Why was sickert so interested in JtR?

[miss marple]

Mr Holmes,
Where do you get the idea that Sickert 'hung around 'the scenes of the murders.? He did not, he was in France.The only verified' murder' painting Sickert did was based on the Camden Town murder of prostitute Emily Dimmock in 1907.
An important picture in the development of the Realist tradition.
As I have said before Sickert was influenced by popular culture and used newspaper images and photos. Sickert like many artists before and since painted nudes on beds.
He was a man of wide ranging interests about from painting, writing, food, music hall, popular culture of all kinds. He was also fascinated by the Titchbourne Claimant case as much as J.R.He was a great story teller and less obsessed by the ripper than you, he had so much going on in his life.

Miss Marple

[Sherlock Holmes]

Yes this much is true but why if he was just an artist did he hang around the scenes on the nights of the murders? (many newspaper articles mention someone of Sickert's description). Surely he could get his images from the paper or go down some time later? Why the night of the murders

Mr Holmes

[Limehouse]

Is it just me or does Sickert have an unhealthy fascination with the ripper and is there any reason why (other than to nab herself a tenant) the landlady would (presumably) lie to Sickert?

Mr Holmes

Respectfully Mr Holmes, it could be argued that a great many people have (or had) an unhealthy fascination with the ripper, including members of this site!

Scores of people have made up stories to 'write themselves' into the ripper story. Some of them were contemporary with the ripper crimes and some had family members who were around at the time. Many is the east end family history story that includes an 'encounter' with the ripper or a ripper victim. My childhood was littered with overheard whispered conversations about various great aunties or neighbours who knew the identity of Jack because he was their Sunday School teacher or their butcher or some such story.

So, would the landlady lie or did she really believe one of her former lodgers was the killer? Well, Druitt's family thought HE was the killer and this must have happened all over London. A stranger rents a room, a family member starts behaving oddly, cousin Freddie stayed out all night on the date of the double killing and so on and 'they' become a ripper suspect.

Previous posts describe Sickert's artistic style and choice of subject matter. His output was huge and his range of topics and subjects equally large.

Incidently, as Sherlock Holmes, don't YOU have an unhealthy appetite for murder and death??

[Sherlock Holmes]

Is it just me or does Sickert have an unhealthy fascination with the ripper and is there any reason why (other than to nab herself a tenant) the landlady would (presumably) lie to Sickert?

Mr Holmes

[miss marple]

Thanks Julie. It is sad that people cant see the wood for the trees,rather they spend so long looking at leaves through a microscope they miss the wood entirely!The obsession with brush strokes and anagrams proves nothing. Artists don't analyse every brush stroke, [ they would go mad if they did] most are random but focussed. [e.g a dab of white just there]
If people are determined to see faces on mars or serial killers in the stroke of a brush, no logic will change their minds

Miss Marple

[Limehouse]

Sickert was very influenced by Degas. There was a trend to realism in the late 19th century, in literature and art.Painting ordinary working people, in everyday situations, often drab or cynical, such as pubs, brothels, music halls, race meetings, dreary rooms, etc. Degas was a pioneer in the use of photographs, to aid his art, as indeed was Sickert, who also used newspaper images.
Anyone interested in Sickert should read his art criticism, to understand his perspective on painting. He was not interested in ' society' portraits or staged beauties but the humanity of the average woman. The small dramas of everyday life were his bread and butter.
Sickert was very influential on the British School, but he was not a French or English painter.

Its a shame Darkdale ,you don't like Rembrandt, perhaps you have not seen enough of them. Rembrandt is one of the great painters of the human condition showing psychological insight, tenderness and humanity.

Miss Marple

An excellent post Miss Marple, and precisely what I have been trying to communicate. A lot of Sickert's work was 'narrative' in purpose and style and it is a great pity that the 'humanity' you describe so well was mistaken for psychopathic murderous inclination!

