Noorda, Meredith (Brigham Young University)
Faculty Advisor: Belnap, Heather (Humanities, Comparative Arts and Letters); Swensen, James (Humanities, Comparative Arts and Letters)
In 1740 the Society of Dilettanti, an 18th century group of English gentlemen aiming to encourage an appreciation for the antiquities they had seen on their Grand Tours, decided to commission from George Knapton portraits of all their members. In the typical artistic vein of the early Dilettanti, the portraits, featuring many of the members in costume, exhibit a milieu where the erudite meets the comical to the outright lewd, a reflection of one of the Dilettanti's mottos of seria ludo, or "serious things done in a playful spirit." Within the wider context of London public life, these are also clear examples of the influence of the masquerade, and for a group closely aligned with the Italian Grand Tour, and thought to have been initially conceived in Venice, the appeal of those references is clear and the Dilettanti's use of them has been commented on in scholarship. However, the use of costume in George Knapton's portraits can reveal more than a simple love of Continental entertainments. Aligning oneself with the Continent and the East, as the sitters do in Knapton's works, was a subversive choice in relation to the normative British culture of the mid-18th century, in which the encroachment of Continental entertainments and fashion, among other things, was frequently feared. These portraits must be read with an acknowledgement of the ways in which the masquerade and the Italianate was seen in 18th century England, where it was not an accepted form of entertainment as on the Continent, but a controversial pastime. In turn the portraits can reveal where the Dilettanti situated themselves, and how they wanted to be represented�as internationally inclined participators in these foreign entertainments, boldly partaking in its vices, championing its creative possibilities in the self-fashioning of an individual.