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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 (talk) 13:20, 25 June 2014 (diff).

Hilda Rix Nicholas

[edit]
Nominator(s): hamiltonstone (talk) 05:15, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You meet a man, marry him after four weeks, enjoy it for four days, then farewell him for the Western Front, never to see him again. Meet Hilda Rix Nicholas, one of Australia's most promising artists of the Edwardian era. Her career was ultimately harmed by the emotional trauma of her experience of the Great War, and the conservatism of rural Australia. Like fellow Victorian Florence Fuller, her work lapsed into obscurity, though is now being rediscovered. Like Fuller, Wikipedia had no article on her at all until recently. I hope you find her interesting. Thanks to Casliber and others for comments at GA. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:15, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • "She was one of the first Australians to paint post-impressionist landscapes" - source?
  • FN77: publication wikilink doesn't go to the right place
  • The different locations faithfully reproduce how the publisher described them in the two books. They were published twelve years apart, so maybe they moved. I have modified the publisher to match, however. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:37, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose and MoS; I checked one or two sources for paraphrasing and accuracy but most are unavailable to me so couldn't do much there. Also not qualified to judge comprehensiveness and balance, though it seems thorough and I don't sense any biases. Comments. I'll leave notes here as I go through the article. I've completed a pass through; the article is in great shape and I expect to support when the points below are addressed.

  • "Following the death of her father in 1907, Rix, ...": I think "Rix" is confusing here, since her father was also Rix, and as I read the sentence I initially tried to parse it that way. How about "Following the death of her father in 1907, her mother and her only sibling Elsie travelled with her to Europe ..."? Then you could use "Rix" instead of "she" in the next sentence.
  • "In 1926, Rix Nicholas returned to Australia, and in 1928 she married Edgar Wright, whom she had met during her travels in the early 1920s, and the couple settled at Delegate, New South Wales": two consecutive "and"s is ugly -- how about making the last clause a separate sentence?
  • "Henry was a mathematics teacher, appointed a district Inspector of Schools in the 1880s, and a poet who wrote in support of Australian Federation": the middle clause reads like a modifier of "mathematics teacher" on first reading, to me at least. How about "Henry, a mathematics teacher, was appointed a district Inspector of Schools in the 1880s; he was also a poet who wrote in support of Australian Federation, and he played Australian Rules Football for ..."?
  • I assume the note on the Austral Salon is in quotes because it's impossible to paraphrase sufficiently, but it reads oddly to have the verb inside the quotes. I think the fact that she was a committee member is essentially unparaphrasable, so you could move the quotes to before "a meeting place", which would look less odd.
  • "Hilda was enthusiastic at drawing": I don't think "enthusiastic at" is common usage, unless you tell me it's standard in Australian English. Without seeing the source I am not sure what to suggest; but "was enthusiastic about drawing, and particularly liked drawing portraits and figures" might work. Was she taking drawing lessons of any kind, or was this self-taught?
  • "Among the many artists painting there was Frenchman Jules Adler, who took an interest in Rix's work, as well as many Australians": the repetition of "many" is a bit ugly. I think the first one could be cut; the second "many" describes a subset of the first, so the reader would understand that both are "many".
  • You mention the soko in Tangiers; is this a souk? If so, a link might be handy, as that's not a common spelling, as far as I know.
  • The blockquote in the Moroccan section doesn't indent because of the picture on the left. I think it would be better to move the picture of Streeton to the left of the section above, and then move the picture of the detail of Men in the Market Place, Tangier to the right; that would show the indent and would also alternate the images left and right, which is often a more attractive layout.
  • I don't follow the point made in the sentence that begins "Later that same year, the gendered approach...." Why does the fact that the Australian War Memorial acquired one work by her but not another demonstrate anything about gender? Is it because the picture they acquired was of a woman? If so, I think this should be clearer; I also think that if this is citable only to one source it should be given as opinion: e.g. "Pigot believes...."
  • In the "Second Trip to Europe" section, "The result of this is not recorded" is not cited. Is that because it's your assertion, since you can find no source? If so I think this isn't the best way to interject this information, because the voice suddenly because that of the article writer. How about a note, instead, which says something like "None of the standard biographical references on Rix record the outcome of the competition"?
  • "Internationally, as well as those works held by the Luxembourg, Rix Nicholas is represented in the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume and Leicester Gallery": I think this would be better as "Internationally, Rix Nicholas is represented in the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume and Leicester Gallery, as well as by those works held by the Luxembourg", though that does give a repetition of "by". Perhaps just "as well as by the Luxembourg", since the reader should recall the earlier mentions.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 06:49, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Leaning support, I think the prose could be thighter; its a bit vague here and there, but very much interested. Would like to give this a c/e. Ceoil (talk) 01:29, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks Ceoil. Two things for you to check. These are the copyedits in response to Mike Christie's review. This is one making changes to an edit of yours - your expression was an improvement, but introduced what I felt were a couple of stylistic glitches that I wanted to iron out. See what you think, and let me know if you have any other thoughts! PS - yes, the claim re Matisse is weak, but despite Hoorn's extensive research on this connection, she was unable to be absolutely definitive. Given the importance of Matisse in artistic innovation and art circles of the period, the possibility that he had some direct influence on Australian art through this connection with Rix is regarded as significant, hence its inclusion. Regards, hamiltonstone (talk) 04:54, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Pardon me for sticking my nose in, but with respect to the claim re Matisse, I think it would be good to clarify in the article why the reference to Matisse is significant -- you explain it here but the article doesn't mention the connection as it stands -- it only connects them by location, not by the possibility of influence. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:24, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair enough. After much fiddle-faddling, I came up with this. See what you think.hamiltonstone (talk) 12:56, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    That works for me; I won't strike anything as it was Ceoil's original comment. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:48, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support from me, any roads. Ceoil (talk) 15:11, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  • Harv error on FN33 (not pointing to ref?)
  • A few duplinks, see if you really need 'em.
  • Image review?

