chance for Sickert having seen MJK crime scene ?

[lynn cates]

symbolism

Hello Wolf. Thanks.

"The painting, therefore, may be of a prostitute sitting on a bed with a mutilated face."

I hate beds with mutilated faces. (heh-heh)

Seriously, could that just be a bit of symbolism about dehumanisation? Rather like Picasso's, "Les Demoiselles D'Avignon?

Cheers.
LC

[Limehouse]

Hi Limehouse and everybody asking for more specific – as we say in french –"commencements de preuves":
- I meant not paintings like "JtR's bedroom" that could be seen as a coqueterie from someone like Sickert, but oils like this one, which is , always in my opinion, NOT a sketch of Mary Kelly, neither a "like-n°13" room or bed, but an atmosphere painting of a souvenir.
I also meant it could be not a real life souvenir, but something out a photographic (police pict MJK1/MJK2)...
Is it just an arty choice to erase face features of a model ?
I know this all are not "commencements de preuves", but sorts of clues leading to something we are all after: what happened that summer and autumn '88 ?
regards
Gene

Hello Gene,

To answer your question - yes - it most certainly could be an 'arty choice' to erase, obscure or even deconstruct (think of Picasso) the face of a model in a painting. There are all sorts of reasons why a painter might do this but being a particularly vicious serial killer is the most unlikely reason, in my opinion.

Julie

[RivkahChaya]

The face of La Hollandaise is bizarre, but it isn't the only Sickert painting where the subject's face is less clear than the rest of the painting. Does that qualify as "mutilated"? Unless there's evidence that he drew the face with more detail, then obscured it, or was deliberately reproducing a model that was mutilated, then describing it as such is just begging the question.

Admittedly, drawing the rest of the figure in detail, and leaving the face unclear does seem to be something Sickert did with women subjects, and not men, so it's tempting to identify it as distaste toward women, but it could just be an expression of women as "other." Anyway, JTR concentrated his mutilations on the abdomen, not so much the face, and I can't find a Sickert subject with an oddly painted abdomen.

Plus, there are some subjects with oddly drawn faces that are either distorted, or the subject had some sort of genetic syndrome or other sort of abnormality, like fetal alcohol syndrome, and I'm not trying to be funny when I say that. They are probably just distorted for effect, and the similarity to a genetic syndrome is a coincidence.

(For example, this one:



Here's the wiki link to Apert's syndrome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apert_syndrome. I don't feel right posting a random picture of a real person.)

I'm not really sure what the point is in saying "Sickert drew a woman on a bed with a distorted face; therefore he must have seen or read a description of the MJK murder. Aside from the fact that it's a bit of circular reasoning, which doesn't really pan out-- to prove by the painting alone, without other evidence, that Sickert saw the MJK scene, the painting would have to share very specific details. But at any rate, even if we did have a painting that looked almost like a replica of the MJK scene, and it was titled Jack the Ripper's Fifth Victim, or The Miller's Court Victim, where does that get us? Patricia Cornwell's research, while failing to prove that Sickert was JTR, did suggest that he might have been on of the letter hoaxers, and a lot of people followed the stories of the crimes in the paper. We also know that Sickert was an avid reader of newspapers in general.

So what is the point of the discussion?

Is it that the MJK crime scene photos were not supposed to have been released to the public before 1988? Someone upthread has said that apparently this one was, because it was published in France. This was news to me. I'm very interested in how this photo made its way to France, but not to publication in an English-language book. I was under the impression that Paul Begg's 1988 book The Uncensored Facts was the first time the photo was published. I guess that is wrong.

[RivkahChaya]

Hello Gene,

To answer your question - yes - it most certainly could be an 'arty choice' to erase, obscure or even deconstruct (think of Picasso) the face of a model in a painting. There are all sorts of reasons why a painter might do this but being a particularly vicious serial killer is the most unlikely reason, in my opinion.

Julie

Particularly, being a vicious serial killer who does not wish to announce the fact to the world.

Finding clues in Sickert's paintings is a little like finding Bacon anagrams in Shakespeare plays. Somehow, people have just gotten way smarter in the ensuing years, so what they were oblivious to then is perfectly clear now. That stretches my credulity. Or snaps it, like Silly Putty.

