Libertinage was the cultural and ideological product of a progressive change in political and religious attitudes during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in France.  Diderot and d’Alembert in the Encyclopedia defined this intellectual attitude as both religious and sexual license.  This fluctuating religious and sexual definition allowed libertinage to encompass both reason and fantasy, and therefore, its forms appeared in art, on bookshelves, in drawing rooms, and even in churches.  

Through representations of religious libertinage, such as Bernard Picart’s engravings of the unorthodox Jansenist convulsionaries, or those of sexual libertinage in the erotic color print of Ariadne by Jean François Janinet, artists and engravers experimented with visually libertine themes in their art.  By addressing various Enlightenment philosophies, they conveyed ideological principles to a receptive and curious audience.   

In this way, the burgeoning intellectual, religious, and political climate of the eighteenth-century provided a space for artists, philosophers, authors, and theologians to grapple with radical ideas.  Consequently, the erudition that libertinage encouraged had serious repercussions, and the French populace eventually lashed out against established political and religious strongholds, culminating in the revolution of 1789.