In her essay, Performing the Picture or Painting the Other: Romaine Brooks, Gluck and the Question of Decadence in 1923, Bridget Elliott describes the developments of sexuality and gender identity in the early 20th Century. At this time, the woman’s body was still a metaphor for commodification. This can be clearly seen in the paintings of Kirchner, Dix and Grosz. Yet society was opening up to the increasing agency of women, both as producers in the workplace and as consumers. Elliot states that many male artists and writers (Baudelaire, Benjamin, Wilde, Delacroix) not only felt their own individual agency was being curtailed by the increasing commodification of modern life, but also felt threatened by the increasing agency of women. So, the flâneur - the idle, heroic pedestrian who strolls through the city streets, puffing a pipe and taking in the gossip, retaining his individuality while all the people around him are losing theirs - represents not the triumph of decadent masculine power, but its attenuation.

In the 20s, Brooks and Gluck both created male personas for themselves by adopting the fashion sensibilities of the dandified male. Because both of these artists were financially independent, they had greater freedom to explore past social and artistic trends, rather than pursuing contemporary styles (such as Vorticism, Cubism, or Fauvism). The difference between these female artists’ crossdressing and that of well-known male artists, such as Duchamp, is that for the women, crossdressing was for years an integral part of their everyday life as outspoken lesbians, while Duchamp’s alter ego, Rrose Selavy, was little more than a means to artistic production. By adopting and then adding a gendered twist to the figure of the flâneur, Brooks and Gluck identified themselves on their own terms while bringing to light the narrow-mindedness of contemporary gender sensibilities.

Romaine Brooks

Self Portrait, 1923

Portrait of Emile d’Erlanger, 1924

Hannah Gluckenstein (Gluck)

Portrait of Gluck, by Romaine Brooks

A few more names mentioned in the essay:

Lucy Schwob aka Claude Cahun ( works)

Je Tends les Bras, 1931

Djuna Barnes
The Book of the Repulsive Women

Natalie Barney

Radclyffe Hall
Author of what is considered to be the first lesbian-themed novel, The Well of Lonliness. Published in 1927 and largely autobiographical, the book was banned in Britain, yet sold a million copies during Hall’s lifetime.

Decadence is always modern because it celebrates individualism at the expense of traditional authoritarian requirements.