FWIW, one serial killer who we know did paint, John Wayne Gacy, painted pictures of clowns. Personally, I find clowns disturbing, but not as disturbing as dead teenagers buried in the cellar, which was definitely not the subject of any of his paintings.

[Limehouse]

The face of La Hollandaise is bizarre, but it isn't the only Sickert painting where the subject's face is less clear than the rest of the painting. Does that qualify as "mutilated"? Unless there's evidence that he drew the face with more detail, then obscured it, or was deliberately reproducing a model that was mutilated, then describing it as such is just begging the question.

Admittedly, drawing the rest of the figure in detail, and leaving the face unclear does seem to be something Sickert did with women subjects, and not men, so it's tempting to identify it as distaste toward women, but it could just be an expression of women as "other." Anyway, JTR concentrated his mutilations on the abdomen, not so much the face, and I can't find a Sickert subject with an oddly painted abdomen.

Plus, there are some subjects with oddly drawn faces that are either distorted, or the subject had some sort of genetic syndrome or other sort of abnormality, like fetal alcohol syndrome, and I'm not trying to be funny when I say that. They are probably just distorted for effect, and the similarity to a genetic syndrome is a coincidence.

(For example, this one:



Here's the wiki link to Apert's syndrome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apert_syndrome. I don't feel right posting a random picture of a real person.)

I'm not really sure what the point is in saying "Sickert drew a woman on a bed with a distorted face; therefore he must have seen or read a description of the MJK murder. Aside from the fact that it's a bit of circular reasoning, which doesn't really pan out-- to prove by the painting alone, without other evidence, that Sickert saw the MJK scene, the painting would have to share very specific details. But at any rate, even if we did have a painting that looked almost like a replica of the MJK scene, and it was titled Jack the Ripper's Fifth Victim, or The Miller's Court Victim, where does that get us? Patricia Cornwell's research, while failing to prove that Sickert was JTR, did suggest that he might have been on of the letter hoaxers, and a lot of people followed the stories of the crimes in the paper. We also know that Sickert was an avid reader of newspapers in general.

So what is the point of the discussion?

Is it that the MJK crime scene photos were not supposed to have been released to the public before 1988? Someone upthread has said that apparently this one was, because it was published in France. This was news to me. I'm very interested in how this photo made its way to France, but not to publication in an English-language book. I was under the impression that Paul Begg's 1988 book The Uncensored Facts was the first time the photo was published. I guess that is wrong.

Sickert was not the only painter to erase/obscure/distort the faces of some of his nude models. As well as Picasso (already mentioned) check out Sacha Moldovan's Nude on a Staircase.

[RivkahChaya]

Sickert was not the only painter to erase/obscure/distort the faces of some of his nude models. As well as Picasso (already mentioned) check out Sacha Moldovan's Nude on a Staircase.

Oh, I know. Which is why it probably doesn't mean anything vis a vis, JTR, unless someone wants to suggest that every non-representational painter had a look at Mary Kelly's body in situ.

IIRC, Picasso was doing something specific in a lot of his Cubist paintings, which was trying to show more than one perspective in a 2-dimensional picture-- the front and side of a face at once, to over-simplify. So Sickert may have had something specific in mind, other than "this looks cool." It could have been a lot of things, including "Let's see how long it takes people to notice that a naked woman doesn't have a face," which we should consider, I think, before we jump to something like "serial killer." Or even, "interpretation of mutilated murder victim in situ."

While we're at it, I don't think that Walter Sickert had especially enlightened attitudes towards women, but aside from the fact that neither did a lot of men 130 years ago compared to the present, if that was all it took to make a serial killer, we'd have very few women left alive.

Edited to add the following: I think the face in Nude on a Staircase is appropriately shaded by the hat, although it's significant that the model is wearing a hat, and nothing else, in a painting with "Nude" in the title; the hat may have been an excuse to reasonably obscure the face. I apologise for thinking you must have meant Nude Descending a Staircase, by Marcel Duchamp, but that got me looking it up.

