A good review - excellent to explain the white/black sides. Too bad
the case arrived cracked.
The painting is by Richard Dadd and was already over a hundred years old
when Freddie saw it. Richard Dadd was mentally ill and killed his father.
He was sent to a mental hospital where he lived out his life. He painted there and
a hospital worker commissioned the FFMS painting which Dadd spent 9 years making
and he never quite finished the bottom left of the canvas. The painting is
extraordinarily detailed & complex with very fine micro painting of tiny details.
Dadd wrote a long rambling poem to explain the characters depicted in the
painting - many characters are referenced in the Queen song. Freddie, presumably
as an art student at Ealing college, was exposed to this painting and it made a big
impression on him - he liked it. He dragged his Queen band mates there to view the
painting when they had the time. I think the voices heard in the song ( all of that ahhhhhh ahhhhh
business) evoke, to me, a vision of Dadd furiously and intensely painting this painting.
This painting is on display at the Tate Britain Museum in London - the location that is close
to the Thames river (however you can see it on the internet too). There is always a person or
crowd there looking at it. I wonder what Dadd would think of the song - would he recognize
his characters?