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:36, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Image review
    • Gosh that's a lot of non-free content!
  • Not sure it was taken in Australia - it probably was in fact taken in the UK. It already has a US tag. I've removed the Aus tag.
  • If it was in the UK, then we need proof of publication (for anonymous works and US works) and/or a date of death of the creator. Otherwise this may still be copyrighted in the UK/US. PD-1923 is only for works which we can conclusively show were published before 1923. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:30, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can't resolve this issue - the image is held in Australia, but the photographer is unknown so we cannot show conclusively that we can meet the UK or French copyright requirements (the two countries other than Oz where this may have been taken). So I have switched the image out and replaced it with another pre-1923 photo that was taken in Australia and thus meets the US requirements of being PD / not having a restored copyright. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:44, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Although it could use some categories. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:30, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Added two categories. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Done.
  • I'm not seeing the rationale for this with Men in the Market Place. The policy doesn't specify a particular level of resolution, and as this is an image of a fragment of the work, it presents no commercial opportunity that I can see. I take the point regarding In Australia.hamiltonstone (talk) 00:54, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I downloaded some software that let me change the sampling of a jpeg (i didn't have anything to do that with previously), and have now downsampled In Australia. Strangely, it now looks like complete crap in my own image viewer, but the changes seem minimal when viewed in WP. A mystery to me. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:23, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Not seeing the rationale because I accidentally gave the wrong link. WP:IMAGERES says "most common pictorial needs can be met with an image containing no more than about 100,000 pixels (0.1 megapixels), obtained by multiplying the horizontal and vertical pixel dimensions of an image". The current files are 462.7k (In Australia) and 216.4k (Men). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:26, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Resolution doesn't mean the amount of compression, but the actual number of pixels. I.e. 300*400, or 600*720, or whatever. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:28, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. Changed resolution (not compression) of Men in the market place, and In Australia. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:35, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I know the year the work was created, but not when it was first exhibited or published (though it is highly likely to be pre-1923). Per life of artist plus 70 years, this is not out of copyright in Australia.hamiltonstone (talk) 13:59, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Which would affect the ability to host the file on Commons, but not the English Wikipedia (currently we are only required to follow US copyright law on the English Wikipedia). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:31, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • See Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights ("While Wikipedia prefers content that is free anywhere in the world, it accepts content that is free in the United States even if it may be under copyright in some other countries."). It's a "loophole" (for the lack of a better term) that some want to close but I prefer to have open. Hence why we can have free images of buildings pretty much anywhere in the world (US FOP laws), including featured images of a Russian university. In an art context, we have File:František Kupka - Katedrála - Google Art Project.jpg as an example. To host the image locally as a free file we (Wikipedia) wouldn't need to worry about Australian copyright law... we'd just need proof of publication before 1923. Mind, this certainly passes the NFCC, and it can be kept as a non-free file once it's downsampled. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:18, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hmm, not sure if I'm missing a point here. I get why Wikipedia would not be breaking copyright law hosting the image. But wouldn't I (being within Australia) be breaking the law acquiring and transferring that image to Wikipedia? hamiltonstone (talk) 01:26, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • That, I'll admit, is the rub. If we had proof of publication, I could upload a copy to Wikipedia... but it's probably simplest to just keep it as a non-free image for now. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:30, 25 June 2014 (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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