What is Art? - Southwestern Law School

122 J. INT’L MEDIA &ENTERTAINMENT LAW VOL. 4,NO. 2How did courts respond to the ever-changing form and content ofwhat artists regarded as their art in the late 19th and early 20th century?Our starting point will be consideration of judgment of a work by anearly ‘modern’ artist, James Whistler. 521878 England: Whistler v. Ruskin 53Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1872–1875) 54 waspainted by Whistler in oils on canvas. The subject was a night-timefireworks display over Battersea Bridge in London. The small (23.7inches high by 18.3 inches wide) painting was executed in an impressionistic,rather than the (then) orthodox representational, style: it conveyeda sense of atmosphere, with glowing colours and drifting smokeagainst a dark sky over the River Thames. The work was first exhibitedat the prestigious Grosvenor Gallery in London, in a group showthat included paintings by Pre-Raphaelite artists such as EdwardBurne-Jones. The critic John Ruskin 55 published a review of theshow in one of his popular pamphlets, Fors Clavigera, on 2 July1877. He lauded Burne-Jones and others; but lambasted Whistler:“For Mr. Whistler’s own sake, no less than for the protection of thepurchaser, [the Grosvenor Gallery] ought not to have admitted worksinto the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearlyapproached the aspect of wilful imposture. I have seen, and heard, muchof Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcombask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’sface.” 56Whistler’s sales took a sharp downturn after Ruskin’s widely publishedattack. Whistler sued for libel, seeking £1,000 for damage to52. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) was an artist born in Lowell,Massachusetts, who relocated to Europe, Paris in particular, eventually settling inLondon. He became widely known through his close association in the 1860s withcontroversial “modern” artists such as the French Realist painter Gustave Courbetand the Impressionist Éduard Manet.53. Officially unreported. The case was tried at the Court of Exchequer Divisionof the High Court in London on 25 and 26 Nov.1978. Whistler v. Ruskin, THETIMES (LONDON), Nov. 27, 1878, at 9. See also LINDA MERRILL, APOT OF PAINT: AES-THETICS ON TRIAL IN WHISTLER V. RUSKIN (1992).54. It is now in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan.55. John Ruskin (1819–1900) was a pre-eminent and very influential British art criticof his generation, who professed that an artist’s core function was “truth and nature”. Hewas a staunch defender of then controversial “modern” paintings by J. M. W. Turneragainst fierce critics. He was greatly influenced Pre-Raphaelite painters such as WilliamHolman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and founded the RuskinSchool of Drawing at Oxford University.56. RONALD ANDERSON &ANNE KOVAL, JAMES MCNEILL WHISTLER: BEYOND THEMYTH 215.