ABSTRACT
Emma Hamilton understood the culture of her milieu, the particular blend of eroticism and the longing for a connection with the ancient past that characterized the Neapolitan experience, and she fashioned for herself performances that kept her spectators mesmerized. She aided in the development and dissemination of neoclassicism throughout Europe, all the while exposing its more lascivious side and imprinting it with her own valence. Her dancing of the tarantella influenced the lives, performances, and writings of her contemporaries by giving them a new avenue for creative expression. Artists have represented Emma in ways that have allowed them to explore and express a number of different aesthetic, political, historical, personal, and cultural concerns. By staying attuned to Emma’s presence in art and to the extent of her reach her polyvalence, her agency, and the power of the images she has left behind.