[RivkahChaya]

Another thought:

Is it possible that painters may have obscured the faces of nude figures at the request of the models? Maybe some models preferred not to be shown as unmistakably the woman who posed for a nude painting, particularly in paintings where another man (besides the artist; that is to say, a male figure in the picture) is present.

It's 130 years later, and I wouldn't pose nude for a painter, unless it were my husband, and even then, I'd think twice if I thought it were going to be displayed somewhere, at least in my lifetime.

(My husband can't draw a stick figure, so I'm pretty safe.)

[Gene Lewis]

OK, let's talk about art and modern paintings, if it has become the topic of that thread (that was primary the possibility of Sickert having seen MJK's room, in situ or through a phtogrphic representation):
- It's not so obvious for a post impressionist painter to slashed his model's face ans not so common.
- Picasso broke many rules, such as distorting faces and bodies (and perspectives) that's s why he is Picasso.
- Non-figurative painter's have not all morbid and permanent interest on serial killers, adored pretending they WERE (or just knew, or lived in SK's places...),and naming they works with titles like JW Gacy's bathroom, or Ted Bundy's closet, or Vacher's bergerie...
Always, in my opinion...
Regards
Gene

[RivkahChaya]

- Picasso broke many rules, such as distorting faces and bodies (and perspectives) that's s why he is Picasso.

Agreed. I don't think Picasso is necessarily a good example of anything about art in general.

- Non-figurative painter's have not all morbid and permanent interest on serial killers, adored pretending they WERE (or just knew, or lived in SK's places...),and naming they works with titles like JW Gacy's bathroom, or Ted Bundy's closet, or Vacher's bergerie...

OK. But being interested in serial killers does not suggest that a person is one, if that's what you are saying. (Maybe you aren't, but others have, so it's worth noting.) If it did, the FBI would need to start files on all of us, and everyone who DVRs the show Criminal Minds, and soforth. I'm going to assume that if you drew a Venn diagram, with professional artists in one bubble, and people interested in puzzles, like unsolved historical crimes, and psychopathology as a sort of puzzle itself in the other bubble, you will have intersection. Walter Sickert is in the intersection. So is Rick Geary, who, if drawing pictures of serial killer crimes scenes indicated that one engaged in actual deviant behavior, needs to be locked up right away.

And again, if serial killers who were artists tended to give themselves away in their art, surely we would have seen something from John Wayne Gacy, and there isn't. The pictures look creepy because we know they are Gacy's, and it's the contrast between the subject matter and the life of Gacy that really makes them sinister, if you ask me. Honestly, if you set Gacy's work side by with other clown paintings, I'm not sure most people could pick out Gacy's.

Again, is anyone sure that nude models did not want their faces obscured? I'm thinking of the reason for the hat in Nude on a Staircase, which just looks odd when I think about it. What artist puts a hat on a model, and then "Nude" in the title of the painting, unless there's some practical reason? Not that I would know, it just seems strange to me. Or maybe it appealed to viewers at the time. Maybe people didn't want to look directly into the eyes of a nude woman, even a painted one.

[Brenda]

.

Art is very subjective and says different things to different people. Personally, what I take away from some of these obscured or "mutilated" faces of prostitutes is that the artist is emphasizing..."It doesn't matter who she is or what she looks like. The only thing that matters about her life is her body."

[Limehouse]

Art is very subjective and says different things to different people. Personally, what I take away from some of these obscured or "mutilated" faces of prostitutes is that the artist is emphasizing..."It doesn't matter who she is or what she looks like. The only thing that matters about her life is her body."

A very good point Brenda. I agree totally.

