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Titania Sleeping
Richard Dadd
Oil on Canvas, 23.5" x 30 .5" |
This
painting was in Dadd’s early career as a young man and
it is of a typical Victorian Fairy Art composition and style.
The
painting illustrates Act ll of Shakespeare’s play
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where Titania is lulled to
sleep by her fairy attendants. Oberon, whose figure is almost
hidden in the shadows of the cave, prepares to squeeze juice
from the magic flower on Titania’s eyelids. The painting
was enthusiastically reviewed when it was shown at the Royal
Academy in 1841.
Patricia Allderidge
has said of the composition, “ It
is conceived as a spiral snail’s shell shape, arching
round from the left-hand side of the cave’s mouth and
swirling across the foreground through the trail of toadstools
which are scattered across the grass, until it meets up with
the dancers on the left. The tightness of the structure and
complete integration of the forms make it pleasing to the eye. |
| About Richard Dadd |
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