Abstract

This thesis examines a select group of works by the poet Renée Vivien (née Pauline Tarn, 1877-1909) and the painter Romaine Brooks (1874-1970) created between the years 1900 and 1915. Catholic iconography, and in particular Madonna figures, reoccur in both of their works from this period. While their work is part of a longer lineage of Decadent artists using Catholic iconography, and indeed, the influence of the Decadent movement is seen in both women’s work, in this thesis I argue that their use of Marian iconography enabled Brooks and Vivien to confront heternoromative, patriarchal ideals and express lesbian desire, and to work through their complex relationships to their mothers. Using a queer Freudian psychoanalytic lens, drawn especially from Teresa de Lauretis’ positive reading of Sigmund Freud’s theories on perversion, I suggest that Vivien and Brooks’ mothers inscribed a narcissistic wound on their daughters which continued to affect their adult relationships with women, and this is expressed through the works I discuss. However, these are also works which explicitly depict lesbian desire, and their use of Marian iconography is linked with both of these ideas. The complex nature of these works therefore reflects how Brooks and Vivien were using their work to address issues within their own psyche, while simultaneously they are an attempt to envision a society in which lesbian desire was not only accepted, but celebrated.