Sketch for an Idea of Crazy Jane, by Richard Dadd, 1817-1886

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Sketch for an Idea of Crazy Jane

Richard Dadd (1817-86)

1855

Watercolour on paper

35.5 X 25.4 cms

©Bethlem Art and History Collections Trust

In the upper left-hand corner of this painting, after the title, come the words: "by Richard Dadd. Bethlehem Hospital. London September 6th 1855." David Greysmith rightly describes the work as "haunting and tragic," and as showing Dadd's "strong sense of design." He adds: "The figure cut off in the frame and the long meandering diagonals give the feeling of lightness and grace to this curious, lumpy and ill-proportioned woman" (86). [Cont. below]

Photograph reproduced by kind permission of the Bethlem Art and History Collections Trust.

Commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee

Peter Nahum, who also describes this as "one of Dadd's most sensitive and lyrical compositions," feels that the figure is in fact that of a man, suggesting that Dadd "was sometimes able to get his fellow-patients to model for him." Yet another art critic picks out the composition's "subtle harmonies of line and colour" (Allderidge 98). As several of these commentators explain, "Crazy Jane" was a popular ballad of the period, about a girl who goes mad when her sweetheart deserts her, and wanders the countryside in her demented condition. Obviously Dadd's subject here has a special resonance in view of his own outcast condition; he himself commented later on being "shut out from nature's game, banished from nature's book of life" (qtd. in Lambourne 203).

Bibliography

Allderidge, Patricia. Richard Dadd. London: Academy Editions, 1974.

Greysmith, David. Richard Dadd: The Rock and Castle of Seclusion . Worthing: Littlehampton Book Services, 1973.

Lambourne, Lionel. Victorian Painting. London & New York: Phaidon, 1999.

Nahum, Peter. "Peter Nahum at the Leicester Galleries." Web. 8 June 2011.

Last modified 13 June 2011