CRClaudia Ross

1. Article · Aug 31, 2026 · Claudia Ross

   Jennifer Higgie’s Empathetic Elegy for Richard Dadd (opens the original)

   Excerpt · English

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   In English painter Richard Dadd’s “The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke” (1855–64), the ghostly, gray faces of well-dressed Victorians nestle among human-size dandelions and shrubs, partially obscuring a shrouded figure raising an axe overhead. The eerie work was painted at Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security psychiatric institution where Dadd was confined after his tenure at the famed Bethlem Royal Hospital, also known as “Bedlam.” Writer and art critic Jennifer Higgie captures a simi

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2. Article · Jul 16, 2026 · Claudia Ross

   The Artists Working in Velvet, Amethyst, and Relics (opens the original)

   Excerpt · Neutral tone · English

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   PASADENA, Calif. — When Marshall McLuhan remarked that “the medium is the message,” he was not referring to tapestries made from crushed velvet or sculptures crafted from wood and amethyst crystals — although Material Prophecies: Craft as Divination at Armory Art Center might suggest otherwise. First uttered in 1958 during a radio broadcast, the phrase addressed the rise of then-new technologies like television and video, which, according to McLuhan, shaped the reception, influence, and even cha

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