Word: coxcomb
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...sentimental and the morally elevating. From London (where he moved in 1859), Whistler deployed his canvases like troops in this avant-garde campaign. The fury to which he goaded proper Victorians bubbled over in 1877 when Ruskin, the reigning art pundit of the day, wrote that Whistler was "a coxcomb, flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." At a farcical libel trial in which one of Whistler's paintings was displayed upside down and the jury mistook a Titian for a Whistler, the painter won damages of 1 farthing...
...Relapse contains, however, the brightest of his characters, the fatuous coxcomb Lord Foppington. All prance, prattle and fizz, Foppington is far more concerned about the location of a coat pocket than the loss of a wife.† British Actor Cyril Ritchard (Love for Love, Make Way for Lucia) blends a born sense of comedy with a brilliant sense of style. His Foppington is no mere lace-handkerchief dangler, but the eager performer of an idiotic role, with a need and a genius for catching the limelight. Ritchard understands that the key to Foppington and his kind is not an ambiguity...