Committed to Bethlem hospital after killing his father in a psychotic episode, Dadd inspired Angela Carter and Queen. Now a new show is exploring his paintings with a more nuanced take on his mental illness<\/p>\n
In the autumn of 1843, the influential journal Art-Union mourned \u201cthe late Richard Dadd\u201d, an apparently kind and gentle man who a year or so earlier had been a rising star of London\u2019s Royal Academy. Today, Dadd is known, if at all, for having murdered his father while in the grip of severe psychosis, for which he was committed to Bethlem hospital asylum where he passed his remaining 43 years. As Art-Union concluded: \u201calthough the grave has not actually closed over him, he must be classed among the dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Bethlem, Dadd began painting again. Scenes remembered from his trip around the Eastern Mediterranean \u2013 when he first began suffering mental distress \u2013 were followed by portraiture allegory, satire, biblical scenes and intricately detailed fantasies, among them the unfinished The Fairy Feller\u2019s Master-Stroke, which he <\/em>painted between 1855 and 1864. By now he was more patient than artist, and the prism of mental illness through which his work came to be understood has never fully shifted.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/addd6e375309af9d1a80094641a5f5f0c226c837\/0_1822_5581_4461\/master\/5581.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=7d88a1537c4f85aecaa69873b0966a19\" "\\"Richard")
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"