© Tate 2006, all rights reserved
Purchased with assistance from Tate Members 2006
T12133
Richard Dadd, who was then confined to an asylum, partly based Wandering Musicians on memories and sketches of classical ruins made he had made in 1842 on a tour through Europe to Greece, Turkey and the Middle East with his patron Sir Thomas Phillips. Details such as the costumes and handbag in the foreground are carefully observed and recorded, as are the brambles and foliage, which must also have been made from direct observation. The figures of the musicians may well have been based on studies from inmates, while the instruments may have been observed from objects owned by Dadd himself who was a passionate musician. It has been suggested that the theme of Wandering Musicians may derive from one of the Idylls of Theocritus, whose name appears alongside those of Bion, Moschus and Tyrtaeus on the broken frieze in the foreground. Wandering Musicians is a carefully designed and thought out composition, and reveals a great deal about the artist’s psychological condition at the time, being neither a work of pure fantasy, nor a direct transcription of nature. The atmosphere of peace and tranquility it conveys contrasts starkly with the mental state of the artist himself.
Joshua
Reynolds
Andrea
Soldi
Richard
Parkes Bonington
Richard
Dadd