I kept looking and in vain for a reference to John Ruskin writing on Whistler´s Symphony in Grey and Green: "I never saw anything so impudent on the walls of any exhibition in any country as last year in London. It was a daub professing to be a harmony in pink and white or some such nonsense absolute rubbish and which had taken about a quarter of an hour to scrawl or daub - it had no pretence to be called a painting."

Of course art did not need Ruskin any more than a moving train needs one of its passenger to shove it.

Whistler was once visited by Mark Twain. Twain running his hand over a Whistler painting caused the artist to exclaim:- Don´t touch that. Can´t you see it isn´t dry yet". Twain replied:-I don´t mind. I have gloves on!.