Mad Dogs & the Gods of the Mid-Day Sun

[jack_babalon]

Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke
By Richard Dadd 1855-1864
oil on canvas 54 x 39.4 cm.

"How many miles to Babylon?"
"Three-score miles and ten."
"Can I get there by candle light?"
"Yes, and back again.
If your heels are nimble and light,
You may get there by candle light."
-Nursery Rhyme

"There's one final thing you will know, without question, if you've seen that painting in the flesh, and it's this: he knew what he was painting. He had seen it, through those crafty eyes. He had gone on the great journey, the grandest of grand tours, and this was what he was bringing back."
-Neil Gaiman
The introduction to "Fairy Feller's Master Stroke"



January 6th,1886- The old man sits in a cell in Broadmoor asylum. There isn't much time left. There's blood in his cough, and a cold that aches deep in his bones, the once strong fingers of the artist now tremble with excruciating pain. The darkness is settling over him slowly now. Each breath comes only with the labor of will. He is alone amongst the gallery of his paintings, a gallery that kept him grounded to this world more so than the locks & bars of his asylum ever could. The old man is waiting one final visitor.
"Richard" - a voice comes from behind the oil & canvases, holding his name like the wind holds the sand. The old man struggles to see his visitor but the room is flooded with light, a golden effulgence that casts no shadows. "Richard...it is time now...remember?" The old man cannot answer, his lungs slowly drowning in phlegm, he turns to the voice and though blinded by the aura he nods his recognition.
"I've come to take you to the Western Lands little artist. Now say my name Richard..."
The old man struggles, a word forms in his belly and he carrys it up through the chest where the word grows denser with the heat of the heart and higher where it swims through the flooded throat and then begins to boil in his mouth until his lips part and it flys forward like a caged bird finally tasting freedom.
"OhSighRessss"
And under the winter stars the inmates of the Broadmoor asylum repeat the name with heiroglyphic screams, wounded animal howls, sighs of the defeated, in orgasmic release, in orgone violet, in a morse code tapped out by the pounding of the head against the walls, in little mumbled prayers in a language long forgotten- they all sing the same refrain:
"OsIris"
And the ghost of the dead god steps out of the dark like the morning steps out of the dawn. The Old man smiles and reaches out his hand, reaches for a raw and naked sun that burns with the brillance of the mad.



June 1842- The young artist is traveling across Europe and the middle east with his friend and patron Sir Thomas Phillips. There is a course plotted across clear skys for the young Richard Dadd. His immense talent recognized by his father at the age of 13. Admitted to the Royal Academy by 20, a member of the now legendary "Clique" of fellow artist whose ranks include John Phillip, William Powell Firth, Augustus Egg, Harry Nelson O'Neill, Alfred Elmore, Edward Matthew Ward, Thomas Joy and William Bell Scottt. Already at home his early paintings hang in the Royal Academy exhibit. The most popular of which is called " Come Unto These Yellow Sands" an echo of things to come, an omen traveling through time and arriving in the brush strokes of the young artist. Clouds race down the horizon of the clear sky that should have been Richard's life. A memory of the future crashes against the past, we see the 20 year old Richard walking along the Thames river, hearing faintly, perhaps, the distant waters of the Nile to come. London is a necropolis of forgotten Gods & Giants. A magick spell in the shape of a city, binding ancient Goddesses under the dome of St.Paul's or the disected mummy dieties of the Royal Mueseum; under the glass cages and flourescent lights forgotten faiths displayed like a butterfly collection. The young artist is in Egypt now the summer of 1842. In his travels he encounters a group of old Arab men indulging in the luxury of a water pipe. He joins them and partakes of the "Hubbly Bubbly". Sweet smoke rolling amnesia visions of the ancient gods. Each hit off the Houkah was a message, a language spoken with bubble words from the watery depths of the pipe. That was when Osiris first spoke to him.
A faust pack was made. The ambitious artist wished for devine inspiration, visions to overwhelm and inspire the artist beyond the quaint successes he had experienced back in England. He wanted to burn with a uniqueness that had never been seen before. The Sun god smiled and told him that this was not beyond his power to grant. But there would a price to pay that the God would collect later and there would have to be a sacrifice of blood. The young artist agreed without much thought. The ghost of the sun god offered him one final warning before he would grant the artists wish- that the visions of the Gods were akin to staring into the sun. The brillance of the Horus eye would most likely incinerate the sanity of a mortal viewer. These cautions the young artist quickly dismissed. Osiris told him to take one more hit off the bowl, a long deep hit and let it settle into his lungs and the deal would be made.

