Mid-Victorian essayists.

Social Darwinism

Social Darwinism is an ideology that applies Darwin's principle of natural selection to social and political analysis.

Whistler, James McNeill

Though born in the United States, from the 1860s on Whistler lived mostly in the Chelsea section of London. Among his more famous portraits are those of his mother and of Thomas Carlyle (1873). Whistler had a reputation or wit and sophistication and was a friend of both Swinburne and Wdie.

In his famous Nocturnes series of paintings, Whistler was more concerned with tone values than with the direct representation of nature. He sued Ruskin for describing Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket as "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." Whistler won the case but was awarded only a farthing in damages. In 1890 he wrote The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, in which he chronicled the trial.