The Madman as Painter: An artist of genius and a murderer, Richard Dadd spent 42 years in psychiatric institutions.
Arts and Culture Hidden in the beautiful, undulating countryside of Surrey, south of London—much of it ruined, though, by the hideousness of post–Great War suburbia—is the Watts Gallery, a museum devoted to the work of the Victorian painter George Frederic Watts, once known (it is impossible to suppress a smile) as England’s Michelangelo. Watts (1817–1904) was the son of an impoverished but ambitious piano tuner, and he owed his rapid ascent up the social scale to the swift recognition of his talents by people in the upper reaches of society. Though somewhat lacking in humor, he was...