The French Illustration

The French illustration

France was the country that most knew the development of the ideas of the Enlightenment, in addition, it was the one who, in the various fields, the greatest number of propagandists. The thinkers of this stage argued that human reason could be ignorance, superstition and tyranny, and build a better world. The French illustration is marked by citizens’ concern about the social and political problems of the time. Above all, highlighting his political system, known as enlightened despotism, is generally defined according to the words of King Louis XIV: "Everything for the people, but without the people". 

This political system and the diverse problems are greater in 1789 the French Revolution. The French illustration shared the general characteristics of this movement, but has been defined by the rise of a critical and skeptical spirit. 

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA 

As for literature, the most important work of illustration is encyclopedia, it is considered the first French encyclopedia that contains the synthesis of the main events of the time. Shows all saber branches in at least seventy thousand articles. This was directed by the French illustrators. Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond. 

Between 1751 and 1772, although a sixty collaborators also participated, among them were some of the most prominent thinkers and intellectuals of the time. It also mentioned l´encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des methodiers becomes a symbol of the project of the Enlightenment, using as a policy and an object of numerous clashes between editors, editors and representatives of secular and ecclesiastical power by The broad knowledge that is contained, in addition to the effort he represents and for the intentions assigned to him his own authors.

The English editorial of Ephraim Chambers will be published in the French encyclopedia, will become a great universal renown and open the new political, economic and social ideas of the Enlightenment into the western world. ´Alembert, it was very important, because they modified the original project by turning it into one that evolved to be more than a mere translation of Cyclopaedia of Chambers. From the first edition of the first volumes, editors, clashes and the various sectors of society, especially the monarchy, the nobility and the clergy, highlighting in the latter group, the Jesuits, all the defenders of the old regime. Encyclopedia and encyclopedists advocated a rationalist and tolerant perspective, characterized by a liberal spirit. 

Despite the discrimination of the appointed groups, some nobles became their defenders, such as Madame de Pompadour, lover of the king, or the director of the National Library, Guillaume Malesherbes. After its initial publication, the work becomes part of the prohibited book index that we maintain the Catholic Church in 1759, this fact caused the edge permits to the printers. However, it was not an obstacle to its next edition in a semiclandestine way until 1772, at the time the seventeen volumes of the work were completed. 

Authors Denis Diderot 

Denis Diderot was born in Langers, east of France, on October 5, 1713. At the age of ten he entered the School of the Jesuits in his hometown and in 1726 he received tonsure by his imposition with the east of what happened as a canon to a maternal uncle. In 1728 he moved to Paris to continue his studies; He graduated in arts at the University in 1732 and then began a decade of Bohemia, during this period of time he lost evidence of his activities. 

In 1746 he published his philosophical thoughts, in this work he proclaims his naturalistic deism, which has happened in the condition of Parliament of Paris. This same year he is in contact with Le Breton, an editor who invites him to the edition of the French translation of the English Cyclopedia of Ephraim Chambers. Diderot, in collaboration with the mathematician Jean Le Rond d’A Alembert, developed this project in an immense work of new writing that covered 17 volumes: the encyclopedia or the Dictionary of the Arts and the Crafts, rather as the Encyclopedia. With the help of the most prestigious writers of the time, including Voltaire and Montesquieu, the skeptic and rationalist Diderot used the encyclopedia as a powerful weapon of propagand epoch. 

In 1749, the letter about the blind for the use that can be seen being imprisoned during the month in Vincennes is known as "intellectual debauchery", a cause of the tone of the text and his agnostic thesis; In prison he received the visit of Rousseau, whom he knew since 1742 and that in 1758 he ended up distanceing himself from him. After a marriage and the birth of several children, he is part of 1755 from Sophie Volland, one of his lovers, with an epistolary exchange that forms the most notable part of his correspondence. In 1759 the Paris Parliament, adding to the sentence of the Holy See, ordered a new suspension; D’Alembert left the company, but the support of men when printing the encyclopedia professionally. 

In 1764, Diderot found that the editor censored his writings and, in 1765, he left the responsibilities of the edition. Diderot enjoyed the illustrated patronage of Queen Catalina II La Grande de Russia and exerted a notable influence on other thinkers of the Enlightenment in Europe. He died in Paris on July 30, 1784. The most notable of his production was made up of works that remained unpublished until after his death. Among them, above all, two philosophical novels: the paradox of the comedian, the religious and Jacques the fatalist, as well as the masterful dialogue the nephew of Rameau. Voltaire François-Marie Aouet, better known as Voltaire, was born in 1694 in the city of Paris, studied in the schools of the Louis-Le-Grand school. In 1718 the tragedy began. When he was released, they banished Châtenay, where he adopted the pseudonym for which he is known, Voltaire. In 1726 he was again new to the Bastille after an altercation with Rohan’s gentleman. In the course of five months, he was released and, this time, exiled to Great Britain until 1729. Once there, he was hotly welcomed in the Court of London and in the various literary and commercial media. 

