It was the season when Munich came into its own. One of Sickert’s abiding childhood memories was of the city in its Christmas finery: dusted with powdery snow; Christmas trees standing on the street corners; and the darkness of the cobbled Dultplatz aglitter with gaily illumined street stalls dispensing such seasonal delicacies as gilt gingerbread and sugar effigies of the Baby Jesus – delicacies which, for once, he was allowed to enjoy. As an adult he sometimes wished that he might be five years old again so that he could experience the thrill of it all afresh.129 The informal drama of the Christmas streets found an echo in more conventional performances too. Another cherished recollection was of a visit to the circus, when a troop of elephants had been ridden round the ring by marmosets in fancy Zouave costumes.130 It was a first memorable taste of the popular theatre.
But, aside from these festive moments, Munich seems to have left remarkably little impress upon Sickert’s infant mind. In later life he spoke of it rarely, and never with enthusiasm. Although he was so responsive to the poetry of other places, Munich’s broad avenues and mongrel buildings did not excite him. Its treasures remained unknown: the fashion for taking very young children around art galleries had not begun. He could not escape Otto Klenze’s colossal statue of ‘Bavaria’ – represented as a sixty-foot-high bronze female holding a wreath above her head – which dominated the Theresienwiese, but it failed to impress him. Commissioned by Ludwig I, it was – Sickert claimed in later years – one of the things that first convinced him of the folly of state sponsorship of the arts.131
He preferred the countryside around the town, and came to know it well. From the moment that the May-fest signalled the beginning of the summer, Munichers would flock to leave the city. The Sickerts joined this annual exodus, passing a month or two in the Bavarian countryside, lodging with peasants’ families, or staying at country inns. They would visit the little villages dotting the shore of the nearby Starnbergersee – the magnificent lake some sixteen miles long just south of Munich. Or they might venture further afield to other lakes in the Bavarian Tyrol – to the wooded shores of the Chiemsee or to the Staffelsee. In an alfresco variation of their Munich life, Oswald would sketch and paint, while Eleanor would look after the children. In the evening they would all gather in the biergarten of the inn.132
There were also happy outdoor days spent with the family of the Revd Rodney Fowler, the sometime rector of Broadway in Worcestershire, who became the English chaplain at Munich in 1866. He and his wife, arriving with two daughters, aged five and two, had been at once drawn into the Sickerts’ circle.133 The Sickerts also paid visits to Laufzorn, the Rankes’ country house. The place, a former hunting lodge of the kings of Bavaria, was supposedly haunted, which may have added to the excitement of the visits.134 But the main pleasure for the children was in playing in the huge echoing banqueting room, which contained an improvised swing – a long plank on which several children could sit astride while it was swung, fearfully, lengthways. As Helena recalled, ‘Every child had to cling tightly to the one in front and the exercise was performed to a chorus of “Hutsche-Kutscher-Genung!” the last word being shouted as loud and as long as possible.’ There was also a big hay barn where the children could jump from the rafters into the hay below.135
Walter delighted in such games and in such company. He was extremely sociable and made friends easily.136 Surrounded by boys at home, he seems to have enjoyed being surrounded by girls elsewhere. At the age of six he had managed to become engaged both to one of Dr Ranke’s daughters and to the eldest of Mr Fowler’s girls. ‘It never occurred to me,’ he remarked, when looking back on the arrangement, ‘that there was any inconsistency.’ It was an attitude of mind that he preserved in his relations with the female sex throughout his life.137
The Bavarian summers were months of almost idyllic pleasure for the children. It was in the Starnbergersee that Walter discovered the delights of swimming, and there, too, that he learnt to fish.138 Initially, he had merely tied a piece of bread to a length of string and watched the fishes nibble, but Mr Fowler, steeped in the sporting traditions of the Anglican clergy, showed him – much to Eleanor’s dismay – how to bait a hook. Death, however, seems to have intrigued Walter. One holiday game involved the construction of a miniature cemetery from pebbles and moss and twigs.139 In Walter’s memory these summers took on the hues of a golden age. He would look back to them as a time of peace, calm, and certainty. ‘When I used to play by mill streams in Bavaria [and] listened to my mother sing the Schoener Muller of Schubert,’ he recalled, ‘I thought it would always be like that.’
The extraordinary beauty of the Bavarian countryside in early summer – the greenness of the foliage, the clearness of the light, the profusion of flowers – made a profound and lasting impression on all the Sickert children. Walter, though he became the great artist of urban life and urban architecture, retained always a flickering sense that ‘woods & lakes & brooks’ were ‘the nicest things in the world’.140 It was the quality of light that made them special: the fall of broken sunshine through the overarching canopy of leaves. ‘I think,’ he declared, ‘the loveliest thing in Nature is a sous-bois.’141 Even as a child he sought to express his admiration in art. From the age of five he wanted to paint such verdant, sun-dappled scenes. It became one of the recurrent desires of his working life – recurrent, in part, because it was never achieved.142
In all the Sickert children’s games and activities Walter took the lead. Although Mrs Sickert maintained a clear structure of kindly authority, she rarely attempted any interference between her offspring, and would not countenance ‘tale bearing’. It was her principle that they should all learn to live together.143 This was a situation that rather suited Walter, who was ‘not only the eldest, but by far the cleverest’, and the most energetic of the siblings.144 Robert was a fretful child, Bernhard a fractious one, and Helena too young to exert her own considerable powers.145 From the outset, Walter imposed his will upon them all, getting his own way either by force of character or by guile – though he was not above climbing out of his cot in the nursery to pull his sister’s hair if he felt the occasion warranted.146 But, as Helena admitted, even at this young age ‘he was able to infuse so much charm into life’, and to make ‘our pursuits so interesting’, that ‘we were generally his willing slaves’.147 It became one of Mrs Sickert’s recurrent complaints that none of the siblings was able to ‘resist’ Walter, an indication – as Helena noted – that not all his activities were agreeable to authority. Walter, however, was a fickle leader, with no sense of responsibility to his followers. His restless intelligence needed the stimulation of constant change. For his siblings, the ‘tragedy’ came – and came frequently