Jennifer Higgie's Novel Bedlam Reimagines Richard Dadd's Crisis

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Writer and art critic Jennifer Higgie has re-released her novel, Bedlam, which delves into the life and psychosis of English painter Richard Dadd. Originally published by Sternberg Press in 2006, the book was reissued by Verso in July. It fictionalizes Dadd's notorious 1842 expedition across Europe, Southwest Asia, and North Africa, a journey undertaken as a draughtsman for a British nobleman, which preceded a period of psychosis.

Dadd's mental health crisis ultimately led to him committing patricide at age 26. Higgie's fragmented, first-person narrative explores this dark odyssey through a series of diaristic snapshots, translating Dadd's often Orientalist paintings and drawings into his imagined writings. Her approach highlights the delicate distinction between historically marginalized minds, such as Dadd's, and those who may never seek psychiatric care.

The novel intertwines truth and fiction as Dadd descends into crisis, a visceral experience that Higgie emphasizes by embodying his perspective rather than merely describing it. As Dadd states in the novel's opening from Broadmoor Hospital, where he was confined,“Perhaps it is the story that chooses the man... I did not write my life.” Higgie's narrative suggests that Dadd's psychosis originated from his increasingly distorted understanding of the relationship between reality and its artistic representation.

For instance, while tasked with sketching his international trip for Sir Thomas Phillips, Dadd questions the utility of recreating the Alps, believing his drawings“can't help but be inferior to the original,” eventually concluding that“a drawing is simply another mountain.” He struggles with the disparity between his observations and his artistic renditions. Traveling across the Gulf of Corinth, he remarks,“In every wave a picture hides from me, but none I can mention or describe to my companion.” Later, near En Gedi, a desert close to the Dead Sea and the present-day Occupied West Bank, his metaphors dissolve into hallucinations.“I see scorpions the size of men haunting ruins,” he says, adding,“I crash into walls I do not see.” Dadd was confined to Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security psychiatric institution, after a period at the famed Bethlem Royal Hospital, known as“Bedlam.”

Source: Hyperallergic

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