This thesis examines the extent to which spiritualism and science inform the paintings of Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919). I propose that her works in the period 1870-1919 incorporate Darwinist themes of evolutionary development integrated with a spiritualist paradigm of the progression of the soul after death. Chapter one examines the context and influences on De Morgan's mature works, including her family and friends. It considers the impact of her role as a professional woman artist in Pre-Raphaelite circies, and also her engagement with spiritualist practices as a medium. Chapter two argues that De Morgan's works are underpinned by a Darwinian model of evolution, expressed in her works as the progression of the soul, through the vehicle of the female physical body to the metaphysical realm. Chapter three considers how De Morgan reconfigures traditional Christian iconography and narratives through Platonist philosophy in order to create an alternative, feminist vision of divinity. Chapter four continues the exploration of science and spiritualism in relation to female empowerment through De Morgan's representation of witches and occult figures. It proposes that De Morgan's involvement in female suffrage and experience as a medium generate specific spiritualist meanings in her portrayal of occult figures. Chapter five asserts that De Morgan's recurrent concern with water and related imagery correlates with her spiritualist beliefs. It seeks to demonstrate that paintings with water imagery, including sea-scapes, sheils and mermaids, conflate contemporary scientific and spiritualist concerns, which integrate the idea of evolutionary and spiritual development. The conclusion draws together the principal findings of the thesis, and argues that the empirical evidence and close analysis of De Morgan's works in the period 1870-1919 show that they are primarily motivated by De Morgan's engagement with spiritualism.

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This study identifies and addresses representations of Eve and the Madonna exhibited at seven well-known London venues during the Victorian era (1838-1901). The subjects of Eve and the Madonna are here selected for detailed analysis from the broader context of Victorian religious subject pictures, a category of Victorian art that remains arguably under-researched. Nineteenth-century religious art was rooted in a Romantic sensibility and was invested with the purpose of providing a balm during a course, commercial industrial age, which, like the Enlightenment that preceded it, heralded the birth of modern life. Religious art of the nineteenth-century was promoted for consumption by the emerging middle class as a balm to the material age. However, the art that reflected this anti-modern, anti-capitalist impulse served, paradoxically, as both an antidote to and a participant in the materialist marketplace. During the mid-nineteenth century, a moralizing, instructional value was invested in art and religious subjects in general, which experienced a peak in exhibition c. 1850. By the 1860s, however, British art was characterized by a less narrative and didactic sensibility, reflected in Aestheticism, which was concerned with ‘a separation of art from the concerns of ‘real life,’ as well as the Venetian Renaissance. In the 188s, Symbolism emerged, characterized not by style, but a sensibility, which included preoccupation with emotions, dream states, mythologies and religion, innocence, sin, beauty, motherhood, sex, disease, death. Although they were traditional figures, the Madonna and Eve were each invested with, and emblematic of, some of these fin-de-siècle themes. The seven prominent Victorian London exhibition venues examined range from conservative promoters of academicism to sites that promoted the risk-takers of the nineteenth century, such as the Grosvenor Gallery and the New Gallery. These were venues where national tastes were codified, national heroes were made and international artistic values were reexamined and reevaluated. This dissertation examines a nineteenth-century trajectory, from the early Victorian era through the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, identifying styles if art through which to biblical icons of feminine identity, Eve and the Madonna, were expressed, and examining the ideas invested in them, all within the context of the Victorian revival of interest in Renaissance art and the stylistic trends in nineteenth-century art making.

This thesis deals with the intersection of art and Victorian gender. The first chapter will deal with the Victorian era in England from the 1840s to 1900s. This chapter will serve as background information to familiarize the reader with Victorian London, the birth place of the Pre-Raphaelites. By examining the subject of industrialization in England and seeing how it changed and influenced society as a whole, the Pre-Raphaelites’ motives for formation become evident and their artistic style is understood in context. The next chapter takes a close look at the art that the Pre-Raphaelites were producing, examining both its subject matter and its literary basis in comparison to the historical setting. By using art as historical evidence, it shows the Pre-Raphaelites’ own personal investment in the subject of Victorian gender relations. Finally, the third chapter examines the wives of the Pre-Raphaelites as a case study for how these real Victorian woman acted and behaved, outside of the expectations and social constraints of the era. Since these were the women most closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites and their lives were generally well-documented, they make excellent subjects to follow to determine what sort of agency they had in comparison to their stereotypes and male counterparts. Overall, this thesis seeks to tie together the ideas of Victorian gender norms and Pre-Raphaelite art to create a more nuanced and complete history of the Pre-Raphaelites as people and artists.

Cette thèse dépeint le contexte artistique dans lequel Marianne Stokes évolue des années 1880 au tournant du siècle suivant. Une étude approfondie a été menée, qui permet de retracer ses premières années d’études d’art à Munich et à Paris, puis au sein de plusieurs colonies d’artistes en France, au Danemark et en Angleterre. Afin de restituer le milieu créatif de Marianne Stokes, des textes et des manuels d’histoire de l’art ancien et actuel furent étudiés. D’autres recherches furent entreprises, appuyées sur la correspondance d’artistes camarades de Marianne Stokes, et sur l’étude de leur accueil critique en France et en Angleterre. Des publications de l’époque sont au centre de ces recherches : autobiographie, narration de voyage, et correspondance. Cette thèse comprend aussi des études comparatives de toiles de Mariannes Stokes avec celles de plusieurs de ses contemporains.Nous cherchons à démontrer que l’art de Marianne Stokes est difficilement réductible à un mouvement artistique en particulier, mais présente les qualités de nombreux styles : naturalisme, impressionnisme, symbolisme, décoratif. Evoluant parmi ces nombreux courants artistiques, l’art de Marianne Stokes possède un certain silence, un sentiment de piété qui est la ligne directrice de son œuvre. / This dissertation recreates the evolution of Marianne Stokes’ art within the context of her artistic milieu from 1880 to the turn of the century. These studies concern first her early school years in Munich and Paris, and then her years among artist colonies in France, Denmark and England. Stokes’ paintings are compared to those of her contemporaries within the artist colonies. Contemporary texts, such as travel journals, biographies, letters and press articles, are used to accurately reconstruct the artist’s milieu. This thesis demonstrates that Marianne Stokes’ body of work cannot be reduced to a specific artistic movement; instead, the style of her paintings ranges from naturalist, decorative, and impressionist to symbolist. Nevertheless, the paintings of Marianne Stokes maintain one distinctive trait; they express a certain silence, an articulation of the artist’s personal piety.