The splatter of green and yellow that caused uproar in the Victorian art world

London, June 1877. Beneath a cloudy sky, the celebrated art critic John Ruskin strode along Bond Street towards the newly opened Grosvenor Gallery. Inside, he viewed a smash-hit show of beautiful and progressive art. At least that was the popular opinion. With a few exceptions, Ruskin dismissed the works on display as eccentric, impertinent and indulgent. Worst of all? James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s ‘Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket’, a deliciously wispy painting that captures sparks fizzing and flaring in a dark night sky.

At least that’s how I would describe it. Ruskin’s response was more barbed: ‘I have seen and heard much of cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask 200 guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.’ It wasn’t simply that he disliked Whistler’s shimmering picture of fireworks illuminating the smoggy blue-green air above the Thames. It was that, in his eyes, it wasn’t art, nor its maker an artist.

Paul Thomas Murphy’s informative and entertaining book is a double biography of Whistler and Ruskin and a blow-by-blow account of their ‘battle for modern art’. With his scathing review, Ruskin fired the first shot; then Whistler sued him for libel, firing straight back. The court case examined whether or not the critic’s words were fair – and, unofficially, unavoidably, whether the artist’s paintings were good or bad.

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For Whistler, an American in London, fiery and flamboyant, living beyond his means, the lawsuit was as much about the 1,000 guineas in damages as it was about clearing his name.