Around this time music began to move away from the principle of the imitation of nature towards a more autonomous language. After various attempts at applying rhetoric to musical composition, this would lead to the representation of the emotions, exploring all the resources expression had to offer in the pursuit of creative freedom. This art form consequently opened up to a wider audience and was no longer limited to select circles or restricted to the salon and the palaces of patrons of the arts.

This revolution of artistic feeling reflected the impetus of new generations, more inclined towards hedonism, than the pessimism of the seventeenth century, whose paintings were emblems of the inexorable destruction of the passage of time.

In regard to painting, this was also a period of drastic changes. These transformations went from the reconsideration of the artist, who was no longer undervalued for his manual and mechanical work and now ranked equally with the literati, to a profound revolution in artistic aesthetics. The principle of mimesis was avoided and painting gradually freed itself of the obligation of abiding by the rules of the Academy, searching for new forms, such as the landscape and still life. Art shows marked the beginning of a profound evolution in regard to the consideration of this art. In 1725, the members of the l’Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, created in 1648, began exhibiting in the Salon carré at the Louvre. Art shows would regularly take place from 1737 onwards. They were inaugurated on 25 August, St Louis Day, the King’s name day, and remained open for a period of three to six weeks. They were a tremendous success with the public and generated a large amount of literature about painting: Diderot’s salons would lead the way to modern art criticism.

Thus a new sensitivity towards the arts began to emerge. This revolution of artistic feeling reflected the impetus of new generations, more inclined towards hedonism, than the pessimism of the seventeenth century, whose paintings were emblems of the inexorable destruction of the passage of time. It was a period of investigation, of yearning for happiness, a period with a taste for decoration and the visually satisfying. Painting would pursue these objectives using colour, drawing and composition. In fact, during the Illustration there was a change of artistic sensitivity, which was dominated by the idea of a douceur de vivre, as reflected in the literature of the period. It comes as no surprise that the first page of Domenico Scarlatti’s Essercizi (1729) contains the inscription “Live Happy”.

All this leads to an assessment of the imagination, of illusion and fiction. The 18th-century was submerged in a pretend and imaginary atmosphere, in which thought seems to hover between the apparent reality and those forces escaping strict rationality.

Where did the tradition of still-life painting originate? Perhaps one of the reflections that best describes the subtlety and symbolism of these paintings, perfectly capturing the richness and complexity of this subject, was made by Marcel Proust, who never ceased thinking about art: “Still life will ultimately become animated life. Like life itself, it will always have something new to say to us, some mystery to reveal. Daily life will charm you, if you have heeded the lesson of its painting; and having comprehended the life of its painting, you will have conquered the beauty of life”.