Ruskin and Whistler

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32458, 19 November 1970, Page 4

Ruskin and Whistler

The conflict between two passionate men totally opposed in their beliefs and in their personalities is the subject of "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies,” in the 8.8. C. “Contrasts” series. The film has been bought by the N.Z.B.C. John Ruskin, the great pundit, art critic, traditionalist, was horrified by the avant-garde paintings of James McNeil Whistler. He wrote a review of them in 1877 in which he said he had “never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” Whistler sued for libel. Both men were delighted: it would be the idealistic clash of the century—an opportunity to publicise their artistic credos. They were not at all prepared for what really happened: the celebrated “pot of paint” case. "This isn’t a play about Whistler and Ruskin," says producer Leslie Megahey. "It iegins and ends as a play but the middle part of it is an account of their arguments taken from their own writings and of the trial itself, edited from the transcript of the time.”

Michael Gough plays Ruskin; Al Mancini, Whistler.