Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 01:01, 26 July 2015 [1].

Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm

Nominator(s):  – iridescent 15:42, 4 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Gray's The Bard is one of the seminal works of English literature. The direct ancestor of works as varied as The Lord of the Rings, The Last of the Mohicans and Twilight, it's a deeply bleak work which examined not just the taboo topic of the Anglo-Norman eradication of the indigenous cultures of the British Isles, but also the corrosive and ultimately self-destructive effect that conquest had on the conquerors. With its evocative descriptions of armies marching through the rugged landscapes of north Wales, and of the excesses of the alien Norman elite and their ultimate destruction at the hands of the indigenous Celtic population at Bosworth Field, it was an ideal work for painting, and was tackled by artists as varied as William Blake and J. M. W. Turner.

Those of you familiar with William Etty's unique approach to illustrating great works of literature will probably not be shocked to learn that for his take on The Bard, he chose to depict a boatload of naked teenagers. Unlike most of Etty's paintings, which were either derided at the time but later came to be respected, or were greatly admired at the time but then slipped into obscurity, Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm has been controversial since Etty exhibited a preliminary sketch of it in 1822 which was promptly condemned as "offensive and indecent" by The Times. A technically astonishing work (a reasonable case can be made that until the invention of photography, no other artist ever painted such realistic nudes), it also represents the absolute nadir of 19th-century kitsch until Bubbles 50 years later, and there was a general feeling that Etty had spectacularly misunderstood just what The Bard was actually about. Unlike most Etty works, this one has spent most of existence on display in the big London galleries rather than in private hands or in smaller northern galleries, so it's arguably his best known work. Thanks to User:Lingzhi in particular for a lot of minor tweaking on this one. – iridescent 15:42, 4 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. Cant say I would be drawn to the painting, but it does have attractions, and the article and writing are great. My ce adjustments were trivial. Refs and biblo correctly formatted and all from reliabile sources. Ceoil (talk) 01:22, 5 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Singora (talk) 07:28, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
1. You've linked Tate Britain twice in the summary.

Thanks, fixed – iridescent 09:46, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

2. The first two images in the main body's left column are The Dawn of Love and William Blake's 1798 painting. When viewed on a high resolution screen (my screen is set to a width of 1920px), the second image appears immediately below the first. This creates an unusual problem: the text floats neatly around the first image and then shifts in a bit as it floats around the second. You can resolve this issue by giving both images the same width.

One is landscape and one is portrait—I'm a little reluctant to have them at the same width since it will make the latter appear much larger. As far as I'm aware, the WMF are aiming one day to impose a maximum line length on MediaWiki (they already do on Flow pages—see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Hampshire for example) which will render it moot. If it's causing problems, I can replace Dawn of Love with something else from the period in portrait format, since it's serving as a representative Etty history painting from the early 1830s and doesn't need to be this particular picture. – iridescent
Changed my mind, and have put Blake up to full width even though it technically violates MOS. It's a detailed enough image that there are legitimate reasons for it to be at a larger than expected size, and this solves the text-alignment issue. – iridescent 09:57, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yep - it looks better. Singora (talk) 12:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

3. Your bibliography has the entry: 

*Gilchrist, Alexander (1855). Life of William Etty, R.A. Vol. 2. London: David Bogue. OCLC 2135826. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

This source is public domain and can be viewed on archive.org: Life of William Etty, R. A. This link confirms Etty's apprenticeship in Hull, but is volume 1. Why have you written volume 2? And why not include this link in the bibliography?

Yes, you're right; that was a legacy of me cutting-and-pasting bibliography entries from articles on later works. In this case, I've jettisoned Gilchrist altogether—although it's not really an issue on a non-contentious issue like where he lived, there's no reason to be directing readers to a book known to be unreliable when genuinely reliable sources exist for the same thing. – iridescent 09:46, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK -- so you've dropped a source "known to be unreliable". Fair enough. Singora (talk) 12:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Known to be unreliable" is maybe a bit strong; "known to be biased" is probably more accurate. Gilchrist doesn't lie, and would be perfectly suitable for citing a fact as basic as where someone lives, but is explicitly writing a hagiography and leaves out anything critical towards his subject. – iridescent 13:23, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

4. RE: "The correspondent additionally commented that" -> "The reviewer added" / "The journalist added".

Changed to "reviewer" – iridescent 09:46, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You've now got "The reviewer additionally commented that ...". All you need is "The reviewer added ...". Singora (talk) 12:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, agree—I think in one of the early drafts I already had an "added" and was trying to avoid repetition. Changed. – iridescent 13:34, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You've now got "added that". The "that" is superfluous. Am I annoying you! Singora (talk) 14:12, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

5. You write "in 1949 the painting was transferred from the National Gallery to the Tate Gallery, where as of 2015 it remains". Your source is an article from the Tate website, dated 2007. Do you not have a more recent source? (This is obviously a very minor point.)

I'm not sure what you mean by this—if the Tate ever for some reason remove it from their collection it will be removed from the website, so its continued existence on the site implies that it's still there. (Short of a major catastrophe or complete financial meltdown, that won't change; to the best of my knowledge the Tate have never sold a painting.) The last time it would have had significant coverage in a print source was the 2011–12 Art and Controversy exhibition—I can source easily enough that it was on loan from the Tate then, but there doesn't seem to be anything to be gained doing it this way. – iridescent 09:46, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As I wrote, this is only a very minor point. Ignore it. Singora (talk) 12:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

6. On the BBC website I found this painting by Alfred Morgan. It looks like a straight copy (apart from the colors). It's part of the V&A collection.

