User talk:Vincent Steenberg/Archive/5

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Flemish Baroque vs Baroque painters from the Southern Netherlands[edit]

Hi Vincent, I have been trying to separate the Dutch from the Belgians, in the subject of Baroque painting. I noticed all the "Baroque painters from..." categories, but since there were many more in Flemish Baroque painters I made the Baroque painters from Belgium into a redirect. Now I see there is a new one, this Baroque painters from the Southern Netherlands that you made. Can you explain what your intention is with this? Because my initial reaction would be to make another redirect to the Flemish Baroque painters, but I want to check with you first in case you have some ambitious plan for that category. Jane023 (talk) 09:43, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I'm glad you dealt with "Baroque painters from Belgium". To me that sounded just as strange as "medieval painters from the DDR". But you asked me why I created "baroque painters from the Southern Netherlands". I think the answer is simple. As you know the Netherlands (Low Countries) were once a more or less united under one head of state. By the time the baroque style came into fashion those Netherlands were divided in a northern (protestant) part and a southern (catholic) part. We've decided to call the baroque painters from the Northern Netherlands Category:Dutch Golden Age painters. So far so good. But what should the southern baroque painters be called? You can't really call them Flemish, because Flanders is only one of many states in the Southern Netherlands. And besides some of the most famous southern baroque painters (Rubens, Anthony van Dyck) weren't Flemish at all. They were from Antwerp. You could argue though that Antwerp is a Flemish town, but that is just the same kind of anachronism as "baroque painters from Belgium". And what about painters from French speaking provinces, such as Liège, Namur, Hainault? They were not Flemish then and they are not Flemish now. That's why I chose the more broader term "Southern Netherlands" for this group of people. Also my plan is to replace Category:Flemish Baroque painters with this other category in time. Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 10:31, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Vincent, OK, thanks for your explanation. I was afraid you wanted to do that! This is a tricky issue, and it's still a mess over on the English Wikipedia. I was never happy about calling the "Northern Netherlands" people "Dutch Golden Age", just because I can't seem to find any consensus anywhere for cut-off dates at the start and end of it (plus you really can't say that Utrecht had any "Golden Age" at all...). All that said, I do use the categories to keep track of the bio pages, so I would be up for a solid theory regarding the catagories in general. If you could be more specific in terms of time period and geographical boundaries (plus what you want to call the other oddballs from Germany and Austria), then I will try to be consistent across WP projects. Jane023 (talk) 13:28, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
yes, you're right in saying that it's tricky. Too often I find painters from the Southern Netherlands in Category:painters from the Netherlands, for example. On the Dutch wikipedia recently a category called nl:Categorie:Zuid-Nederlands kunstschilder (voor 1830) (Painters from the Southern Netherlands (before 1830)) was created. In this way you avoid awkward anachronisms and you include painters from other parts of what is now Belgium apart from just Flanders. Something similar could be done for commons and, if you like, the English wikipedia. Vincent Steenberg (talk) 14:05, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. I do think it is worth making some consistent decisions about this, before each WP goes and gets it into its head to make their own category trees... I like the (before 1830) simply because it IS so definitely tied to a date. It also at least separates all the movements that came afterwards from those that came before. My problem is with the corresponding categories from other countries. My gut feeling, because Antwerp was the hub of the art market for so many years, is that everyone who SOLD art there should have some category. I really like the "members of the xxx guild of st. luke" cats on the English WP for that reason. I also really liked your Category:18th-century painters from the Northern Netherlands so that I could handle those painters on the "right-hand long tail" of the Dutch Golden Age who were slipping back into the "Painters of the Netherlands" bucket. How about for the bigger cities, subcats like "Artist of Antwerp"? That way if you lose them somehow you can maybe find them that way. Maybe there should be something like this:

My problem with the current situation is the difficulty in categorizing the words "Baroque" and/or "Renaissance". If the WP project for photgraphing public art ever really takes off, then the number of sculptor pages will increase, and many of them have no where to go right now except "sculptors of xx", which I think is too broad.

