s2e30 History of Prints The Enlightenment (part one)

Platemark: prints and the printmaking ecosystem

In Platemark’s History of Prints series, we are leaving the Baroque behind and are turning to the Enlightenment. The late seventeenth and eighteenth century is a fascinating time when social ideas focused on the value of knowledge in all sectors. Rationalism and empiricism led to the scientific revolution, the separation of church and state, literary salons, and for the purposes of this episode, art academies. The era saw the establishment of taxonomies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and studies of foreign cultures. The results of all of these studies led to both good and bad, leading Tru and I to discuss alternate terms for the era beyond the Enlightenment: the Endarkenment and the Enwhitenment. Listen in as we parse out this fascinating moment in history.

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George Peabody Library, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.

Hyacinth Rigaud (French, 1659–1743). Louis VIX, 1700–01. Oil on canvas. 277 x 194 cm. (109 x 76 3/8 in.) The Louvre, Paris.

Aerial view of Versailles.

Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594–1665). Et in Arcadia ego, 1637–38. Oil on canvas. 85 × 121 cm. (34 1/4 × 47 1/4 in.). Louvre, Paris.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italian, 1598–1680). Bust of Louis XIV, 1665. Marble. Palace of Versailles.

Façade of the Louvre Museum.

Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594–1665). Landscape with St. John Patmos, 1640. Oil on canvas. 100.3 × 136.4 cm (39 1/2 × 53 5/8 in.). Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

Johann Zoffany (German, 1733–1810). The Academicians of the Royal Academy, 1771–72. Oil on canvas. 101.1 x 147.5 cm. Royal Collection Trust.

Raphael (Italian, 1483–1520). School of Athens, 1509–11. Stanza della Segnatura, Apostolic Palace, Vatican.

Roman. Laocoön and His Sons, 27 BCE–68 CE. Marble. 208 × 163 × 112 cm. (82 × 64 × 44 in.). Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican City.

Wax ecorché figure. Science Museum, London.

Johann Zoffany (German, 1733–1810). William Hunter Lecturing, 1770–72. Oil on canvas. Royal College of Physicians, London.

Anton von Maron (German, 1733–1808). Portrait of Johann Joachim Winkelmann, 1767. Oil on canvas. 136 x 99 cm. (53 ½ x 38 7/8 in.). Collection of Schloss Weimar, Weimar, Germany.

Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748–1825). The Oath of the Horatii, 1784/85. Oil on canvas. 10.8 x 13.9 ft. Louvre Museum, Paris.

Jan van Riemsdyck, Plate VI from The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus. London: S. Baker & G. Leigh, 1774. Engraving.

Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746–1828). Plate 43 from Los Caprichos: The sleep of reason produces monsters (El sueño de la razon produce monstruos), 1799. Etching and aquatint. Plate: 8 3/8 x 5 15/16 in. (21.2 x 15.1 cm.); sheet: 11 5/8 x 8 1/4 in. (29.5 x 21 cm.). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Denis Diderot (French, 1713–1784). Title page and frontispiece from Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Paris : André le Breton, Michel-Antoine David, Laurent Durant, and Antoine-Claude Briasson, 1751–72.