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Melissa
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 - 7:50 pm: | 
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Pardon my ignorance... They say that Jack the Ripper had to either be a doctor or a surgeon. Some believe Walter Sickert was the Ripper. Sickert was a artist, what is the connection??} |
Donald Souden
Inspector
Username: Supe
Post Number: 458
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 4:58 pm: |
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Melissa,
First of all, JtR need not have been a doctor or surgeon at all. He did, it seems to many, display greater anatomical knowledge than your average person pulled in off the street, but that could have acquired in many ways other than medical training (i.e. butcher, slaughterer, hunter, etc.). It isn't even a given his knowledge was any greater than normal.
As for Walter Sickert, his "credentials" as JtR are based on a couple of books (most recently Patricia Cornwell's Case Closed) that are not held in much repute by most scholars. You might check "Suspects>Sickert" on these boards for more information.
Good luck.
Don.
"He was so bad at foreign languages he needed subtitles to watch Marcel Marceau."
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Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 1707
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 5:05 pm: |
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G'day Melissa,
Patricia Cornwell sees 'clues' within Walter Sickerts paintings that he was confessing to the crimes of 'Jack the Ripper'. She believes she has found D.N.A. evidence on some letters supposedly written by 'Jack the Ripper' to prove that he wrote them.
But she doesn't realize that most if not all of the letters were written by 'sick' people who were after a thrill. She also doesn't acknowledge the fact that 'impressionist' and 'post-impressionist' artists were into painting moods and current life as they saw it.
I suggest for your paper to do a little research into art movements.
LEANNE
(Message edited by Leanne on March 12, 2005) |
Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 1708
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 5:23 pm: |
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G'day Melissa,
A little more help from an artist: Before the 'impressionist' artists appeared in France, artists depicted 'cold' subjects like buildings, landscapes, scenery etc.
Around the mid 1800's some artists started to use the effects of colours to depict light and mood to give their paintings 'feeling', atmosphere. They were influenced by feelings and things that were happening at the time. 'Post-impressionist' was the name given to those artists that appeared later who were influenced by the 'impressionists'.
I read that Walter Sickert was interested in the Whitechapel murders and their effect on everyone, as a current event.
LEANNE |
George Hutchinson
Inspector
Username: Philip
Post Number: 412
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 7:37 pm: |
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Hi Melissa.
A couple of very brief reasons why Sickert was not JTR. Firstly, he was in France during the murders (the links to JTR began in 1892 I think it was, when walking to his studio with his brushes in a long bag a couple of little girls on street corner shouted out 'Jack The Ripper' at him). Secondly, the DNA found on the letters was mitochondrial DNA, shared by 1% of the population, which means it was Sickert or 40,000 other people in the UK who wrote the HOAX letter IF it is indeed DNA from 1888. How many dozens of people must have handled the letters since? Both are the property of Don Rumbelow - so it may well be HIS DNA! Sickert is one of the most ridiculous of all suspects - almost as much as Lewis Carroll.
As for the doctor and surgeon link, that really began after the murder of Annie Chapman, when the police surgeon George Bagster-Phillips said it was his opinion that the killer had anatomical knowledge. The pros and cons of Jack being a doctor are manifold and I ain't going down that road!
Best of luck with your studies
PHILIP
Tour guides do it loudly in front of a crowd!
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Phil Hill
Inspector
Username: Phil
Post Number: 175
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 2:13 am: |
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I do think Sickert has only himself to blame for his being identified as the Ripper. He does seem to have had an obsession with the case (Cornwell's one achievement is that she may have established him as one of the vexatious letter-writers to the police). In particular, he would immerse himself in many characters (he had at one time been a trainee actor) to increase the intensity of the emotion in his paintings.
He also liked to shock and I think collected, embellished and re-told anecdotes about the Ripper over many years.
