The British Journal of Psychiatry (2002) 180: 0
© 2002 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Psychiatry in pictures
ROBERT HOWARD
Mind Odyssey is a celebration of the arts, psychiatry and the mind.
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Dadd began to produce his series of Sketches to Illustrate the Passions 9
years after his admission to Bethlem Hospital in 1844. About 30 have survived,
mostly dating from 1853 and 1854. They take the form of a scene or
‘sketch’, dominated by figures taken from literature or history.
Visually these pictures are indistinguishable from Dadd's other watercolour
paintings and it is the titles alone which indicate those included in the
series. We do not know why he chose this theme or whether it was suggested to
him by a staff member at the hospital. He would have been aware of
contemporary theories associating the passions with mental illness but of
course they have always been traditional subjects for poetry and painting.
Hatred, one of the earliest of the series, shows a scene from
Shakespeare's Henry VI Part 3. It is inscribed "Murder of Henry
6th by Richard Duke of Gloster See how my sword weeps the poor king's
death". Dadd had stabbed his father to death in a chillingly
premeditated act, motivated by the delusion that he was the devil in disguise.
The clear self-portraiture and his decision to depict a murderer named Richard
in the picture probably indicate an element of reminiscence. Whatever the
personal significance of the subject matter, Dadd appears to have approached
it with some relish. Having begun his series with some of the more obvious
passions of Love, Hatred and Jealousy, Dadd moved on to more obscure and
abstract themes that he wished to illustrate such as Senility, Idleness and
Want. Insignificance or Self Contempt is one of these later subjects.
The figure is the painter J. M. W. Turner whom Dadd would have seen during his
student days at the Royal Academy Schools. Why Dadd should have portrayed
Turner as a baggy little figure who, with his portfolio under his arm, wipes
something apparently distasteful from the sole of his shoe is unclear. Is
Turner Mr Crayon the Drawing Master? If the house is his, then why is he too
small to reach the door knocker and why would such a successful artist have to
give drawing lessons and take in single gentlemen lodgers? An interpretation
is that the negative cognitions and insecurities of a melancholy artist are
expressed in the Turner figure. The great artist, dwarfed by his everyday
surroundings, returns home depressed and miserable having trodden in animal
excrement. His arms support a portfolio of rejected pictures, which like his
trousers, seems not to be able to completely contain the shameful things that
lie within. In the picture's inscription, Dadd's usual neat script gives way
to a rapid cursive hand as strong personal feeling takes over "...
Mortification — Disgusted with the world — he sinks into himself
and Insignificance" before he reverts to his normal style for the date
and signature. These pictures, together with many others by Richard Dadd, are
in the collection of the Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives and Museum, Monks
Orchard Road, Beckenham, Kent BR3 3BX. The Museum is open Monday to Friday
9.30am to 5.00pm and it is always advisable to telephone first (020 8776 4537)
in case a particular picture is out on loan to an exhibition elsewhere. With
thanks to Patricia Allderidge, Archivist and Curator at the Museum, for
information about Dadd.
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