The salon is a cultural institution of organized intellectual and social gathering, most closely associated with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, in which an educated hostess, or salonniere, convened writers, philosophers, artists and nobility in a private home for structured conversation, debate and the exchange of new ideas. Salons played a significant institutional role in disseminating Enlightenment thought and shaping literary and philosophical taste outside formal academic institutions, and the model spread to other European capitals and to intellectual circles in later periods and places. Historians of the public sphere have treated the salon as an important precursor institution to modern print and broadcast media culture, providing a space for the emergence of public opinion outside court and church authority.
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Coffeehouses and salons both served as parallel institutions of the early modern public sphere, informal venues for conversation, debate and the exchange of ideas outside court and church.
Salons and, later, public libraries both served as institutions extending access to literature and ideas beyond aristocratic or clerical circles.
The literary and political salon is frequently identified as a precursor institution to the modern think tank, gathering influential figures to discuss and shape ideas.
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Source Salon (gathering) (Wikipedia)LeadQuote, Lead
Salons in the tradition of the French literary and philosophical movements of the 17th and 18th centuries are still being conducted.
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