yes, Renaissance and Baroque are quite difficult to define. I usually think of them as periods rather than styles. So Renaissance stands for 16th century art and Baroque for 17th century art. Same goes for "Early Netherlandish painters". When a painter was born after 1500 for example he could never have been an Early Netherlandish painter. So my point is that behind seemingly vague terms you can often find objective criteria. So categories like Category:Baroque painters from the Southern Netherlands and Category:Dutch Golden Age painters aren't necessarily undesirable. I think you can achieve quite a lot by using category redirects and disambiguation pages. For example there's only one redirect to Dutch Golden Age painters. No wonder people get confused and some painters are slipping back into "Painters from the Netherlands". Vincent Steenberg (talk) 11:39, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see your point, except that in Germany, Baroque is really referring to 18th century, not 17th. And where does Renaissance stop and DGA begin? Do you propose a structure of Early Neth = 15th and earlier, Renaissance = 16th (split into North & South), and South + DGA = 17th? People overlapping century boundaries can be members of both I suppose. Jane023 (talk) 18:13, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
yes, that is more or less what I was thinking of. It's also worth having a look at how other people deal with this. The Rijksmuseum for example uses the same terminology (Early Netherlandish and Golden Age), but they use objective criteria. They seem to categorize painters by date of birth: all dutch painters born before 1500 are considered Early Netherlandish and Dutch Golden Age painters born after 1570. See http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/early-netherlandish-paintings and http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/webwinkel/books---dvd-s/rijksmuseum-collection-/Dutch-Paintings-of-the-17th-Century-in-the-Rijksmuseum--Amsterdam-Volume-I--Artists-born-between-1570-and-1600?id=10766. Maybe commons could work according to similar principles. Vincent Steenberg (talk) 19:00, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that's an aspect I didn't even consider; date of the painting vs birth year of the painter! We already have the categories such as 1622 paintings, etc. That's fine and I see no need to split them into country boundaries. I do feel however, that there is a significant difference between the early Dutch landscape artists and their Italian contemporaries, and somehow this needs to be captured geographically as well as per time period. In your last edit, you agree with me, so this means that everyone in "Flemish Baroque" needs to be redirected and go into "Baroque painters from the Southern Netherlands", but what do we do with the painters born after 1470 and who died before 1600? Do we throw them all in the Renaissance categories? If so, then I will set it up this way from now on. Jane023 (talk) 11:49, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You mean "Renaissance painter from the Netherlands"? Perhaps you could use as a criteria all painters who were born between 1470 and 1570? I think that should cover all of them. With a few exceptions such as Category:Aelbrecht Bouts. Vincent Steenberg (talk) 14:58, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that's what I mean. So Early Neth is everything from upper France into modern Denmark, with a cutoff around 1470, then you get Dutch Ren, Danish ren, German ren, Southern Neth Ren, Frenc ren, etc. up 10 1570, and then I suppose it's all Baroque or DGA (when was the Danish Golden age? same time as Dutch?) up to 1700, whereupon we get 18th century painters from xxx, etc. I hope the Wallonians are cool with this BTW, since they sometimes see things very differently. Have you looked at the Joconde database? I can't find any obvious categories there.Jane023 (talk) 21:17, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

yes, I think that should work, although I can't say whether this also goes for Renaissance artists in countries outside the Netherlands. The Danish golden age BTW was during the (first half?) of the 19th century. I have no evidence of this, but I think the Walloons are more at ease being called southern netherlandish than Flemish. On Joconde sometimes the school is mentioned, but they're not consistent. Sometimes they say "Flandres" and sometimes "anciens Pays-Bas" or (even worse) "Hollande". Vincent Steenberg (talk) 22:08, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK fine, I'll try to keep to this setup on the English WP and Commons from now on.
ok. I already did an attempt to define Category:Early Netherlandish painters. I'm now going to look if I can do the same for Renaissance painters. Vincent Steenberg (talk) 12:29, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just saw today what a great overhaul you have done on those categories - it looks great! I want you to know that I really appreciate the work involved -- it represents a lot of effort I think, so thanks! Eventually I think there are lots of uses for these categories, if the setup stays stable this way. Jane023 (talk) 18:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ok, thanks a lot. I hope everyone will be able to work it out. However, I keep on finding Flemish painters in Category:Painters from the Netherlands (and the other way around). So these categories will need to be reviewed from time to time. Vincent Steenberg (talk) 22:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's fairly normal - I find cases like that a lot on the english WP too. I often forget the categories myself when I am checking pages, and I noticed there are lots of pictures out there that aren't even categorized (polish nobility portraits, german nobility portraits, etc) so there will always be work on this - don't forget many WP contributors don't even know there are categories on commons, because you can't see these from a WP page, only in the commons page. I wish there was some way to make the categories hard-linked from the WP artist page to the commons artist page - it sure would save a lot of time! Jane023 (talk) 15:11, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Great job on improving Creator templates[edit]

