Candide
1759 · 336 pages
Voltaire sends an innocent young man taught that this is the best of all possible worlds through war, earthquake, and the Inquisition. The comedy is savage and the optimism does not survive.
★ 8.2
Browse by time · decade
1750s
1750 – 1759
Showing 83 works across all media from the 1750s
Clearing after Rain on Mount Inwang (Inwangjesaekdo)
1751 · National Museum of Korea, Seoul
Instead of copying idealized Chinese scenery, Jeong Seon walked out and painted a real hill above Seoul with the rain just lifting off it.
★ 7.3
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
1759 · 735 pages
Samuel Johnson pronounced this book already dead. Two hundred and sixty years on, Tristram is still failing to get himself born, derailed by his father's theories and his uncle's toy fortress.
★ 7.3
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
1755 · 92 pages
The first man to fence a field and say this is mine founded civil society, Rousseau writes, and ruined it. His case against progress split the Enlightenment and still unsettles readers.
★ 7.2
Candide · 1759
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
1759 · 494 pages
Smith argues that conscience is imagined company: we judge ourselves by picturing an impartial spectator and wanting his approval. The economist famous for self-interest built his moral system on fellow feeling.
★ 6.8
Mademoiselle O'Murphy
1751 · Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne
Louise O'Murphy was a teenage favorite of Louis XV, and Boucher painted her face-down across the cushions for private consumption.
★ 6.1
We have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others.
Philosophical Enquiry in the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful · 1757
Discourse on Political Economy · 1755
The Guitarist
1755 · Musee d'Arts Nantes, Nantes
A young man glances up from his guitar mid-song. Greuze usually painted tearful moral lessons, and here he simply does not.
★ 4.2
Letters of George Washington · 1757
Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments · 1759
Custom reconciles us to everything.
Philosophical Enquiry in the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful · 1757
The Theory of Moral Sentiments · 1759
Candide · 1759
Candide · 1759
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
Philosophical Enquiry in the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful · 1757
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard · 1751
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard · 1751