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Exhibition Preview Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, a nearly abstract painting of fireworks over London's Cremorne Gardens at night, was Whistler's most misunderstood work. He never intended for the painting to be a realistic depiction. Rather, like his other nocturnes, he wanted it to convey the atmosphere and an impression of the place. When the influential art critic John Ruskin derided the painting and its price of 200 guineas, accusing Whistler of "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face," Whistler sued him for libel. Whistler used the trial as a platform in defense of his ideas about art and eventually won the suit, but was awarded the equivalent of only a few pennies in damages. He later felt redeemed when an American collector bought the painting for 800 guineas, gloating that "the pot of paint flung in the face of the British public for two hundred guineas has sold for four pots of paint, and that Ruskin has lived to see it!" Birge Harrison's view down Fifth Avenue toward St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City captures the atmosphere of a dark, rainy night in the city, one of Whistler's favorite themes. Working primarily in a narrow range of blues, Harrison punctuates his composition with warm orange accents that suggest the glare of electric light and, like the sparkling lights of Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold, charge the scene with urban energy. For additional
information on Whistler and his followers, click here to download
an excerpt from American Paintings in the Detroit Institute
of Arts, Volume III (.pdf)
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