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Jan Sjoberg
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, February 12, 2004 - 3:58 pm: |       |
Dear Courtney,
I have concluded that the facial expression depicted in Edward Munch's "The Scream" from 1893 bears an eerie resemblance to the pre-murder facial expressions of all the JTR victims. I therefore have become convinced that Munch, in order to have painted his piece of art, had to be present at the scenes of the Ripper murders. ...CASE CLOSED.
Do you see anything dubious in the above line of argumentation?!
Best Regards,
Jan Sjoberg
Finland
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Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, February 12, 2004 - 1:53 pm: | |
Sharon Grant wrote:
"The painting JTR bedroom 1908 Sickert, has any one noticed what appears to be the letters and word, W BLOODY S, in it?, as its visable in the copy I have, is it a prank? or in all of them? would love feed back on this please."
Hi Sharon:
I am trying to gather information on this very point. Can you be more specific? What copy of Jack The Ripper's Bedroom are you looking at? Is it in color? Thus far, I have been able to examine only the sepia-tone copy in Cornwell, and it is so muddy as to be unusable. Exactly where in the painting do the letters appear, and how big are they? Can you make out a signature in a bottom corner other than the letters W S? Are the letter's painted in the same color as the background and are visible only through their brushstrokes on the surface of the paint? Also, can you give me details on the strange forms in front of the window that some call the outline of a man? Can you make out a face? In view of Sickert's tale about a consumptive veterinary student being Jack The Ripper, is there any indication that this is a frail, sick young man? Or is it another self-portrait of Sickert?
Regards,
Mark Starr
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RosemaryO'Ryan
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, February 12, 2004 - 7:01 pm: | |
Dear Mr Starr,
There is no textual 'writing' on/in the painting "Jack the Ripper's Bedroom".
The figure outlined by the Venetian window may or may not be Mr Sickert, since there is a lack of facial features any conclusion with regard to an identity, therefore, is indeterminate.
The title, "Jack the Ripper's Bedroom" is ONLY recorded in PENCIL on the back of the canvas.
Mr Sickert's knowledge of his reincarnation is the reason d'etre of his own existence, ecompassing the whole of his art and life... his art is a 'narrative', by which/ through which, he would come (at another moment) recognise himself.
Hence, the seemingly incomprehensible titles. But I don't suppose you will swallow this explanation
unless you are also immortal :-)
Copyright. Ms. Cornwell published her photograph of "Jack the Ripper's Bedroom" with the permission of Manchester City Art Gallery (Moseley Street)not the Sickert Trust. Since I also have a Sickert drawing IT and ITS IMAGE belong to me! Nobody else.
By the way, did Patricia destroy her Sickert paintings...as she promised. Only I heard she has sold them on the QT? She certainly bumped up the market in Sickert's paintings.
As Ever,
Rosey :-) |
Dan Norder
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, February 13, 2004 - 2:49 pm: | |
Courtney wrote:
" As Ms. Cornwell says on page 115: '...The only way a person could know what Mary Ann Nichols's dead body looked like was to have viewed it at the mortuary or at the scene or somehow convince a police investigator to show him or her the photograph (the mortuary photographs)...' "
Or they simply could have purchased the September 8, 1888, edition of the Illustrated Police News:
http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/illustrated_police_news/il880908.html
It has a drawing of Polly Nichols in the mortuary on September 8, 1888, that is more than capable of explaining any similarity, assuming that it needs explaining in the first place.
It shows the wounds, and, although her eyes are closed, it seems rather strange to suggest that an artist couldn't picture them open instead. Or are we supposed to believe that there something unique about these eyes that only someone who killed her would have known?
If you are interested in the murders, Courtney, you'd be better off just reading through this site. Simply looking at the Mary Ann Nichols page here would have proven Cornwell wrong on this point. Heck, one wonders why Cornwell herself didn't just read this site before writing her book if she couldn't be bothered to do the research on her own. |
Courtney Lionudakis
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, February 13, 2004 - 6:51 pm: | |
-Thank you Glenn for your explaination, I appricate it.
-Jan, no I do not see anything that I would consider dubious. I just hadn't thought of it from that point of view. Thank you for your input.
-Dan, thank you for your advice. I hadn't previously read any thing about the JTR victims on this site, I just recently found this web site while doing some research on Sickert for a report, but now I shall read this sites' information on the JTR victims.
Sincerely,
Courtney Lionudakis |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2004 - 3:55 pm: | |
Rosey wrote:
>Mr Sickert's knowledge of his reincarnation is the reason d'etre of his own existence, ecompassing the whole of his art and life... his art is a 'narrative', by which/ through which, he would come (at another moment) recognise himself.
