Identity in diversity : programmatic pictures of the enlightenment

Abstract

Inquiries into the realm of Enlightenment identities usually depart from the texts of this period. Yet pictures created by contemporary artists are equally crucial and largely overlooked sources that have the potential to condense such identities. Using examples from late eighteenth-century France and early eighteenth-century Germany, this paper shows how pictures were used to propagate agendas of enlightenment and, sometimes, to draft it in the first place. It discusses how different ideas of enlightenment connected to different strategies of visual representation and to schemes of public usage of the pictures.