Later after the Egyptian encounter, Richard found himself beset with constant headaches and at the mercy of uncontrollable urges of violence. He threatens to assasinate the Pope when in Rome. In Paris he turns on his patron Philip in the Spring of 1843. He is besieged by the fever visions of Osiris, he looks upon the Victorian age with the Eye of Horus. He writes-

"On my return from travel, I was roused to a consideration of subjects which I had previously never dreamed of, or thought about, connected with self; and I had such ideas that, had I spoken of them openly, I must, if answered in the world's fashion, have been told I was unreasonable. I concealed, of course, these secret admonitions. I knew not whence they came, although I could not question their propriety, nor could I separate myself from what appeared my fate. My religious opinions varied and do vary from the vulgar; I was inclined to fall in with the views of the ancients, and to regard the substitution of modern ideas thereon as not for the better. These and the like, coupled with an idea of a descent from the Egyptian god Osiris..." (quoted in Allderidge, pp22-3).

He returns to England. The family physician diagnoses him and finds him "non compos mentis". Yet rather than being institionalized he convinces his father that all he needs is a little rest and relaxation. Richard's father accompanies him on a trip to Cobham on August 28, 1843, during which Richard had promised to "disburden his mind" to his father. When they arrived the two ate dinner at a local inn, and then walked out into the countryside. At abut 11 o'clock somewhere near Paddock Hole chalk pitt, Richard attacked his father with a razor and killed him. Horus in reverse. The avenging son slays the father. The blood sacrifice activating the Osiris ritual.
The spell begins.

Months later the artist is apprehended and is made to stand trial. He pleads guilty to his fathers death and is sentenced to spend his remaining years in Bethlem Hospital
more commonly refered to as Bedlam. He has just turned 27. It is here the artist will produce the works he is still most famous for. "The fairy fellers' master-stroke" which consummed him for nine years- an alchemical transformation of his fellow inmates into a royal court of magical beings, the haunting " Crazy Jane" where an inmate vamps as a river goddess, the majestic pagentry of the "Contradiction: Oberon & Titania". Osiris has kept his bargain. Richard is encouraged by the doctors of the asylum to paint. Hoping that in the act of creation a more cathartic process could begin. Yet...

"I saw the ill-starred painter who was sitting with two or three others in a large airy room, having beside him a mug of beer or some other refreshment. His aspect was in no way impressive or peculiar, he seemed perfectly composed, but with an undercurrent of sullenness. "
-William Michael Rossetti writes of Richard during a visit to Bethlem.
Bedlam will be the studio for Richard for the next 20 years. Like all painters he is a disciple of light, surronded by the mad & the damned of Victorian England he will create some of his countrys most haunting and endearing visions. The pact is honored. When there is an overcrowding of Bethlem Richard is assigned a new asylum.:Broadmoor. Here Richard will meet again his secret patron, his guiding light. Mr.Osiris.
Back again and full circle.
Richard Dadd rises off the bed and steps through the stone walls of the asylum invisible, he is greeted outside the walls by a thousand faeries- the forgotten denizens of Albion. The sun ship of Ra is descending down, men with the heads of Jackals, hawks & Ibises wait for him.
Osiris smiles to Richard. "And now you shall fufill your end of the bargain..." and together they step into the first rays of day from the January sun, they step in until the golden light engulfs and enter the shores of the Western Land.



Recommended sites:
http://www.popsubculture.com/pop/bio_project/richard_dadd.html

http://www.noumenal.com/marc/dadd/