To the Royal Academy for a comprehensive overview of the life and work of artist Richard Dadd (1817-1886), the first such retrospective to be held of his oeuvre since the 1970s. Dadd isn't widely talked about as an artist. In fact his art was all but forgotten until it resurfaced in the 1960s and 70s and began to inspire other artists and musicians like Freddie Mercury of Queen. I became aware of his work as a student studying illustration and graphic design because of its illustrative and imaginative qualities, famously taking much of its inspiration from the writings of Shakespeare and fairy mythology, rendered in obsessively minute detail. Dadd had a most unusual life which would result in psychosis, murder and committal to mental institutions. His aptitude and talent for art were recognised early on and aged 20 he studied at the Royal Academy Art Schools so this exhibition is a homecoming of sorts. Along with other notable Victorian painters William Powell Frith, Augustus Egg, and more he founded art group The Clique, who promoted contemporary art, rebelling against the backward-looking, traditionalist Academy. Dadd was regarded as the leading light of the group and in 1842 was selected by Sir Thomas Phillips to accompany him as the draughtsman on a grand tour throughout Europe, Greece, Turkey, Syria and Egypt. Dadd produced some wonderful studies of Sir Thomas in Oriental dress as well as studies of the local Arabs and Muslims in their traditional garb, and some stunningly evocative watercolour paintings of these locals with their camel caravans around a campfire by moonlight, all of which can be seen in my pictures from the exhibition below. The best painting of this period inspired by this journey was the large canvas The Flight Out of Egypt (c. 1849–1850), full of lots of details and carefully observed incidents and figure studies. The painting again draws loosely on the religious story and Dadd’s travels in the Near East, where he observed Muslim pilgrim encampments near Damascus. The experience informed the colourful composition, blending multiple cultures and historical references, including Egyptian, Roman, and Arab elements, into a densely populated composition. This painting could be regarded as a forerunner of his masterpieces The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke (1855-1864), and Contradiction: Oberon and Titania (1854-58), both also packed full of detail. It was whilst on this fateful voyage though that Dadd experienced a dramatic change of personality becoming delusional, increasingly violent, and believing himself to be under the influence of the Egyptian god Osiris. His condition was initially thought to be sunstroke. Returning to England in May of 1843, Dadd was diagnosed as being of unsound mind and was forced to spend a period of recuperation in the village of Cobham, Kent. Sadly Dadd's condition deteriorated even further and later that year he became more and more convinced that his father was the actual devil in disguise and stabbed him to death with a knife before fleeing to France. Whilst en route to Paris Dadd attempted to kill a passenger with a razor but was stopped after an intervention and arrest by police. Dadd confessed to killing his father and was returned to England. After being declared insane in 1884, he was committed to the criminal department of Bethlem psychiatric hospital (also known as Bedlam). There and later at the newly created Broadmoor Hospital, Dadd was cared for with compassion by Doctors William Wood, William Orange and Sir William Charles Hood. It is speculated that Dadd suffered from what we now know as paranoid schizophrenia, which apparently ran in the family as his siblings had the same condition. During his incarceration Dadd was encouraged to continue painting, and would do so throughout the nearly 42 years of his confinement, having to rely on literature, his imagination and a strong visual memory to complete his artworks. He painted many of his best pictures in Bethlem and Broadmoor, including his masterpiece The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, which he worked on between 1855 and 1864. This painting features ghostly grey faced well-dressed Victorian fairies in amongst human-scale foliage. A figure - the fairy-feller - has his back to the viewer and is in the process of swinging his axe to chop open a hazelnut to make repairs to the carriage for the fairy Queen Mab. Many of the characters eyes are fixed in a peculiar, unfocused stare, possibly mirroring the internal state of mind of the painter. It is an amazing depiction of the tiny beings that inhabit fairy society. Contradiction: Oberon and Titania another masterpiece is similarly packed full of amazing details. Take a good look at the leaf on which the blue butterfly in the foreground sits, and then look closer at the hole in the leaf above it and you can see a tiny human face looking back out at you. Amazing! Both paintings contain wonderful studies of flowers, fruits and weeds from nature, which one imagines could all too easily be found in a quiet corner, deep within the confines of the gardens of Bedlam or Broadmoor sheltering the fairy folk. Despite his mental illness Dadd was a tremendously skilled painter who makes these fantastic scenes completely real.
“Perhaps it is the story that chooses the man … I did not write my life.” - Richard Dadd.
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