What did John Ruskin say about Nocturne in Black and Gold, the Falling Rocket?

When the art critic John Ruskin viewed James McNeill Whistler’s painting Nocturne in Black and Gold, the Falling Rocket at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877, he famously accused the artist of "flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face."1

This harsh critique sparked a high-profile libel trial that highlighted the fundamental clash between Ruskin’s moralistic view of art—which emphasized social and spiritual purpose—and Whistler’s Aestheticism, which championed the autonomy of art from the requirement to provide a lifelike effect. Although Whistler won the case, he was awarded only a token farthing in damages, a result that contributed to his subsequent bankruptcy.12