I would suggest, Melissa, that you did into both past and present posts on this site. You will soon establish that FAR from Jack having to be a doctor, many other types have been suggested:
Druitt - a barrister and schoolteacher
Tumblety - and American purveyor of quack medicines
Kosminski - a Jewish shoemaker
Cutbush - related to the police
Joe Barnett - a fish market porter
The main view that the Ripper had to be a "toff" or a doctor is now dated, though it continues to be put across in popuklar films like "From Hell" and the earlier "Murder by Decree"; and TV series like that starring Michael Caine from the 80s.
The most recent attempt to put a doctor at the centre of a conspiracy (though it involves concealing and misrepresenting evidence) was that of Stephen Knight. His book remains in print and is, I think, the single best seller among all Ripper works.
His suspect was a surgeon, Sir William Gull - but I think I am right in saying that most serious students of the case now discount his involvement in any way.
Hope this helps,
Phil |
Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 570
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 14, 2005 - 3:32 pm: |
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Hi Phil,
Cornwell may have publicized the claim that Sickert wrote Ripper letters, but she is a long, long ways from establishing it.
The DNA work she did is so inconclusive to be completely worthless, and all her attempts to pay experts to certify that one of Sickert's letters and one of the letters claiming to be from the Ripper had to have come from the same set of 24 (or some other ridiculously small number, I forget which claim they are on now) pages fails to note that the two pieces of paper in question are imprinted with watermarks from completely different years, which means they obviously are not from the same batch.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
 Profile  Email  Dissertations  Website
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Phil Hill
Inspector
Username: Phil
Post Number: 185
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 2:00 am: |
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Well, Dan, let's just say I wanted to be charitable!! You seem keen to rubbish the lady completely - why?
Phil |
Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 571
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 3:16 am: |
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Hi Phil,
I'm not out to rubbish anyone, whether it be an author or a suspect. It's all about the arguments. The arguments Cornwell tries to use to support the idea that Sickert wrote Ripper letters are bad -- very, very bad.
There are a number of other arguments Cornwell makes that I don't argue against, like the idea that Jack was a psychopath, that he didn't need medical training to pull off these killings, and so forth. But then those aren't particularly new ideas either.
A major problem a lot of people here have is that they want to make everything personal instead of about the arguments. I don't care whether someone is my friend, someone I don't know, someone I dislike, or whatever. If they argue something that doesn't make sense, I'll post why I don't think it makes sense. I even end up arguing against some of my earlier statements.
Blindly accepting some of Cornwell's key arguments at face value out of some sort of misplaced feelings that we ought to be charitable to her makes no sense. I mean, what, if you think the Diary is a hoax, do you think we should be charitable and say that Maybrick wrote five of the pages and the rest is fake? Maybe we can compromise and say some but not all of the royal family was involved in the killings, along with a couple of Freemasons instead of a whole bunch of them, with Lewis Carroll hanging around to only make a few anagrams about the murders instead of the large collection one author claims.
Arguments about what really happened live and die on the evidence and logic alone. It's not about being charitable, it's about treating each argument fairly and honestly.
When it comes to the idea that Sickert wrote some/many/most of the Ripper letters, Cornwell's arguments are quite weak (faulty DNA tests, misleading claims about paper quires, etc.), and they wouldn't elevate him as a potential letter writer beyond thousands of other people. Beyond just that, some of the most important letters Cornwell tries to pin on Sickert conflict with the compelling evidence that he was in France at the time these were mailed in England. Heck, she even would have us believe that writing in Dutch is actually Italian and that a letter most authorities think was written in the mid-to-late 20th century was sent by Sickert in 1888.
It's not that I am "keen to rubbish the lady completely," it's that so much of what she wrote was already rubbish before I ever read it.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
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Phil Hill
Inspector
Username: Phil
Post Number: 187
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 6:22 am: |
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I agree with your last paragraph Dan. However, my reading of her arguments was that there was almost too much coincidence over writing paper to dismiss all the letters as not from Sickert.
It would also be in character for him to be a little malicious and mischievious in this case.
I don't for a moment consider Sickert a viable suspect of course.
Phil |
Azriel
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2005 - 1:05 pm: |
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All,
Is there anyone who can give me more information on Walter Sickert? I know that he was an artist but everytime I look him up, there are blocks on every one of the sites I try to get to.
Azriel |
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