Hence, the seemingly incomprehensible titles. But I don't suppose you will swallow this explanation
unless you are also immortal :-)
I will be immortal when I prove Sickert is Jack. :-) But until then, I am very interested in your ideas about Sickert's belief in re-incarnation. They might explain "The Raising of Lazarus." Is this your own interpretation or have you read anything in a biography of Sickert which documents this theory? Are there any onther Sickert pictures that have anything to do with re-incarnation?
>Copyright. Ms. Cornwell published her photograph of "Jack the Ripper's Bedroom" with the permission of Manchester City Art Gallery (Moseley Street)not the Sickert Trust. Since I also have a Sickert drawing IT and ITS IMAGE belong to me! Nobody else.
Since, according to Dan Norder, Sickert's works are now in the public domain not only in the US but also in the UK, this is a moot point. However, despite what you may believe, when a work is still protected by copyright, the artist still owns the image even after he has sold the original work to someone else. In legalese, copyrights of images do not travel with the original. Countless owners of paintings have been successfully sued by artists when their paintings have been commercially reproduced without the artist's permission and without the artist receiving the income.
>By the way, did Patricia destroy her Sickert paintings...as she promised.
I have never seen any comment by Patricia Cornwell, either in her book or in a public statement, in which she promised to destroy the paintings of Sickert that she owns. As far as I have been able to determine, she owns about 30 works by Sickert -- but almost all of these works must be drawings, pastels and etchings because in the last two decades, only a few Sickert oils have come up for auction. According to the news reports when her book was published, she destroyed 1 Sickert painting, removing the paint from the canvas to hunt for DNA and fingerprints. I am the first to agree that this was a very foolish move on her part. Most of Sickert's oil paintings are in museums, and it is unlikely especially now that any museum would ever sell its Sickerts. (The frisson of viewing a work painted by Jack The Ripper is becoming a big drawing card for certain museums.)
>Only I heard she has sold them on the QT? She certainly bumped up the market in Sickert's paintings.
I know it is tempting to make Patricia Cornwell into another Martha Stewart. But I don't think Cornwell ever got her hands on any of the really valuable Sickert oil paintings. No one ever made a killing in etchings and drawings.
>As Ever, Rosey :-)
Does that mean, Rosey, that you too will be re-incarnated?
Regards,
Mark Starr |
RosemaryO'Ryan
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2004 - 5:36 am: | |
Dear Mr Starr,
Metamorphosis has its own internal technical terminologies vis., 'resurrection', 'reincarnation', and 'to raise' (as against, 'to raze').All very tricky.
A continuum from 'bodily substance' to the realm of the 'transconscious-ness'. We need a website of our own to discuss these matters.
No. I have not read any writings of Sickert, nor secondary sources attributing ideas/opinions to Sickert.
"Except that ye die and are yet born again, ye cannot enter into the Kingdom Of Heaven".
Rosey :-)
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Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2004 - 4:08 pm: | |
Rosey wrote:
>"Except that ye die and are yet born again, ye cannot enter into the Kingdom Of Heaven".
Hi Rosey again:
Even though I have to reach for my OED every time you post, there is no doubt in my mind that you have more insight into Sickert than everyone else here rolled up into a ball.
Not knowing very much myself about Christian Fundamentalism, I began to surf some Fundamentalist websites after I read your post. On one I found this statement: "When people believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then they are born again and they are saved from Hell." As I have written before, from everything that is known about Sickert and his entire life, it is virtually impossible that he was ever religious. And that is why those three consecutive paintings with religious titles stick out like a sore thumb. They are all self-portraits. And, I am convinced, all three were cynically painted as a phoney cover story for the Whitechapel murders -- that Sickert did what he did because he was a religious fanatic just following God's orders.
But I could never get a handle on "The Raising of Lazarus." You may have opened the door for me, or at least left it ajar. I have been studying that painting again this morning, and now I think I see what Sickert was up to. More later.
Regards,
Mark Starr |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2004 - 2:32 pm: | |
Rosey wrote:
>"Except that ye die and are yet born again, ye cannot enter into the Kingdom Of Heaven".
Hi Rosey again:
Even though I have to reach for my OED every time you post, there is no doubt in my mind that you have more insight into Sickert than everyone else here rolled up into a ball.
Not knowing very much myself about Christian Fundamentalism, I began to surf some Fundamentalist websites after I read your post. On one I found this statement: "When people believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then they are born again and they are saved from Hell." As I have written before, from everything that is known about Sickert and his entire life, it is virtually impossible that he was ever religious. And that is why those three consecutive paintings with religious titles stick out like a sore thumb. They are all self-portraits. And, I am convinced, all three were cynically painted as a phoney cover story for the Whitechapel murders -- that Sickert did what he did because he was a religious fanatic just following God's orders.
