Taste and Superiority in the 18th Century.ppt

The importance of taste as an indicator of social status had already become apparent in the 17th century and is exemplified in the court of Louis XIV. In the 18th century, the British sense their superiority in the growth of the Empire while the Grand Tour epitomizes the rite-of-passage for the wealthy. The wealthy have their status reified in the portraits painted of them by Italian artists.
The the idea of having “good taste” immediately summons up ideas of social status in a way that other concepts of the aesthetic – beauty, the sublime, harmony, etc. – do not.
In the 17th century, Louis XIV had invested excessively in fashionable appearance. The construction of Versailles and its ornamental gardens were designed to keep the nobility under control as nobles were obliged to stay there and follow Louis’ constant display of fashion, dance, etc.
Feelings of superiority had been stoked up by the conquests of the New World. In the 16th and 17th centuries, missionaries and colonial administrators had discovered naked Indians, infanticide, cannibalism, human sacrifice and promiscuity. Believing the Indians to be in a state of sin, the missionaries wanted to convert them to Christianity. This was the beginning of ethnology – the prevailing belief was that the civilized world was superior to that of the barbarians.
This belief gave rise to anthropological theories which attempted to legitimate it by giving it a scientific foundation. Carl Linnaeus, the first to classify people into different races. He classified the behaviour of Europeans as light, wise and inventive while the African species is sly, sluggish and neglectful. The notion that certain human beings were superior to others was given a scientific foundation.
The Grand Tour offered an opportunity for those socially superior beings to show that they deserved their status as they soaked up the cultural knowledge that was available to them. During the 17th and 18th centuries, it was a rite-of-passage for the wealthy and those embarking on it were necessarily from the privileged social classes.
Many of the portraits painted of the Grand Tour travellers would show the tourist next to significant historical monuments or even dressed in classical garments. Such images allowed the tourists to identify themselves with former dominant civilizations by stressing the continuity between former great civilizations and their own.
"Batoni’s Grand Tour portraits ... were in fact carefully executed portrayals of how Georgian elites wished to view themselves, and how they wished to be viewed by their peers and social subordinates." Mathew Rogan

1. Taste and Superiority in the 18th
Century

2. The Aesthetic
The concept first appears in English in the 18th century.
Difficult to give an exact definition as it comes from
Enlightenment philosophy.
Other concepts from Enlightenment: beauty, the sublime,
harmony, taste.
Good taste implies social status; other concepts of the
aesthetic –beauty, the sublime, harmony, etc. –do not.

3. Louis XIV’s Versailles
Louis XIV controlled the courtiers by making them follow the
fashions he invented.
Good taste was what Louis XIV considered good taste
Men wore the habit habillé; women wore the grand habit de
cour
Only men and women of superior breeding could have taste

4. Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
Empiricist?
“I may define [fine taste in writing] to be that
Faculty of the Soul, which discerns the Beauties of
an Author with Pleasure, and the Imperfections
with Dislike.”

5. 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671 -1713)
Rationalist?
Taste is not something the common man can obtain:
“So much depends on a true Taste, with regard to
eloquence, and even morality, that no one can be properly
stil’d a gentleman, who does not take every opportunity to
enrich his own capacity, and settle the elements of taste,
which he may improve at leisure.”

6. 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671 -1713)
Taste must be developed with effort:
“For ’tis not instantly we acquire the Sense by which these
Beautys are discoverable. Labour and Pains are requir’d, and
Time to cultivate a natural Genius, ever so apt or forward.”

7. Carl Linnaeus
Published the first edition of Systema Naturaein 1735
The first anthropologist to classify the human species
To the tenth edition, he added hand written notes which
classified the behaviour of Europeans as light, wise and
inventive while the African species is sly, sluggish and
neglectful

8. Linnaeus' notes

9. The Grand Tour
a rite-of-passage for the wealthy
a statement of privilege and taste
stressed the continuity between former great civilizations and
their own
“A man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an
inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man
should see” (James Boswell)

10. Sir Sampson Gideon and an unidentified companion
by Batoni