Before yesterday my knowledge of Walter Sickert was thin indeed. I had some awareness of the general regard in which he is held in the history of British art, but that amounted to very little. As a consequence, when Tate Britain announced a major retrospective review of his work I decided that this was an opportunity to put things right. So, yesterday I spent the day in London, visiting the gallery where eight rooms offered a comprehensive and well-presented survey of his career. I am very glad that I went …. although I am far from having returned as a Sickert fan.
The curators adapted the useful device of hanging in many of the rooms examples of work by figures either who had influenced Sickert’s development in significant ways (such as Degas) or might be said to have comparable approaches to his subject matter. In this respect I did find that the hanging of work by Lucien Freud alongside that of Sickert was very instructive.
One comparison struck me immediately, however, and that was not acknowledged. I did think that there was a prevailing sense of what I can only call “alienation” in Sickert’s painting which reminded me very strongly indeed of the pictures of Edward Hopper. This came over particularly strongly in his figure painting, from which I came away with a strong feeling of the “estrangement” which appeared to characterise the artist’s relationship with all of his subjects. His Ennui, of course is widely known, but I felt that the same sense of moral and psychological distance was prevalent rather than occasional.
Sickert’s attachment to the music hall is widely-reported, but rather than finding here a sense of his engagement with the material I could not escape the sense of the distance which separated performers from audiences. To be a performer on the stage was, for Sickert, a very lonely experience indeed. His depiction of the life of actors, comedians and dancers was (unlike his mentor Degas) a work of disenchantment. What is more, there is something almost predatory about his audiences.
Finally, I hope that I will be taking on board a clear warning to any artist, which emerged from the experience. Be very cautious indeed about the copying of photographs. Copying and the use of reference material are not the same thing.