Whistler v. Ruskin. Art & Art Critics

London: Chatto & Windus [1879?]. 'Third edition'. Hard Cover. 17 p.; 19 cm. Printed brown paper cover; below Whistler's name & address is the date "Dec. 24, 1878." With this is bound Mr. Whistler's 'Ten o'Clock' (a talk delivered by James McNeill Whistler in London, February 1885), published in London by Chatto & Windus in 1888. Publisher's device on title-page and on last leaf of the first title. "The 1878 libel suit of Whistler v Ruskin, which elucidated the conflict between the newly formed aesthetic movement and the Victorian ideal of art, embodies the struggle between the establishment and a new worldview. It is yet another example of the reluctance with which the old makes way for the new. In this case, the conflict was played out on the stage of aesthetics and morality in late Victorian England. John Ruskin represented all that was essentially Victorian in both theory and virtue, whereas James Abbott McNeill Whistler illustrated what was to be the vanguard of modernity in art practice and theory." Both works are signed twice in Whistler's "butterfly" signature. They are bound together in simple full leather by Zaehnsdorf with the bookplate of George G. T. Treherne and the original wrappers bound in. A prize copy of a notorious icon of modern art theory. Stock#OB681.