Julie

[miss marple]

Sickert was very influenced by Degas. There was a trend to realism in the late 19th century, in literature and art.Painting ordinary working people, in everyday situations, often drab or cynical, such as pubs, brothels, music halls, race meetings, dreary rooms, etc. Degas was a pioneer in the use of photographs, to aid his art, as indeed was Sickert, who also used newspaper images.
Anyone interested in Sickert should read his art criticism, to understand his perspective on painting. He was not interested in ' society' portraits or staged beauties but the humanity of the average woman. The small dramas of everyday life were his bread and butter.
Sickert was very influential on the British School, but he was not a French or English painter.

Its a shame Darkdale ,you don't like Rembrandt, perhaps you have not seen enough of them. Rembrandt is one of the great painters of the human condition showing psychological insight, tenderness and humanity.

Miss Marple

[Phil H]

Dale

My point was that Sickert was influential on the next generation of bitish artists - which IS a more objective measure, I think. He is perceived I believe, as a major British artist of his period.

Seen for real, also, his canvases are impressive - more so than they can appear in an book illustration.

I wouldn't want any newer students of the case, or those unfamiliar with Sickert, to gain the conclusion that he was of only minor importance. He isn't quite up with the French impressionists maybe, but he should not be marginalised too much.

Cordially, Phil

[RavenDarkendale]

Sickert was a VERY powerful artist - I specifically went to the Royal Academy exhibition of his work some years ago and still have the catalogue.

His music hall series is VERY evocative, and Sickert was a huge influence on the next generation of british artists.

Phil H

Hello Phil

Art is one thing that most definitely in the eye of the beholder. I am often told that I have no appreciation of artistic talent, since I find Rembrandt's artwork frankly ugly, much of "Cubism" off it, and Jason Pollack ridiculous. If I find Sickert's art not to my taste, it's only me, mon ami. Feel free to extol his genius, and not need to feel defensive!

God Bless

Darkendale

[Phil H]

Sickert was a VERY powerful artist - I specifically went to the Royal Academy exhibition of his work some years ago and still have the catalogue.

His music hall series is VERY evocative, and Sickert was a huge influence on the next generation of british artists.

Phil H

[RavenDarkendale]

By the way, has it occurred to anyone else that perhaps Sickert just wasn't all that great as an artist? True the pictures of some of the women are downright disturbing, but then he seemed more interested in boobs and behinds than faces anyhow...

Besides Cornwell's investigations have done a wonderful job of tying Sickert to select JtR letters. I've always wondered if some were penned by Oscar Wilde. Be about like him!

Darkendale

[EddieX]

A somewhat humorous answer to the original question that comes from an old Warner Brother cartoon:

Why was Sickert so interested in JtR?
Everybody should have a hobby, Senor.

Reminds me of Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

“Do you smoke?

Well, yes, I must admit I smoke.

I'm glad to hear of it. A man should always have an occupation of some kind.”

[Phil H]

An interesting possible explanation for Sickert's red handkerchief "fetish.

Henry Irving, the great actor manager, had a scene painter at the Lyceum called Hawes Craven. The latter who always wore a red bandana when working on scenery, which was as one biography of irving puts it Ws asignal for close an intensive action". I believe that Sickert, when young was a member of the Lyceum company.

As an aspirant artist, could he well have associated with Hawes Craven, and have picked up the the affectation of the red handkerchief then. When young, we often copy things that our elders do, after all.

Just a thought in passing.

Phil H

[RavenDarkendale]

A somewhat humorous answer to the original question that comes from an old Warner Brother cartoon:

Why was Sickert so interested in JtR?
Everybody should have a hobby, Senor.

[Limehouse]

Sorry, maybe I didn't make myself clear. I wasn't suggesting or even supporting the notion that Sickert was the Ripper - a notion I find ludicrous, as it goes. I was only suggesting that perhaps at some time after the crimes were committed, Sickert took himself on a tour of the sites, as I believe plenty of people did.

And many of Sickert's paintings are morbid, whether we like it or not. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Sickert himself was of such a disposition.

Graham

Precisely Graham, I agree that some of his paintings were morbid but they were reflecting the world that Sickert was experiencing and his paintings were a narrative of that world.

When he painted 'Jack the Ripper's Bedroom' he was doing no more than recording and reviewing events that were a vivid part of Londoner's lives, events that captured the public imagination - a 'dreadful delight' as Judith Walkowiz called it.

I do not see how Sickert and his work differ from say, modern day Ripper tours.