Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts in Art History and Visual Culture

First Advisor

Trenton Olsen

Second Advisor

Piper Hutson

Third Advisor

Esperança Camara

Abstract

This thesis examines the religious iconography in three key paintings by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Evelyn De Morgan, The Angel of Death, The Undiscovered Country, and Lux in Tenebris, and explores how they draw on Early Italian Renaissance visual traditions to depict themes of death and the soul’s transcendence. Recent scholarship has assessed De Morgan’s oeuvre through the feminist lens and emphasized her engagement with Spiritualism and the nineteenth-century revival of Swedenborgian philosophy. The Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli has also been recognized as an influential reference for De Morgan, particularly in her mythologically themed works. This study expands on that scope of inquiry by identifying a broader range of Italian Renaissance influences. Through a close analysis of compositional, symbolic, and iconographic elements, this thesis demonstrates that De Morgan synthesized Christian and Spiritualist motifs to articulate a vision of death not as an end, but as a sacred passage to spiritual rebirth. Central to this interpretation is De Morgan’s appropriation of Marian imagery: her female protagonists share formal and symbolic affinities with representations of the Virgin Mary as envisioned by Early Renaissance painters and reinterpreted by Victorian art historian Anna Jameson. By modeling her figures on Mary, De Morgan emphasizes their feminine agency, maternal strength, and divine authority in all matters of life and death. In doing so, she constructs a spiritually and theologically hybrid aesthetic that challenges conventional narratives of gender, death, and salvation.

Download

Share

COinS