Vincent, It seems like each time I check my watchlist there is another edit of some Creator page by you, and most of them go beyond simple formatting (the way most my edits are). Your effort on improving those pages is greatly appreciated. --Jarekt (talk) 16:26, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ok, thanks for the complement. Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 18:28, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wouter Crabeth II[edit]

Vincent, after your edit on Wouter Crabeth II (it.wiki), when I click on commons, I arrive in commons, but I don't return in wikipedia in the corresponding article. The same thing occurs with other articles. Bye --Maria.martelli (talk) 18:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I don't really understand what you mean. So you click on the link to commons on it:Wouter Crabeth II, then you arrive in Category:Wouter Pietersz. Crabeth (II) and then you can't return to the article on it.wiki? is that the problem? Do you mean than an interwiki link is missing or is there another reason? Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 19:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. You understood correctly: when I arrive in Category:Wouter Pietersz. Crabeth (II) from it:Wouter Crabeth II, I can't return to the article of it.wiki. If you try with your last modified articles, you'll find the same problem.--Maria.martelli (talk) 19:02, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, thanks for your reply. I opened the article on IE and you are right. You have to click the back-botton in your browser twice to return to the article. However, I also tried it:Rembrandt_Harmenszoon_van_Rijn and the same happens there. So I don't think it's because of something I did. I think it's something caused by IE. Maybe you could bring this up at the Commons:Village pump? Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 19:58, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Removing painting descriptions[edit]

Please stop removing painting descriptions if they are already there and they are correct. They are useful for visually impaired. Marac (talk) 02:29, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Marac, I guess you are refering to Category:Paintings by Vincent van Gogh in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. First of all, I created that category myself some time ago, because Category:Paintings in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam was overfull and could use some diffusion. So I started ordering files in that category by painter. However, halfway through that process I realized that this was not a sustainable solution. Sometimes the museum own just one painting by a certain artist. So I started ordering files by school (for example Category:Dutch Renaissance paintings in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam). Like this you have a better view on all paintings from a certain period. Secondly categorization by painter by museum sometimes causes strange situations (see for example Category:Jacob Coeman).
You say that subcategories are useful for the visually impaired. I don't know exactly how that works. Maybe commons has got documentation on this? Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 10:44, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I see what you mean now. You mean the description that used to be on File:Metsu, Gabriel - Sick Child, the.jpg. This text was copied from the Rijksmuseum website and therefore likely to be a copyright violation. Vincent Steenberg (talk) 16:05, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is no way one sentence with a simple description of the content of the painting could be a copyright violation. No one can claim copyrights on such descriptions, cause there is no original research in them. I did not copy any opinions, judgments or research. Marac (talk) 16:53, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ok, if that's the case I'll restore the description. Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 18:01, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
thanks!Marac (talk) 23:16, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My cat walked ...[edit]

When starting to delete your creator page, I stumbled over "My cat walked over my keyboard. I'm not joking." May I cite you with that? I'm also not joking. With the many sad events here on Commons, it's sometimes helpful to have something harmless to cheer people up. --Túrelio (talk) 14:16, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

yes, that was the idea! Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 14:27, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There's even a category called Category:Cats with computers. I guess I'm not the only one with this problems. Vincent Steenberg (talk) 14:58, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Vincent_Steenberg/Archive/5&oldid=656907242"