Richard Dadd

I enjoy the work of several artists who lived and died before 1900, however I wanted to choose an artist which may not be popularly known, but whose story and talents would excite my reader and to highlight a very serious problem throughout art history, namely mental illness amongst artists.

Richard Dadd was born in Chatham England on the first of August 1817 and died on the seventh of January, 1886 in Broadmoore Asylum in London of respiratory failure. Dadd was not only an inspirational artist who was the founding member of “The Clique” a group of brilliant young English artists during the victorian era who traveled the world with his patron Sir Thomas Phillips after earning acclaim and awards from the Royal Academy of Art and William Dodson’s Academy of Art but who came home a man suffering from schizophrenia (and possibly mercury poisoning) who killed his own father swearing that his father was the devil and the Egyptian God Osiris made him do it.

Richard Dadd is more commonly known as a “fairey artist” I feel this gross generalization does his work an amazing disservice. His attention to detail, the dream like quality and chaos of his scenes, the general undertone of malice, and dark somber colors of the victorian era in which he lived. Every color seemed mixed with ashes and blood, every figure has eyes which seem to look out at its viewer with a savage violence.

Mental illness amongst artists, writers, poets, and musicians is somewhat of a plague, a plague commonly referred to as “The Sylvia Plath effect”. Aristotle even observed that artists seemed to suffer from a certain form of “melancholia” and even modern studies have linked creative persons with having a higher risk of depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorders and that through their art and other treatment most artists were able to overcome their illness and where in fact more creative for their effort.

Indeed, Richard Dadds work only took off after he had begun treatment and was given a safe and secure place to work. He was committed at Bethlehem, a place for the Queen’s “Pleasure men” those criminals, traitors and the insane who had special talents or skills which the Queen of England prized and she wished for them to continue practicing. This was the era in which most of Dadds most famous works were created.

He was a great inspiration to several contemporary writers and musicians, including the band Queen who wrote a song after Dadds piece “The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke” the book by Terry Pratchett “The wee free men” was partly inspired by Dadd, as was the character Mr. Dick from Charles Dickens David Copperfield was based on Richard Dadd as they were contemporaries in London at the same time and ran in similar circles.

The two pieces which have always spoken to me are;

“Artists stops in the desert at night”

http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/73/7337/AA1S100Z/posters/richard-dadd-artist-s-halt-in-the-desert-by-moonlight-c-1845.jpg

This piece speaks to me in a somber manner, the chosen blue tones make one feel chill, and cold. this is only made more prevalent by the distance of the warm fire from the man drawing in his horse. This painting makes me feel isolated and alone, like I am Dadd sitting on the edge of the field looking over my traveling companions. The light of the moon illumins all the world around him and the dark jungle beyond looms menacingly so that one expects a bright pair of eyes to be staring hungrily out of its fronds and bushes.

and

“Castle on cliff overlooking lake”

http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lijd4x5RhN1qdbwvwo1_400.jpg

This was actually my first introduction to Dadds work. I am a big fan of Fritz Langs Metropolis and especially the following quote;

“"We shall build a tower that will reach to the stars!" Having conceived Babel, yet unable to build it themselves, they had thousands to build it for them. But those who toiled knew nothing of the dreams of those who planned. And the minds that planned the Tower of Babel cared nothing for the workers who built it. The hymns of praise of the few became the curses of the many - BABEL! BABEL! BABEL! - Between the mind that plans and the hands that build there must be a Mediator, and this must be the heart.”

I was doing research on imagery of the tower of Babel and was linked to this painting. It is a beautiful castle sitting high and in the sunlight, the hills and the valley basking in the golden glow while a boat edges dangerously towards the cliff upon which the castle stands looking more like it would take flight once it neared shore instead of being a grounded thing. The juxtaposition between the popular thought of the tower of babel as a thing of corruption and ruin instead being portrayed as a castle of light and frivolity spoke to me and was an inspiration to one of my own paintings thereafter.