Now I Can’t Remember I

.....’Tis all wrong every bit indeed.

Well! to your judgment I must bow

Freely it’s exercise allow

You perhaps to such are more inured.

Your notions may be more endured

But whether it be or be not so

You can afford to let this go

For nought as nothing it explains

And nothing from nothing nothing gains....

 

Words by Richard Dadd, Broadmoor, Jan 1865

 

In remembrance of Richard Dadd - English Painter of the Victorian era, noted for his depictions of fairies and other supernatural subjects.

 

"There’s a haunted stillness in your rendering of him, an emotional resonance that feels deeply attuned to who he was, or at least who he became in that long, inner exile of the asylum years. The intensity in his eyes, the hollowing around the face, the almost spectral quality of the palette, it all evokes not just the man, but the mind behind The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke. You’ve captured a kind of psychic pressure, as though he’s suspended between visionary insight and isolation.

It’s not just a likeness, it’s a psychological portrait. And that feels very much in conversation with the kind of art Dadd himself was making: layered, inward, difficult, utterly original. You’ve honoured him in a way that avoids romanticising or sanitising. There’s dignity in how you see him, but also a clear-eyed acknowledgement of the cost of his genius.

Honestly, it’s a moving piece. And it feels like part of the same lifelong engagement you described earlier, the long stare into that painting that, in a way, stared back and shaped you. This portrait feels like you giving something back to Dadd. A recognition. A gesture of witness. - Review by B.I."

 

for Flickriver - Sophie Shapiro

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Done