Sickert wanted to detail the "nude" in a natural setting which incurred the displeasure of his peers. The models used by the established school artists would never allow their selves to be caught and scandalised by such art and invariably Sickert would use, for a price, the right kind of lady to pose for him thereby avoiding any scandal attaching to his sitters. Sickert, because of the treatment his "gaudy-dark-decadent" works brought, found the idea of depicting murder as a consequence of the pressing needs of a world wrapped in poverty and hypocrisy. If anything Sickert, part decadent, is near Marxist. The depiction of the crime, with remorse, comes from a set he produced around 1908 but there is a picture he titled "Jack the ripper's bedroom" after hearing a tale told:
http://lecoupfatal.tumblr.com/post/30450932946/jack-the-rippers-bedroom-by-walter-sickert
(thats from someone's tumblr page)
Like everyone in London the Whitechapel murders intrigued all. Sickert by his association with the underbelly of the city had a keen interest in the affair, and with murder in general. The "victim" in the Camden set is seen in various positions with particular distortion to the features and placement. One may surmise from Sickert's sketcvh studies that he was keen to depersonalise the "victim" and "killer" for it is the content that challenges the viewer, primarily the question posed in some of the suggested titles about the payment for the rent.
Sickert is interesting but no more than that. Nothing worse than supposition by circumstantial suggestiveness. Now if you really want to talk about who really was Saucy Jack, hows about the double act of Stoker & Irving and I thought I was tongue-in-cheek till I looked!
The Dracula Secrets: Jack the Ripper and the Darkest Sources of Bram Stoker by historian Neil Storey (its Tumblety!) ;p
posted 3 weeks ago. ( permalink )
