Richard Dadd

September 3, 2026

Richard Dadd murdered his father in a psychotic episode and spent the rest of his life locked up in Bedlam and Broadmoor. In spite of the (slightly Blakean?) picture here of a madman in chains, Bedlam had become a more enlightened place by then, and Dadd, already an established artist, was able to continue painting, sometimes doing portraits or commissions for the staff. One of these was to prove by far his most celebrated work, namely The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke. Although some of his other paintings are a little strange, this one is in a league of its own, and I don’t think the poem Dadd wrote about it helps explain all that much. He considered the painting unfinished, and you can see that an area at the bottom left is only sketched in.

The current exhibition at the Royal Academy shows that Dadd was a real master in terms of technical skill. I don’t think I have ever seen watercolours so crisp, precise and confident. He was known for painting fairies and he liked a bit of Shakespeare, but generally his realism is impeccable and the weirdness in Fairy Feller is much less extreme in other works. Most of them are interesting but Fairy Feller is the one you could spend all day looking at.

(The chap in the big hat is another artist and friend of Dadd’s who rejoiced in the name of Augustus Leopold Egg. The fellow in the adjacent picture with the strange longish hairstyle is a self-portrait of Dadd.)

Escher

August 26, 2026

I went to the exhibition in Somerset House. It’s really a show of two halves. First, they have an extensive collection of original lithographs, including all the greatest hits. If you have a favourite Escher picture it’s here. I found myself tempted to take pictures of every one, thereby producing a poor copy of the Escher book I’ve owned for fifty years.

Although Escher made his own lithographs, and typically only about 20-30 copies of each work, you don’t get here the strong sense of the artist’s own hand that you would with a Rembrandt painting or a Goya print. It’s almost as if Escher was striving for pure objectivity. There are some pictures, especially early ones, where he seems to be aiming for a sense of romance or sentiment, but it is entirely absent from these almost spookily clean and empty buildings.

In the end, or perhaps always, he went for mathematical rather than emotional depth, and brilliantly achieved it. The exhibition notes rightly say his work is highly esteemed by scientists who see it as a bridge between maths and art. I’m not sure how strongly artists share this feeling.

The other half of the show is some gimmicky fun stuff: a hall of mirrors, a size illusion room, and a couple of ‘insert yourself into the picture’ things. I did succumb to one of those. Escher was rather serious, though, and I don’t think he would have liked this. The exhibition includes some Escher-influenced album covers, but not the incredibly rude and curt response he sent in answer to a flattering personal letter from Mick Jagger. The exhibition mentions that the hippy movement appropriated Escher images, creating day-glo versions with new trippy titles, and says that Escher hated them. But the exhibition still includes a small room full of them.

So you could say there’s something here for serious Escher fans and for those who want something the kids can enjoy. I’m glad I went but have a slight feeling I would have done nearly as well by spending an hour with that old book.

Odyssey

August 21, 2026

A quick and belated mention that we saw the Nolan Odyssey. I thought it was pretty good.

Now everyone who knows the story has an idea of how it should be told, and no film is ever going to match exactly your personal vision. In general the things people have complained about in terms of faithfulness, historical correctness, and casting don’t bother me. It’s a much-retold legend; this is a version made primarily for a contemporary American audience, and it’s a good job, respectful to both Homer and Hollywood.

Two little defects. First, some scenes are drawn out a bit too much. It’s clever to get tension out of whether the Greeks will manage to open the gates of Troy before the Trojan defenders stop them (after all, we’ve known for thousands of years that they did). You can show the gate mechanism moving with agonising slowness once or twice. Not ten times over fifteen minutes (I might be exaggerating slightly).

Second – so much running away! Pretty much every episode ends with Odysseus and his dwindling band legging it desperately for the ships. After about the fourth occasion it starts to have an unwanted comic edge, a touch of Pirates of the Caribbean, or even Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Maybe that’s unkind. It really is a good film.

Luminiscence

August 6, 2026

We went to see the light show on the inside of Westminster Cathedral. The Cathedral (not to be confused with Westminster Abbey – this is the Catholic one) is an attractive building in a quirky Byzantine style, but there was not enough money to install the planned mosaics inside, and in the 120 years since it opened, this has never been put right. Above a certain level the walls and the great domed ceilings are bare brick. They recall railway arches (bearing in mind that I think some railway arches are very impressive and attractive structures). However this undecorated surface is great to project on, and of course one thing they can do is show you what the mosaics will look like when and if they are installed.

The show does make you wonder whether they could just keep the lights?

Mangala

July 30, 2026

The Sixth World Nomad Games will take place in Kyrgyzstan from August 31 to September 6, and my daughter Sarah will be representing Great Britain at the game of Mangala. My wife Katharine is going along in support but will not be competing.

The opening ceremony of the games will be held in the capital city of Bishkek, while the main sports competitions and cultural events will be hosted around the Issyk-Kul region (primarily Cholpon-Ata). Participants from around 100 countries are expected, competing in traditional heritage sports.

Competitions include:

  • Kok-Boru, or Kok-Par, essentially polo with a goat carcass;
  • Er Enish (horseback wrestling), Alysh (belt wrestling), and Mas-wrestling(stick-pulling contest) as well as tug-of-war, this year played in rounds of 1v1, 5v5 and the standard 8v8. There are also dozens of other forms of wrestling that were invented by, typically only entered by, and always won by the Kazakhs and the Kyrgs.
  • Traditional Archery, Horse Archery
  • Eagle Hunting and falconry.
  • Taigan Zarysh (sighthound racing)
  • Heer Shalga, (Breaking of the Vertebral Bone) sounds extremely violent, but it’s really a contest of breaking animal bones by hand.

Then we have the intellectual sports, including Mangala, Oware and Toguz Korgool (originally played with sheep dung). Straddled halfway between the intellectual sports and sports requiring aim is Ordo.

These sports are the highlights of a programme that also celebrates nomadic cultural traditions and scientific achievements, so will be accompanied by musical performances, dramas, talent shows and a museum compromising of dozens of yurts, each hosting exhibitions for unique parts of Central Asias Geography and history.

I’m following the GB teams Traditional Intellectual Sport Teams Instagram.