In 1728 Henriade published; in 1730, Gross, which obtained great success; In 1731, the story of Carlos XII, in the critical war of war; and in 1733 the satire the temple of taste. His most scandalous work was philosophical letters or English letters, published in 1742, in Voltaire he converts a brilliant report on Great Britain into a criticism of the French regime. An arrival order for her has been issued, but they have been carried out in Cyrey, there, thanks to the Marquise de Châtelet, and a useful life has been carried out. In 1734 he wrote the tragedy Zaire, in which the author tried to rejuvenate the genre; He also published Adélïde du Guesclin that same year; César’s death a year later; Alzaire or the Americans in 1736 and in 1741, Muhammad or fanaticism. He also wrote the following works, although they did not obtain so much fortune: the original son and Nanine or the defeated prejudice. In addition, during this time, I played an important role as Newton’s disseminator with the work elements of Newton’s philosophy, published in 1738. 

With certain obligations, such as Fontenay’s poem, written in 1745, I have managed to introduce in court, for which he performed diplomatic missions before Federico II. Louis XV appointed real historiographer and entered the French Academy during the year 1746. Subsequently, due to a loss of prestige in the court and death of Madame du Châtelet in 1749, Voltaire accepted an invitation from Federico II the Great. During his stay in Potsdam he wrote the century of Louis XIV and continues, with Micromégas, his series of tales initiated with Zadig. It is also worth highlighting the following functions that the enlightened one wrote: essay on customs, the maiden, poem on the disaster of Lisbon, Cándido or Optimism and Tancrède. He also collaborated in the aforementioned encyclopedia, which is known as the Catholics party during his stay in Geneva. His major works in this period are the Treaty of Tolerance and the Philosophical Dictionary. He vehemently denounced the failures and injustices of judicial sentences (cases of coves, serve and the sweep). He freed his vassals from his gabela, which, thanks to Voltaire, dedicated himself to agriculture and watchmaking. 

Shortly before he died, he made a triumphal reception in Paris. In 1791, his remains were transferred to the pantheon. Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva on June 28, 1712. This is a representative of individual treatment and education given in his time. Although Rousseau was rather a poetic philosopher, not a pedagogue, but through his novel Emilio, or education promotes philosophical thoughts about education, this being one of his main contributions in the field of pedagogy. His objective is to establish in childhood the purpose of freedom through activity, learn by experience itself and not so much so that the teachings of others. The reason for being of pedagogy, which is founded first in psychological laws, is the installation in childhood, the purpose of freedom, through activity, learn by experience itself and not so much for what the teaching the the rest. One of Rousseau’s important keys is the difference between children and adults in their learning. Until his time, children are educated as if they were adults in a little. 

In his book ‘The social contract’, he rescues the need of people, throughout his life, advice and guidance. In his text ‘El Emilio’, he attacked the educational system of his time, because he maintains that children must be educated through his interests and not by strict discipline. Given his departure from the encyclopedists of the time and his confrontation with the Catholic Church, by his political doctrines, his appropriate literary style. His autobiographical works gave a fundamental turnaround in European literature; to the point that he is one of the precursors of romanticism. The most outstanding works of him at the time were Julia, or the new Eloisa, and Emilio, or Education, previously appointed, and that transformed the ideas about the family. Other very important works are the social contract and discourse on the origin of inequality between men. 

The social contract was the manual of the doctrinals of the French Revolution. Emilio, or education exposes the theory that pedagogy must respect the good natural instincts of man, guiding his free development in the least artificial way possible. ‘The religious part of Emilio, or of education entitled’ Profession of Foi Du Vicaire Savoyard ‘, immediately irritated in the Paris Parliament, that what’ impious, scandalous and offensive ‘so that Rousseau was forced to comply with A flee from France not to end in jail. On the other hand, his confessions (published posthumously in 1782 and 1789) represent, in a century included in autobiography, an example of personal introspection and extreme exhibition of own intimacy, in a degree that would not be reached until the plenary romanticism .

Finally, death surprised in the solitude of the gardens in Ermenonville Castle, where the Marquis de Girardin was invited, while the enlightened pleasure of herbalization was delivered. lonely, also posted posthumously in 1782. His confessions (published posthumously in 1782 and 1789) represent, in a century included in autobiography, an exceptional example of personal introspection and extreme intimacy, in a degree that would not be achieved until full romanticism. Finally, death surprised in the solitude of the gardens in Ermenonville Castle, where the Marquis de Girardin was invited, while the enlightened pleasure of herbalization was delivered. lonely, also posted posthumously in 1782. His confessions (published posthumously in 1782 and 1789) represent, in a century included in autobiography, an exceptional example of personal introspection and extreme intimacy, in a degree that would not be achieved until full romanticism. 

Finally, death surprised in the solitude of the gardens in Ermenonville Castle, where the Marquis de Girardin was invited, while the enlightened pleasure of herbalization was delivered. lonely, also posted posthumously in 1782.