Introducing the Enlightenment: The Salon

Abstract The Enlightenment, with its belief in reason, equality and progress, was crucial to the evolution of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. This article explains how the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) went about exploring this movement and its values through the creation of “The Salon,” a gallery space for intellectual activity – for reflection, discussion, music and events. Displays of busts and books evoke the intellectual and social world of the Enlightenment, while a contemporary commission The Globe embodies the connections between our modern world and that of the past, between Europe and the wider world, between museum objects and abstract ideas.