But I could never get a handle on "The Raising of Lazarus." You may have opened the door for me, or at least left it ajar. I have been studying that painting again this morning, and now I think I see what Sickert was up to. More later.
Regards,
Mark Starr |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 6:53 pm: | |
Does anyone here have access to a copy of the 1941 biography: Life & Opinions Of W.R. Sickert by Robert Emmons?
And does anyone here have access to the Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Walter Sickert?
Many thanks,
Mark Starr |
RosemaryO'Ryan
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 7:50 pm: | |
Dear Mark Starr,
The Emmon's book should be available via the UK Interlending Library arrangement. The Catalogue Raissone is a mystery.
The painting "Jack the Ripper's Bedroom" is not available for public viewing. You will need to contact the Gallery Director for a private viewing. Since the adverse publicity surrounding Sickert [by you know who]I would think the Gallery would be very cautious in exhibiting this painting. Not so long since, a tipsy-lady threw her shoe at a Sickert drawing I was exhibiting in the local art/craft centre! It was alongside a wonderful lino-print by Matisse...anyway I was asked to take them down off the wall. They were under the impression that Matisse must have been Sickert's getaway driver! As you can infer, we are highly cultured in these parts :-)
Fundamentalism! The acceptance of a literal-reading of words, in this case "scripture". But this interpretation of those works you have cited shift Sickert a la JtR from a psycho-sexual nexus [Cornwell] to that of 'disguised' religious-maniac. Are you not painting yourself into a tight corner? Perhaps Glen's "schizofrenic" goes some way to explain such a dysfunctional personality?
And...you have yet to demonstrate how a man can be in two places at about the same time. Not so difficult in view of Ms. Cornwell's belief that a man can be two people at the same time!Darn it, I have forgotten who I am now :-)
However, since you brought up the subject of God, I would simply enquire WHICH GOD? The wiseman should travel through this world as either a fool, a madman, or the Devil. Preferably all three!
Rosey :-)
|
RosemaryO'Ryan
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 9:11 pm: | |
Dear Mr Starr,
You are also a fundamentalist! Gosh, and there I was thinking of a new dawn for ripperology :-)
Beside our little contretemps vis,. "ram" and "lamb" (a scribal error compounded by editorial laxity) in "Genesis", I am amused that you should believe [putting the 'fistula' behind us] Mr Sickert did not know his Old Testament from his New Testament.
You assert that three painting to which he gives each a title, namely, "The Raising of Lazarus", "Lazarus Breaks His Fast", and "The Servant of Abraham", cannot be other than a species of post-dated confession to the murderous events of Whitechapel during 1888. It seems an awfully long-winded and abstruse confession... even by Rosey's standards :-)
According to the New Testament Lazarus did not break his fast...but then, Mr Sickert was speaking in parables, no doubt!
"...And some seed fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew, and yielded a hundredfold" As he said this, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
Rosey :-) |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 1:20 pm: | |
Hi Rosey:
While I am trying to make heads-or-tails of your latest post, may I suggest that you scurry over to the Lodger posts and read the astounding material that Chris Scott recently discovered in, of all places, Australia. I for one would be very interested to read your take on Albert Backert's letter and the reports in "The People" in 1890. This report is obviously not the same lodger story told by Belloc Lowndes, or by Forbes Winslow, or by Walter Sickert to Osbert Sitwell, or the Batty Street Lodger. I would be especially interested to hear who, if anyone, the various details in the landlady's description might suggest to you.
Regards,
Mark Starr |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 1:30 pm: | |
Jan Sjoberg wrote:
>I have concluded that the facial expression depicted in Edward Munch's "The Scream" from 1893 bears an eerie resemblance to the pre-murder facial expressions of all the JTR victims. I therefore have become convinced that Munch, in order to have painted his piece of art, had to be present at the scenes of the Ripper murders. ...CASE CLOSED. Do you see anything dubious in the above line of argumentation?!
Yes. All reductio ad absurdum arguments are by the nature dubious. And they prove nothing about the original target. I recall reading several reductio ad absurdum arguments attacking Einstein's Theories of Relativity, written in the Twenties. And Einstein's theories are still doing just fine today.
Regards,
Mark Starr
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RosemaryO'Ryan
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 5:39 am: | |
Postscript.
The answer to the connudrum "WHICH GOD?" The answer is "BA'AL"...and ye shall worship Him on the high-places!
