Jump directly to the page contents
What is Enlightenment? Questions for the Eighteenth Century

More Story

The digital format “More Story” about the exhibition “What is Enlightenment? Questions for the Eighteenth Century” offers the opportunity to get background information and gain insight into the topics independent of a visit to the museum. Curator Liliane Weissberg reports on the historical background of the question “What is Enlightenment?” and project head Dorlis Blume explains what awaits visitors in the exhibition. Raphael Gross, President of the Deutsches Historisches Museum, shows how the exhibition fits into the programmatic framework of the museum. Finally the Outreach project, Enlightenment NOW, presents itself as well.

Table of contents

The exhibition examines the question “What is Enlightenment?”, which was first posed in 1783 in the magazine Berlinische Monatsschrift, and concentrates on the important debates of the epoch, including the contradictions and ambivalences that surrounded the discussions. From an international perspective it focuses on some of the main topics of the 18th century such as the search for knowledge and the new science, the order of the world as well as statesmanship and political liberty.

Title page of Immanuel Kant’s essay “Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?”, in: Berlinische Monatsschrift, Berlin, 1784 © DHM

Title page of Immanuel Kant’s essay “Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?”, in: Berlinische Monatsschrift, Berlin, 1784 © DHM

„The basic thesis of the exhibition is that not a simple answer to what Enlightenment is, is so important for us today, but the problems that are shown.“

Liliane Weissberg, Curator

The Search for Knowledge and the New Science

In the 18th century the sciences experienced a veritable upheaval. Improved instruments and cosmological and geographic discoveries starting in the 16th century had led to a broadening of knowledge that could no longer be encompassed with traditional learning methods and theoretical notions. Empirical research – observation, measurement and experiment – came to the forefront. Results had to be verifiable and objective. But it was not only scientific methodology that changed: research became popular. Outside of the universities, scholars and showmen conducted experiments in academies, private homes and marketplaces.

Model of a human eye in a cup, Nuremberg, ca. 1700 © DHM

Model of a human eye in a cup, Nuremberg, ca. 1700 © DHM

Large-plate electrostatic generator belonging to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe © Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Museen GNP 0001

Electricity became the decisive field of research in the 18th century. Goethe owned several large-plate electrostatic generators.

Robe à la française with balloon motifs, probably France, ca. 1783 © DHM

The first hot-air balloon flights in 1783 caused a sensation in Europe. Fashion also took up the topic.

„The Age of Enlightenment was not a project of progress. Or issues like tolerance, equality, those principles could not be implemented in practice at that time, but the questions remained.“

Dorlis Blume, Head of Project

The Order of the World

New strategies and principles of order led to an altered perception of the world. They helped to promote scientific findings and to spread them worldwide. Of great significance for the growing interest in natural history, which needed to describe new phenomena in botany, zoology and minerology, was the innovative nomenclature developed by Carl Linnaeus. His binominal classification system spread throughout Europe, marked a new vision of creation, and influenced the scholarly practice of collecting all kinds of objects. The great expeditions of the 18th century, like the voyages of Captain James Cook, were systematised, documented and mapped. The research journeys served not only to increase knowledge, but also to bolster the colonial cravings of the European powers.

Red trumpet honeysuckle from the Schildbach Xylotheque (wood library), Kassel, 1780–1800 © Naturkundemuseum im Ottoneum, photo: Peter Mansfeld

Red trumpet honeysuckle from the Schildbach Xylotheque (wood library), Kassel, 1780–1800 © Naturkundemuseum im Ottoneum, photo: Peter Mansfeld

The fascination with the Linnaean classification system is reflected in xylotheques. The leaf, fruit and blossom of the red trumpet honeysuckle make up one of the “books” of Carl Schildbach’s wood library.

Globe triplet with an earth globe marking the Cook expeditions, an armillary sphere and a celestial globe, Nuremberg, 1791/1792 © DHM

Milliners for feather ornaments with different products and instruments, copper engraving from Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, Paris, 1771 © DHM

In their 35-volume Encyclopédie Diderot and d’Alembert published the universal and practical knowledge available in their time.

„I believe that if our exhibition can demonstrate that [...] it is still worthwhile to engage with the arguments and questions of the Enlightenment, then we have already achieved a great deal.“

Raphael Gross, President

Statesmanship and political liberty

Based on the discourse on natural law, theoreticians of the Enlightenment began early on to discuss models of statesmanship and the separation of powers. A number of monarchs, among them Friedrich II, showed that they were ready for reform. Although they embraced the Enlightenment for themselves, they failed to depart from their absolutistic claims to power. Demands for equality and political liberty called the Ancien Régime into question and led at the end of the 18th century to two major revolutions that proclaimed human and civil rights for the first time: the War of Independence in the United States of America and the French Revolution. Women and enslaved persons, however, continued to be excluded from the revolutionary accomplishments.

Figural group Friedrich II and Voltaire, Volkstedt, after 1767 © DHM

Figural group Friedrich II and Voltaire, Volkstedt, after 1767 © DHM

First printing of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in German, Philadelphia, 6-8 July 1776 © DHM

A list of the slaves of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, USA, 1774 © Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society

The human rights in pocket size from the possessions of the mayor of Lyon, Louis Vitet, Paris, probably September 1791 © Ville de Lyon (Public Domain 1.0), Archives municipales, Fonds Vitet, 84II/3/1

The size and form of the print are not reminiscent of the tablets of the Ten Commandments, as was often the case at the time, but rather of a Communion wafer, also a motif taken from religious imagery.

Grafik mit Text "Aufklärung Now" und anderen Wörtern.

Enlightenment NOW

In the framework of the exhibition, we have been working on a broad basis with children and young people from Berlin and with inclusive school classes in Berlin and Brandenburg. The Outreach project Enlightenment NOW offers a young perspective on the topic of Enlightenment.

Outreach project

Brigitte Vogel-Janotta and Crawford Matthews from the DHM will introduce the idea behind the Outreach project.

Shadow Museum

The Shadow Museum, an alternative youth panel, dealt with the emergence of new discussion areas during the Enlightenment. The room in the exhibition curated by them provides the opportunity to reflect on the topics of the Enlightenment.

Pestalozzi-Fröbel House

A room of its own in the exhibition is devoted to the topic of “Children’s Books – Then and Now”. Here prospective social education teachers from the Pestalozzi-Fröbel House have dealt with illustrations in children’s books in the Age of Enlightenment.