Nicholas Tromans

A lively and engaging introduction to one of the most charismatic figures in the history of British art, G.F. Watts. Covering all aspects of Watts's career, it places him back at the centre of the visual culture of the 19th century. Published to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth.

The Art of G.F. Watts

Richard Dadd

A fully illustrated account of Richard Dadd's life and career, this title presents a fascinating exploration of the relationship between art and madness.

The Artist and the Asylum

In the summer of 1842, Richard Dadd was the resident artist for an English expedition through Greece, Turkey and Egypt. Towards the trip's end, Dadd underwent a dramatic personality change, believing himself to be under the command of the god Osiris. Upon his return to England, he was diagnosed "of unsound mind" and was taken by his family to recuperate in Cobham, Kent. It was here, in August 1843, that Dadd murdered his father, before fleeing to France where he was eventually captured and committed to Bedlam psychiatric hospital in London. Over the next 40 years, Dadd made some of Victorian Britain's most mesmerizing paintings, such as his endlessly detailed masterpiece, "The Fairy Feller's Masterstroke" --a proto-psychedelic fairy drama whose fame in the 1960s and 70s prompted the rock band Queen to record a song about it, and which remains one of Tate Britain's most visited paintings. The tale of the rediscovery of Dadd's greatest watercolor, "The Artist's Halt in the Desert," on The Antiques Roadshowin 1987 has also entered popular folklore. Richard Dadd: The Artist and the Asylumis the first thorough monograph on this neglected Victorian virtuoso. Alongside its 100 color plates, critical essays overturn several myths about Dadd (revealing, for example, that his jailers were generous and often acted as his patrons rather than as his oppressors) and trace the critical reception of his now widely admired art. Richard Dadd(1817-1886) was born in Chatham, Kent, and entered The Royal Academy at the age of 20. In 1842, Sir Thomas Phillips chose Dadd to accompany him as his draftsman on an expedition to the Middle East, during which the first signs of the artist's schizophrenia emerged. Following his murder of his father in 1843, Dadd was incarcerated in Bedlam hospital, later being moved to Broadmoor, where he died in 1886.

Susan Owens

The first art book to explore Rossetti's art and poetry together, including her own artworks, illustrations to her writing, and art inspired by her Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) is among the greatest of English Victorian poets. The intensity of her vision, her colloquial style, and the lyrical quality of her verse still speak powerfully to us today, while her striking imagery has always inspired artists. Rossetti lived in an exceptionally visual environment: her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was the leading member of the avant-garde Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and she became a favorite model for the group. She sat for the face of Christ in William Holman Hunt's The Light of the World, while both John Everett Millais and Frederick Sandys illustrated her poetry. Later on, the pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and the great Belgian Symbolist Fernand Khnopff were inspired by Rossetti's enigmatic verses. This engaging book explores the full artistic context of Rossetti's life and poetry: her own complicated attitude to pictures; the many portraits of her by artists, including her brother, John Brett, and Lewis Carroll; her own intriguing and virtually unknown drawings; and the wealth of visual images inspired by her words.

Nicholas Tromans

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