Abstract

During the 1790s, Emma Hamilton, wife of collector and diplomat Sir William Hamilton, developed an innovative form of performance art, tableaux vivants known as the ‘(Grecian) Attitudes’. Notoriously transgressive both sexually and socially, Emma also transgressed materially, transposing the scenes depicted on Sir William’s vases into a kinaesthetic medium. That performance remains a subaltern or illegitimate mode of relating to ancient material culture (as opposed to visual display) is a cultural bias rooted in economic relations. Outside the context of the Attitudes, contemporaries were anxious to (re)place Emma in terms of class, describing her as promiscuous, ‘common’, and ‘vulgar’. Modern scholarship has proved similarly anxious to limit her agency through the repeated assertion of a ‘Pygmalion’ paradigm in which responsibility for developing the Attitudes is assigned to Sir William. I argue that, on the contrary, Emma should be credited with a mode of embodied reception alternative to that of the collector and connoisseur.

中文翻译：

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表演中的底池：艾玛·汉密尔顿（Emma Hamilton）的态度

摘要

在1790年代，收藏家兼外交官威廉·汉密尔顿爵士的妻子爱玛·汉密尔顿（Emma Hamilton）开发了一种新颖的表演艺术形式，即活泼的表象。被称为“（希腊）态度”。爱玛（Emma）在性和社交方面都臭名昭著，同时也实质性地犯罪，将威廉爵士的花瓶上描绘的场景转换为动感媒体。这种表现仍然是与古代物质文化（而不是视觉展示）相关的次要或非法模式，这是植根于经济关系的文化偏见。在态度的背景之外，同时代人急于要在阶级方面代替艾玛，将她描述为混杂，“普通”和“庸俗”。事实证明，现代学者同样急于通过反复断言“皮格马利翁”范式来限制她的代理人，在这种范式中将发展态度的责任分配给了威廉爵士。我认为相反