[Limehouse]

OK, let's talk about art and modern paintings, if it has become the topic of that thread (that was primary the possibility of Sickert having seen MJK's room, in situ or through a phtogrphic representation):
- It's not so obvious for a post impressionist painter to slashed his model's face ans not so common.
- Picasso broke many rules, such as distorting faces and bodies (and perspectives) that's s why he is Picasso.
- Non-figurative painter's have not all morbid and permanent interest on serial killers, adored pretending they WERE (or just knew, or lived in SK's places...),and naming they works with titles like JW Gacy's bathroom, or Ted Bundy's closet, or Vacher's bergerie...
Always, in my opinion...
Regards
Gene

I do not agree that Sickert 'slashed his models' faces. His style in these paintings was taking the impressionist to its post-impressionist form of expression.
You say Picasso, a cubist, broke many rules and that's why he was Picasso - but he did not do so in ALL of his paintings - and Sickert's paintings were not ALL dark and creepy. If Picasso the Cubist can be Picasso, why can't Sickert, the post-impressionist be Sickert??
There is no proof, beyond Miss Cornwell's wild imaginings, that Sickert had a morbid and permanent interest in serial killers (and let's be reminded once again that this is a woman who wrote about murder for a living - so is she a suspect in unsolved serial murders??) and no proof that he pretended to be JtR.
Naming the painting 'Jack the Ripper's Bedroom' was telling a story, part of his narrative style and the painting was named AFTER he had been told that the room he had painted was previously occupied by JtR.

So, to get back to the original title of this threa, was there a chance for Sickert having seen MJK crime scene? my answer would be no - not at the time of the murder (he was in France) and later? Well, possibly but unlikely and if he did, so what??

[Limehouse]

Agreed. I don't think Picasso is necessarily a good example of anything about art in general.
OK. But being interested in serial killers does not suggest that a person is one, if that's what you are saying. (Maybe you aren't, but others have, so it's worth noting.) If it did, the FBI would need to start files on all of us, and everyone who DVRs the show Criminal Minds, and soforth. I'm going to assume that if you drew a Venn diagram, with professional artists in one bubble, and people interested in puzzles, like unsolved historical crimes, and psychopathology as a sort of puzzle itself in the other bubble, you will have intersection. Walter Sickert is in the intersection. So is Rick Geary, who, if drawing pictures of serial killer crimes scenes indicated that one engaged in actual deviant behavior, needs to be locked up right away.

And again, if serial killers who were artists tended to give themselves away in their art, surely we would have seen something from John Wayne Gacy, and there isn't. The pictures look creepy because we know they are Gacy's, and it's the contrast between the subject matter and the life of Gacy that really makes them sinister, if you ask me. Honestly, if you set Gacy's work side by with other clown paintings, I'm not sure most people could pick out Gacy's.

Again, is anyone sure that nude models did not want their faces obscured? I'm thinking of the reason for the hat in Nude on a Staircase, which just looks odd when I think about it. What artist puts a hat on a model, and then "Nude" in the title of the painting, unless there's some practical reason? Not that I would know, it just seems strange to me. Or maybe it appealed to viewers at the time. Maybe people didn't want to look directly into the eyes of a nude woman, even a painted one.

Brenda had a good point about why an artist might obscure a face. Also, perhaps Sickert and other similar artists of the time were trying to focus the viewer on the body because they were trying to move away from tradional poses such as in portraiture, where the face and the top half of the body are given prominence.

The hat in Moldovan's 'nude' could have been a bit of mischief or it could have started out as a joke between the model and artist and was retained in the picture?

[Gene Lewis]

Art is very subjective and says different things to different people. Personally, what I take away from some of these obscured or "mutilated" faces of prostitutes is that the artist is emphasizing..."It doesn't matter who she is or what she looks like. The only thing that matters about her life is her body."

Oh yes indeed...And that's certainly what Jack was thinking wandering through Aldgate or Spitalfields, in search of a body to play with...

[Gene Lewis]

[…]
There is no proof, beyond Miss Cornwell's wild imaginings, […]


So, to get back to the original title of this threa, was there a chance for Sickert having seen MJK crime scene? my answer would be no - not at the time of the murder (he was in France) and later? Well, possibly but unlikely and if he did, so what??

- Point of interest: I DO NOT share miss Cornwell views and so-called proffs on Sickert culpability or being JtR himself. I may be think, sometimes, that he could have fooled around the crime scene, and may be, a bit beyond. I DO think he had an interest (morbid or not) in the JtR episode and possibly, in the killer's life.
- Was he really, absolutely, with no doubts, in France from aug. 31 to nov 9 ? This is to be confirmed... Letters he may have sent are not enough, do they?

Regards, and thank you for feeding this thread.
G