Paul Allen considers the triumph of French painting with a new exhibition at the Royal Academy-Ingres to Matisse. And 250 years after its first appearance, he discusses Diderot's Encyclopedie.
Published over 21 years, with 72,000 articles (including contributions from Voltaire and Rousseau) spread over
16,500 pages, it was one of the keytexts of the Enlightenment. Hailed and reviled in its day, it stands as a monument to the progress of reason in the 18th century.