England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [81]
Emma soon became one of the biggest tourist attractions in Naples, and the political and cultural elite of Europe flocked to see her. Modern researchers claim that Sir William created the Attitudes, but there is no evidence for this. No spectators, even those who found her dismayingly vulgar, credit the idea to her lover, for they knew he was ignorant about fashion and dance. As they recognized, Emma borrowed poses she had struck in Romney's studio, recalling the artist's quest to unite classical models with modern sex appeal. Some implied that she learned to pose in the brothel, and indeed the word attitude was often used to refer to postures by courtesans. As one put it, she "improved her skill in Attitudes by the study of antique figures, from which she learned a variety of the most voluptuous and indecent poses."3 Like the gossip columns in the newspapers already dropping teasing hints about Emma's performances, the guests describe Sir William as an enthusiastic admirer, awed by his lovely mistress's skill. If he took a role, it was to encourage her to dance around his finest vases in the hope that one of his visitors might want to buy them.
The Attitudes reflected Emma's endeavors to educate herself about classical culture by reading in her lover's library and accompanying him on his trips to Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Portici, as well as to excavations of tombs in search of new vases. In an illustration at the front of one of his catalogues, Emma is pictured in her signature white muslin, peering into a tomb. After listening to Sir William and his friends, she soon had the same smattering of knowledge about classical myths and history as any traveling squire, and her performances were created to suit just such an individual. The Attitudes were neither esoteric nor even accurate, but a hit parade of popular classical stories: Clytemnestra and Niobe, the more attractive goddesses; Iphigenia preparing to sacrifice herself; Helen of Troy; women seduced by Zeus; Cleopatra waiting for Antony; as well as a Magdalen. Since all travelers hoped to see Titian's Danae at Caserta, the corresponding attitude was always a reliable crowd pleaser as Emma posed as the title figure, a princess visited by Zeus disguised as a shower of gold.
Travelers wandered around Pompeii and Herculaneum hoping to be, as William Beckford put it, "transported bodily into the realms of antiquity," but feeling guiltily bored by the mass of soil and dirt. Much remained overgrown because the king refused permits to excavate, dreading anyone finding anything better than his own collection of antiquities. Although guides hunted out the sites of brothels and cafés to please the tourists, few were able to imagine Pompeii as a Roman city.4 Without films or plays to depict classical times (the Neapolitans hardly ever performed classical plays, for they preferred comic farce), they craved a performance that might give them an idea of classical Italy—and also encapsulate the essence of the modern country and its people. Emma fulfilled their desire. As the Comtesse de Boigne suggested, she showed them "the poetic imagination of the Italians by a kind of living improvisation" in easily digestible form. Beloved particularly by tourists who felt ashamed about preferring the shops to grimy ruins they could not understand, Emma's performances were seen as reviving the ancient past. The Attitudes soon became crucial to any self-respecting visitor's grand tour and essential to his descriptions of his encounters with classical culture.
Actors in England and Europe were pigeonholed into either comic (usually sexy) roles or parts as a tragic hero or heroine and were seldom allowed to perform both. Emma's audiences were stunned by her ability to move swiftly from tragic to comic postures. One onlooker recalled that he had
never seen anything more fluid and graceful… at one moment I was admiring her in the constancy of Sophonisba