Nocturne in Black and Gold — The Falling Rocket

Fireworks over Cremorne Gardens, dissolved into sparks and smoke. John Ruskin accused Whistler of 'flinging a pot of paint in the public's face'; Whistler sued, and when counsel asked how he dared charge two hundred guineas for two days' work, answered: 'I ask it for the knowledge of a lifetime.' He won a farthing, went bankrupt on the costs, and won the argument for every abstract painter since. The picture itself lives in Detroit.