Quite rightly, my neighbour "Lord Summer-Isle" believes that Mr Sickert supplies the missing-link when we shuffle these paintings back and forth. The Christ states, "Verily, verily, I say unto you; before Abraham was, I AM!" But I do not know if this man is the Whitechapel sinner...but, whereas I was blind, now I see.
Rosey :-)
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Jan Sjoberg
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 1:03 pm: | |
Dear Mark,
you're right that mine was a reductio ad absurdum argument that proves nothing about the original target (in this case Sickert). The problem here is that when it comes to logic, Cornwell and her fans are themselves guilty of very closely related sins - their argumentation for Sickert's guilt is based on logical fallacies ("since one of the JTR victims has her eyes open in morgue photos and Sickert has, in some of his several hundred paintings, depicted corpses with open eyes, he} logically must be JTR") and misapplications of the law of the tertium non datur ("since it cannot be proven with absolute certainty that Sickert was in France in the autumn of '88, he logically had to be in Whitechapel").
Best regards,
Jan
P.s. I think Einstein would rotate in his grave if he knew that his name is mentioned in the same breath as Cornwell's. |
Glenn L Andersson
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 1177
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 1:10 am: | |
Mark Starr wrote:
>Yes. All reductio ad absurdum arguments are by the nature dubious. And they prove nothing about the original target. I recall reading several reductio ad absurdum arguments attacking Einstein's Theories of Relativity, written in the Twenties. And Einstein's theories are still doing just fine today.
Yes, but Einstein's findings were based on logic and scientific ground, not religious rambling.
Jan,
"I think Einstein would rotate in his grave if he knew that his name is mentioned in the same breath as Cornwell's."
Indeed. Right you are.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden
 |
John Savage
Inspector
Username: Johnsavage
Post Number: 158
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 05, 2004 - 12:14 pm: | |
Hi Mark Starr,
In answer to your last post.
There is no known biological connection between Joseph Gorman Sickert and Walter Sickert. The connection, according to Joseph, being that after Alice Crook had married William Gorman, she had two illegitimate children by Walter Sickert. As far as I know nobody has ever checked Joseph’s birth certificate to see who the father was, but it can be guessed fairly reliably that the father would be shown as William Gorman. According to Melvyn Fairclough Walter painted pictures of both Alice and her grandmother Sarah, these are, “Two Woman” (1911), “Lou! Lou! I Love You” (no date) and a pen and ink drawing “Alice” (1911). The first two are said to be in the Harris Museum in Preston and the pen and ink drawing to have been published in “The New Age” 22nd. June 1911, but whereabouts today are unknown. If it were possible to verify this statement then at least we may be able to establish a link between Walter Sickert and Joseph’s mother; however this would be a job for an art expert, and that is not alas my field.
Of the two possibilities that you mention I agree that either could be correct, but personally I would be more inclined to (b), because, as you say, details such as that of the existence of John Netley are true information, which only Walter and Joseph could have known. It is these little snippets that hold my interest in a story which has otherwise come to be widely dis-believed.
As you will be aware there is another book by Jean Overton Fuller that tells a roughly similar story, based on the word of one Florence Pash, who definitely existed and most probably did know Walter Sickert. Again no firm evidence can be found to corroborate this story, but I think we either have to accept it at face value, or dismiss it as fiction. Because of all this my humble opinion is that there may well be a foundation of truth somewhere for the Cleveland Street connection, but as you say these are questions that will probably never be answered.
In closing I have just noticed in Fairclough’s book that Joseph had in his possession Walter Sickerts top hat. If only we could get Miss Cornwell to do a DNA test on that!
Best Regards
John Savage
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mhad
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2004 - 12:59 am: | |
Hello all,i have found the Ripper murders most fascinating since i was a very young boy.My heritage bieng from the London area and my interest in historical abnormal psychiatry have led me to study this topic .
It is my belief that the Cornwell book expresses the most consice and reasonable account for the Whitechapple murders and other unsolved cases of the era.
The fact that Mr.Sickert was highly intelligent and of an artistic nature also lean my to believe that he is a likely suspect.This view comming from the life review of other artists and serial killers from the past..
to make this short and sweet,if you can believe 1/4 of the research that went into the making of this book in question,than the question has to become"how much coincidence can be allowable before you are forced to see a pattern of truth?"
will the case of jtr ever really be solved?i believe only if this is a question we wished to be answered upon our own demise....like the question as to whether God exists i answer in this way.Science has proved one thing that i believe is most important and that is,energy can not be destroyed,but only recreated.
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Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, March 06, 2004 - 2:39 am: | |
John Savage wrote:
>Because of all this my humble opinion is that there may well be a foundation of truth somewhere for the Cleveland Street connection.
