of people from different classes including the clergy implying that they were all impacted by books and the Enlightenment ideas. Enlightenment was a significant cultural movement in the 18th century that was based on human reasoning and its power to determine social class. All types of people including the prominence of the clergy supported learning and the reading culture. In the ancient France, there were different locations were intellectual elites could meet, mingle and discuss enlightenment ideas. The places include local academies, societies, libraries, freemason lodges, bookstores and coffee houses. Bookstores became hotbeds of enlightenment ideas since people of all classes could purchase books or pay a small fee so as to read recent works (Roche, 1998). The books found in the bookstores included religious books, new novels and enlightenment literature, etc. The bookstore in Leonard’s painting shows how the bookstores had become famous for people to read literature works. The painting shows two women standing outside the store door reading books and also numerous packages of presumably books being delivered to the store. It was through these gathering; interchanges and the culture of reading that lead to the spread of the Enlightenment through the society and led to the increase of intellectuals. French artist Leonard Defrance includes the member of the clergy (in white robe) in the painting so as to show that they supported learning and reading culture. Religion was important to the people, and they obeyed and worshiped the goddess Minerva; thus the clergy supported the culture of reading and learning so that all people could adopt it.

References

Cartwright, M. (2014): Minerva: Ancient History Encyclopedia: Retrieved from http://www.ancient.eu/Minerva/

Roche, D. (1998). France in the Enlightenment (Vol. 130). Harvard University Press.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in best nursing writing services if you need a similar paper you can place your order for custom nursing papers.