Category talk:Landscape with a Church by Altdorfer

Drawing or painting

This work of art is now listed as a painting, but isn't it a drawing? See also http://www.bildindex.de/dokumente/html/obj20041785. Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 07:46, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi, it's the eternal problem of terminology. In German-language art-historical tradition — and those deriving from it, especially the Russian-language one — "drawing" tends to refer to any work on paper. English-language scholarly literature, however, usually uses classification based not on support but on medium; basically, if it is drawn (using pencil, pen, or metalpoint), it's a drawing, if it's painted (especially, with a brush), it's a painting. Thus, you'll find the same work painted in watercolours on paper described as a drawing in one place and as a painting in another. When a work combines several techniques — as this one does — it gets even worse, because then it depends on aesthetic judgement of what's important; if the dominant effect is that of lines, you have a drawing, if it is washes that dominate, you have a painting.

Linguistic musings aside, to avoid confusion, I followed "if it's painted, it's a painting" classification as consistently used in the classic book on Altdorfer's landscapes:

Christopher S. Wood (1993). Albrecht Altdorfer and the Origins of Landscape

On the very first page, for example, he refers to this landscape both as a part of a group

"The first independent ladscapes in the history of European art were painted by Albrecht Altdorfer. These pictures describe [...] These pictures tell no stories [...] They are complete pictures, finished and framed"

"Extremely few have survived: two were painted [...] on sheets of parchment glued to panel; three others were painted on paper"

and individually

"He dated one of the drawings 1511 and another 1524, and one of the paintings on paper 1522"

Primaler (talk) 09:24, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

ok. Thanks for your explanation. However, the question to me is, are watercolors really paintings, like you say. If they are, why then do many museums classify them as drawings. For example:

the British Museum (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?searchText=watercolour),

the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/zoeken?q=waterverf),

the Met (http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search?ft=watercolor) and

the Louvre (http://arts-graphiques.louvre.fr/recherche/oeuvres key word "aquarelle"), regardles of the support. Neither of them are German or Russian. I'm a bit puzzled.

Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 21:46, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

@Vincent Steenberg: Actually, the English-language examples you give illustrate perfectly both my points — that support is at least a factor, and that much of it is traditional or arbitrary anyway — just narrow your search to "watercolo[u]r painting": British Museum, Met. Watercolours on ivory are all paintings, as are Indian "opaque watercolours" on paper, with an odd "watercolour painting on paper" here and there, too.

Anyway, should a museum's classification have precedence over scholarly literature? May be. May be not. I looked around for some kind of Commons-wide guide, but could not find any.

Perhaps, we should ask around somewhere more public? Unfortunately, I'm not particularly familiar with the forums here, can you recommend one? Primaler (talk) 23:55, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

@Primaler: . No, I don't know of any such forum.

It seems to be quite idiosyncratic so far, but I'm still looking for a system. I mean, surely there has to be one. The examples you give, by the way, concern mostly non-western artworks, many of them painted entirely with watercolor. So I think this is needlessly making the discussion more complicated. I don't know much about non-European art, but it seems that for example Chinese and Japanese watercolours – because they're all painted – are the equivalent of our oil and tempera paintings. But in the case of Altdorfer this is different. It is not entirely painted with watercolor nor gouache.

On http://www.britannica.com/art/drawing-art I found the following piece of text. This might apply to the Landscape in the Boijmans the basis of which consists also of a pen and ink drawing. "The art of omission plays a still greater role, if possible, in the later 19th century and in the 20th. [...] As the colouring becomes increasingly varied through the use of watercolours to supplement a pen or metalpoint drawing, one leaves the concept of drawing in the strict sense of the term. According to the quality and quantity of the mediums employed, one then speaks of “drawings with watercolour,” “watercolourized drawings,” and “watercolours on preliminary drawings.” The predominant stroke character, rather than the fact that paper is the carrier, is the chief feature when deciding whether or not the work may legitimately be called a drawing." These comments are in line with what you said earlier, but they do not go as far as you want to go. Who sais that because a drawing contains washes it's automatically a painting, even when the washes dominate? Isn't Altdorfer's Landscape just a "drawing with watercolour" and thus a drawing?

Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 19:20, 23 December 2015 (UTC)