“This gentleman has on former occasions chosen to paint with cream, or chocolate, yolk of egg, or currant-jelly,--there he uses his whole array of kitchen-stuff.... We cannot fancy the state of eye which will permit any one cognizant of art to treat these rhapsodies as Lord Byron treated ‘Christabel;’ neither can we believe in any future revolution which shall bring the world round to the opinion of the worshipper, if worshippers such frenzies still possess.”[25] In reply to these and similar criticisms Ruskin said:[26] “There is nothing so high in art but that a scurrile jest can reach it; and often the greater the work the easier it is to turn it into ridicule. To appreciate the science of Turner’s color would require the study of a life, but to laugh at it requires little more than the knowledge that yolk of egg is yellow and spinach green,--a fund of critical information on which the remarks of most of our leading periodicals have been of late years exclusively based. We shall, however, in spite of the sulphur-and-treacle criticisms of our Scotch connoisseurs and the eggs and the spinach of our English ones, endeavor to test the works of this great colorist by a knowledge of nature somewhat more extensive than is to be gained by an acquaintance, however familiar, with the apothecary’s shop or the dinner-table.” There is Ruskin in arms on the other side,--it making all the difference in the world which ox is gored. What an interesting chapter in the history of appreciation it all makes. Here we have the critics fulminating against Turner in “egg and spinach” terms and Ruskin fulminating against the critics in “pot and kettle” terms. A few years later we have Ruskin fulminating against Whistler in the same old terms; but Whistler greatly improved the language of vituperation by introducing humor, and answered with words that bit like acid and epigrams pointed like needles--the etcher in controversy. “Produced as if by throwing handfuls of white and blue and red at the canvas,” said the critic of Turner. “Flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face,” said Ruskin of Whistler. Beyond this, criticism begins to be personal. And Whistler drew the line on the “pot and kettle” stage and brought suit for libel. The case was heard in November, 1878, before Baron Huddleston and a special jury. The cross-examination of Whistler by the attorney-general, who appeared for the defendant, was one of the features of the case, and brought out many of the artist’s views concerning art and art critics. It is said that during the trial one of Whistler’s counsel was holding up the nocturne in controversy before the jury, when one of the counsel on the other side called out: “You are holding that upside down.” “No, I’m not.” “I tell you, you are.” “How do you know which is the top and which is the bottom?”