The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke

The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke ( The masterful stroke of the elven woodcutter or the master stroke of the witch ends woodcutter ) is a painting by Richard Dadd. It is considered one of his most important works. The painting is in the Tate Gallery in London.

Formation

Dadd required for the creation of the painting, one of his most important works, and nine years. The painting was created 1855-1864. , The artist was at that time in Bethlem Royal Hospital because he had murdered his father in delusion. Tasked it was by George Henry Hayden, who was manager at Bethlem Royal Hospital at that time.

Dadd worked with microscopic precision and a layer technique, so that the painting 3 -D effects seem to have. The painting is 54 x 39.5 cm.

To bring the paintings in a fictional context, Dadd wrote a poem entitled Elimination of a Picture & Its Subject. In the poem, each person depicted is given a name and a background, with allusions to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and old English folk stories are interwoven.

Description of the painting

The painter depicts a scene from the fairies and elves world that is based on the plays Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare.

In Romeo and Juliet Mercutio tells of his dream:

" O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies ' midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than agate stone to On the forefinger of an alderman, [ ... ] Her chariot is an empty hazelnut, Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out o ' mind the fairies ' coach makers. And in this state she ' gallops night by night Through lovers' brains, and Then They dream of love ... "

This is followed by the scene of the painting inspired by:

The fairy world has gathered to watch the loggers (32 ) in how it splits a hazelnut (31 ), from the Fairy Queen Mab for the (12 ) a coach is to be made. He currently raises his ax to his master stroke.

More people in the image are:

Inspired by the painting works

Composed Freddie Mercury of the rock band Queen, inspired by this work, a rock song of the same name. It is included on the 1974 album Queen II erschienenem.

Also the author Terry Pratchett uses the image in his novel Small free men on and leaves the main character Tiffany in Chapter 11 enter the picture. He writes in the epilogue about the picture: " It seems very strange - it seems to radiate summer heat ."

The same image with the work of the author Marc Chadbourn appeared on 30 June 2002 from the publisher PS Publishing in England.