Why was sickert so interested in JtR?

[Graham]

No probs, folks, and I'm happy to answer for my part:

I like mysteries, especially murder mysteries, and my latent interest in JtR was fired first by Daniel Farson's TV programme, and then later by Stephen Knight's book.

Sickert differed from me in one major respect: he had talent. But I'm sure like many people at the time, he was deeply interested in what was happening in the East End in 1888.

Cheers,

Graham

[sleekviper]

Hello Graham,
I think that the replies were aimed at the question as posed, and not any single poster.

[Graham]

ask yourself this wuestion - why are you so interested. IS Sickert different to you?

Is that question aimed at me, or posters to this thread in general?

Graham

[Jenni Shelden]

ask yourself this wuestion - why are you so interested. IS Sickert different to you?

[Graham]

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

[RavenDarkendale]

Why was Sickert so interested in JtR?

I'm sorry, I find this amusing. If all off us here on casebook were not fascinated with JtR, this forum would vanish. Many here have written books or articles, spend much time in research, walked the murder sites, enhanced photos, etc.

Does that make us all morbid and strange? Probably. Does it make us suspect, even if we lived during the 1880's? Of course not!

[Graham]

Whilst I am no art critic, I was always attracted to Sickert's paintings, which I find, in the main, to be enticingly morbid. He did have something of an obsession with low life, probably not unique amongst painters, and also perhaps more than a passing interest in murder - cf The Camden Town Murder, the subject being a real murder-case of the early 1890's. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Sickert wasn't one of the first to embark upon a 'Jack The Ripper Walk'.

Graham

[Phil H]

I do think Sickert was odd, maybe somewhat morbid.

One thing Ms Cornwell has seeingly brought out, is that Walter's interests were rather more active (letter writing) than anyone had previously thought.

Phil H

[Merry_Olde_Mary]

I think Sickert was like any of us, only he didn't have a forum to get out his enthusiasm...

Plus, it was happening in his OWN TOWN, in neighborhoods he knew. Which would make the interest more intense.

[Limehouse]

Hi Celesta,

I agree totally. Nice to catch up with you.

Julie

[Celesta]

Right-o, Julie. Also, JTR's murders were not the only unsolved murders Sickert was interested in. He wanted to know the answers, just like many of us here do.

Best wishes, LH.

Cel

[Voyeur]

Some artists need muses. The Ripper was a particularly disturbing one.

[Tom_Wescott]

Precisely, Ms. District.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Limehouse]

So, really, Sickert's interest in 'celebrated' murder cases was no different to the contributors to this site. If this site had been available at the time of the murders, Sickert, and no doubt a number of other well-known people, would probably have been a regular contributor.

[Mayerling]

In the first book to mention Sickert and his interest in JTR ("Noble Essences" by Osbert Sitwell), Sickert turned out to be interested in crime stories. He was also always talking about Thomas Castro / Arthur Orton (?) - the notorious Ticheborne Claimant of the 1870s.

Jeff