WP articles on artworks generally don't cover copies by other artists unless there's a specific reason to do so (e.g. the copy helped to popularise the original, or the act of making the copy had a significant impact on the artist who made it), as there are just too many copies around for it to be practical. Copying paintings was part of the standard course of every art student in 19th century Europe, and Youth and Pleasure was in public galleries in central London for its entire existence so would have been easily accessible. (With major Etty paintings, one can assume that at the very least his acolytes William Edward Frost and James Mathews Leigh would have made copies.) – iridescent 09:46, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK - I thought it might be worth noting since the copy is part of the V&A collection. Singora (talk) 12:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
V&A collection doesn't mean much; their visual arts collection is the de facto national library of reproductions. When it comes to paintings, anything in the V&A that doesn't say either "Ionides bequest" or "Sheepshanks bequest" can generally be disregarded—almost everything significant other than those two bequests was transferred to other collections . – iridescent 13:34, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Noted. Singora (talk) 14:12, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

7. Why do you discuss critical reception for the 1822 version in the Composition section rather than the Reception section which succeeds it? Singora (talk) 12:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Versions" should be a standalone section, rather than a subsection of "Composition" – changed. I think it would be too confusing to discuss the reception given to an 1822 preliminary draft in the section about the reception for the 1832 completed version. – iridescent 13:34, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
See below. Singora (talk) 14:12, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

8. In the Versions sub-section you write "In 1822 he had exhibited an early version ... in this early version the group of figures on the prow is reversed". The following sentence notes "Another rough version of the painting also survives, similar to the 1832 version but with the figures on the prow reversed". The first sentence repeats "early version". I think you need an "also" in the following sentence. Singora (talk) 12:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I'm not following you here (although I've removed a superfluous "early"). I think you're saying that it needs to made clear the figures are reversed in both the 1822 and "1848" versions, in which case that should do it. – iridescent 13:34, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is much better. You've added a new section (Versions), stripped out the repetition and put in the word "again". Singora (talk) 14:12, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Singora (talk) 14:12, 7 July 2015 (UTC) I enjoyed reading this![reply]

  • Many thanks! – iridescent 22:58, 17 July 2015 (UTC) note; I've moved the bolding markers on your above post—no words changed—as it was confusing the bot which counts supports and opposes – iridescent 22:58, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Images are appropriately licensed and captioned. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:06, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support

  • A few minor comments:
    • Plantagenet, not Plantaganet (in lead and main text)
      • Fixed, don't know how that slipped in. – iridescent 22:58, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Art historian Sarah Burnage" – a pity to use the American/tabloidese false title in an English article.
      • I don't really see the issue here—I've never considered false title a legitimate concern except when people capitalise inappropriately. I don't see how changing it to "The art historian Sarah Burnage" would be an improvement, since it gives the impression she's the only or pre-eminent one, while "Sarah Burnage, art historian" sounds very pompous to me. – iridescent 22:58, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:OVERLINK: duplicate link to York Art Gallery
      • Technically that link in the final sentence is an overlink, but it's far removed in distance from the initial link. As this is the point where readers are most likely to have an interest in York Art Gallery ("I'd like to know more about that exhibition"), I feel it makes sense to keep a link here as well. – iridescent 22:58, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent article, focused, clear, balanced and of course beautifully illustrated. Plainly meets the FA criteria in my view. Tim riley talk 14:27, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Many thanks! – iridescent 22:58, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comprehensive and well-referenced, etc. • Lingzhi♦(talk) 02:56, 18 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support - pile on at this point and sorry for taking so long to get here. This is an interesting read; I have to agree with the reviewers that Etty got Gray wrong (I know the poem) and can't make up my mind whether I hate Etty or like him (in case you were interested in my opinion!) I made a few very minor tweaks. Nicely done, again. Victoria (tk) 21:04, 24 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks and no rush, given how lax I've been at reviewing anything lately. Long reply at your talkpage to avoid going off at a tangent here. – iridescent 00:06, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support You have to move quickly to catch these. The usual excellent quality, though as quibbles I have to say I agree with Tim re "false titles", and might have included the copy myself. Do we have a record of when it was and was not displayed by the NG? Perhaps not. Johnbod (talk) 01:21, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • To the best of my knowledge, every painting in the Vernon bequest was on display while in the NG's ownership; initially at Marlborough House, then at South Ken, and post-1876 in the expanded Trafalgar Square building; I don't believe it was off display during its time at the NG. In the early 20th century the Vernon bequest (other than the portraits) was transferred to the Tate; because of their fast-rotation policy it's not going to be practical (or probably even possible) to list when it was and wasn't on display after that.
    I'd be reluctant to go down the road of including copies by other artists unless they're of particular significance. ("The King of Spain liked the painting so much he commissioned this copy", "This copy became more popular than the original".) Because the curricula of the 19th century art academies were so heavily based on the theory of learning-by-copying, and because before the introduction of photolithographic reproduction there was a steady market for hand-painted copies, almost any painting which was on public display in London, Paris, Munich, Copenhagen, Edinburgh etc will have had lots of copies made, of various quality.
    Regarding 'False title', per my reply to Tim I don't consider them a problem but have no objection if anyone wants to rephrase it. – iridescent 11:44, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think we can safely leave this potential finetuning to post-FAC, so will promote this shortly. Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:56, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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