Just to be sure that we are on the same wavelength, could you spell out for me what you mean by "the Cleveland Street connection." I've read about several different Cleveland Street connections.
Many thanks,
Mark Starr
P.S. You mentioned a DNA test on Sickert's hat. What ever happened to that reputed illegitimate son of Sickert's in France? Any offspring? Any DNA there?
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Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, March 06, 2004 - 1:25 pm: | |
Hello John Savage:
You mentioned that Joseph Gorman claimed ALice had two illegitimate children fathered by Walter Sickert. Presumably Joseph was one -- although I had thought Joseph claimed Walter had "married" Alice (factually incorrect as that may be.) But who was the other illegitimate child of Walter Sickert? Wouldn't he/she have a tale to tell about Walter? Wouldn't he/she have Walter's DNA? Wouldn't he/she have some possession -- a letter, a sketch, a postcard, a painting -- from Walter? Is there another birth certificate listing Alice as the mother, with no father mentioned, besides Joseph's birth certificate?
I toss out all of these questions in the hope you may have seen information like this in the past. Of course, I am not suggesting that you look up all these facts for me. You have already supplied lots of information that I probably would not have stumbled upon on my own. And for that, many thanks.
Regards,
Mark Starr |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, March 05, 2004 - 11:54 pm: | |
Thank you, John Savage, for a remarkable post -- a veritable compedium of important information. You may have opened a Pandora's Box.
But first, I am extremely interested that you lean more to Possibility B: that the real liar was Walter and not Joseph. Joseph was simply a pawn that Walter was literally able to manipulate like a marionette after Walter's death.
What is most amazing to me about Fairclough's claims about the paintings of Alice Crook is not only the subject matter but also the date: 1911, about 14 years before Joseph Gorman was born.
In other words: if these paintings, and the testimony of Joseph Gorman, Florence Pasch, & Ella May Lackner, and the top hat, and the easel, do indicate that the paths of Walter Sickert and Joseph Sickert crossed, then it would seem that Sickert's link to Alice Crook and her son Joseph Gorman covered the period 1911-1942.
When you say "details such as that of the existence of John Netley are true information, which only Walter and Joseph could have known", do you mean that Walter might have known it because he was there at the time, but the only way for Joseph to have known it was through Walter? This is the key question. Would you say: it is very improbable that Joseph on his own could have known about John Netley?
Regards,
Mark Starr |
Dan Norder
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 09, 2004 - 7:21 am: | |
mhad wrote:
"if you can believe 1/4 of the research that went into the making of this book in question"
It's more likely that 98% of the research for the book is in question. Very rarely have I seen such a sloppy attempt by an author to twist facts. We should start a list of things that Cornwell actually got right since keeping track of the errors takes too long.
"how much coincidence can be allowable before you are forced to see a pattern of truth?"
Well, you have to start with some truth before there's a pattern of truth. So far Cornwell has only given us faulty conclusions, wild rumors, character assasination, and lots and lots of errors, both from sloppy research and instances of what can only be interpreted as willful distortions. |
Mark Starr
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, March 12, 2004 - 3:15 am: | |
Ripper 'may have been a myth'
By Brendan McDaid
newsdesk@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
09 March 2004
JACK the Ripper may have been more myth than man, with a leading murder detective pointing at several suspects during a conference in Londonderry.
English murder squad detective Trevor Marriott - who has been on the trail of the century old Whitechapel Murders since retiring in the 1980s - said that there was little evidence to link the murders to a lone killer.
And speaking to the Telegraph, he revealed there was virtually no evidence to link a ring of suspects drawn up at the time to the gruesome killings.
He also put forward a number of theories, including that one of the killings may have had links to a gruesome rights of passage into the Masons, another that it was carried out by a jealous lover and a third that it was the macabre handiwork of an English artist.
________________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Hmmmmmm. I wonder which English artist Detective Marriott has in mind. Could it be William Turner? No, he died in 1851. Could it be Sir Jacob Epstein? No, he was actually an American, and primarily a sculptor. Could it have been Richard Dadd? No, he died in an insane asylum in 1886. So what English artist could Detective Marriott possibly be pursuing as a viable suspect? For the life of me, I can't think of nary a one!
Regards,
Mark Starr |
Jan Sjoberg
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, March 12, 2004 - 4:13 pm: | |
Right.
Since you obviously take Marriott for an authority on the subject, you will also have to believe his theory on Masonic ritual slayings.
You see, one really cannot afford to pick and choose - its an either-or situation.
Best wishes,
Jan Sjoberg |
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