Paul Thomas Murphy -- "Falling Rocket"
Category: Literary
Date and Time for this Past Event
- Tuesday, Jan 16, 2024 6:30pm - 7:30pm
Location
Boulder Bookstore
1107 Pearl St
Details
Paul Thomas Murphy will speak about and sign his new book, "Falling Rocket: James Whistler, John Ruskin, and the Battle for Modern Art," on Tuesday, January 16th at 6:30pm, at Boulder Bookstore. Tickets for this event are $5 (plus a small processing fee) and are available on Eventbrite.
About the Book:
In November 1878, America’s greatest painter sued England’s greatest critic for a bad review. The painter won—but ruined himself in the process. The painter: James Abbot MacNeill Whistler. The critic: John Ruskin, Slade Professor of Art at Oxford University.
Though Whistler and Ruskin both lived in London and moved in the same artistic world, they had, until June, 1877, managed to remain entirely clear of one another. Until John Ruskin gazed with horror upon Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket. The painting was Whistler’s interpretation of a fireworks display at a local pleasure garden. But to Ruskin it was nothing more than a chaotic, incomprehensible mess of bright spots upon dark masses: not art but its antithesis—a disturbing and disgusting assault upon everything he had ever written or taught on the subject. He quickly channeled that anger into a seething review.
The internationally-reported, widely discussed, and hugely-entertaining trial that followed was a titanic battle between the opposing ideas and ideals of two larger-than-life personalities. "Falling Rocket" vividly evokes an artistic world in energetic motion, culturally and socially, in the last decades of the nineteenth century.
IMPORTANT TICKETING AND EVENT INFORMATION
*Tickets are $5 (plus a small processing fee).
*A coupon good for $5 off a copy of "Falling Rocket," or a purchase on the day of the event is included with your ticket. You will receive this coupon at the event.
