Weimar courtyard of the muses

Modern revisions predominantly present sober conclusions and largely disagree with 19th century claims of a society in progress as a result of the utilization of the guiding principles of the Enlightenment and the cultivation of the genius.

The painting depicts a rather fictional, ideally arranged scene around 1794/95: An illustrious party, that consists of noble members of the court and commoners alike (scholars, artists and scientists), has gathered, regardless to class etiquette and formalities, in and around the Tiefurt Muse temple (which was only built in 1803), while listening to Friedrich Schiller's deliberations.

In the creation of a cultivated and witty conviviality, the Duchess was assisted by poet and philosopher Christoph Martin Wieland, who had joined the court as the teacher of the two princes in 1772, being in fact the first of the many famous writers moving to Weimar.

Berger also exhorts, that she does not qualify as a true patroness of the arts because she refused unconditional promotion of free artists, but treated them as civil servants who were obliged to perform certain tasks.

[6] In 1844 the academic historian Wilhelm Wachsmuth published a historical sketch in which the term courtyard of the muses was used for the first time in a scholarly context, steadily spread for decades and solidified into a formula.