Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Musidora: The Bather 'At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed'/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 Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 23:54, 15 January 2017 [1].

Musidora: The Bather 'At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed'

Nominator(s): ‑ Iridescent 17:25, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Another entry in the contest for "most bizarrely named FA", Musidora: The Bather 'At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed'—and yes, that punctuation is correct—is arguably the example of William Etty's pioneering mixture of literary references, detailed landscape painting and gratuitous nudity which looks least dated to modern eyes, despite illustrating a scene from a poem which is virtually unknown today. This article is slightly more confusing than the rest of this series, as while we know for certain that there are four versions of this, the provenances have been lost so we no longer know which is the prime version. (I've tried to keep the summary of the situation as brief as possible; since three of the four versions are almost indistinguishable, it doesn't actually make a great deal of difference which is from 1843 and which from 1846.) This should hopefully be the last of this Etty series for a while, at least from me. ‑ Iridescent 17:25, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments.

This will be a fun one. FWIW, I think the single quotes are fine; they're historically accurate, of course, and double quotes might be misinterpreted as enclosing a title of a subsidiary work. - Dank (push to talk) 18:24, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

They're also the format used by the Tate, who own one of the two publicly displayed versions (Manchester Art Gallery's online catalogue is currently down). In the absence of a very good reason not to, I always use the title used by wherever any given artwork is currently displayed, on the assumption that the majority of readers will be people who've seen it displayed and want to know more about it and that the title on the label is what they'll search for. ‑ Iridescent 18:35, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Tintor2

The article is very educating. My only concern is the huge second paragraph in Subject. Could you pharaphrase it or move it to the bottom?

Also, in Composition "Burnage speculates that Etty" shouldn't that be past tense?

Anyway, just @Tintor2: when you want to talk to me. Lastly, I also made a FAC here. I'd appreciate some feedback. Regards.Tintor2 (talk) 03:02, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not seeing "the huge second paragraph in Subject" and can't tell what you're referring to; the three paragraphs in that section are 151 words, 190 words and 121 words respectively. Of the 190 words in the second paragraph, 117 of them are the relevant quote from The Seasons, which can't be omitted as the reader needs to know what the painting is actually supposed to be depicting.

No, the present tense is correct when discussing the contents of a book, since the book still exists. ‑ Iridescent 08:47, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Then I'll support it. Good luck with the article.Tintor2 (talk) 16:24, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Coments from the Bounder

I'll be back shortly for a more complete review, but a quick comment first: in the caption for the main image, you have "exh.", which I am unsure of. Is this for "exhibit"? If so, then it's short enough to put the full word in; if it's longer, would {{Tooltip|exh.|exhibit}} work better? More to come soon. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 14:41, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've expanded it out to say "exhibited" in full (as far as the visual arts are concerned, artworks don't generally exist until their first public exhibition); there's sufficient whitespace underneath on any reasonable screen width that the length of the caption isn't an issue. ‑ Iridescent 16:16, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Could you clarify in the opening line that it is the "name given to four similar oil paintings", or words to that effect? I was expecting a series, or differences between them until I got quite far down the page.

Reasonable; I've reworded to "four nearly identical oil paintings". This is an unusual case, as normally we'd talk about an original and three copies (see Hope for instance) but in the case of Musidora we don't actually know for certain which is the 1843 and which the 1846 version. ‑ Iridescent 17:22, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There are a couple of spots that the date format is "2001–02"; I think there has been an RfC that suggests is should be "2001–2002" (I don't think it's a positive move, and the closing summary of the RfC doesn't seem to reflect the consensus of the discussion, but what do I know…)

I've expanded "1780–1788" to the full years. The other date ranges are consecutive years, for which the xxxx-xx form is still correct. Don't get me started on the MOS. ‑ Iridescent 17:22, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The phrase "studied under renowned artist Thomas Lawrence" comes across a little as a false title; it should probably also have a definite article, as this is in British English.

In this particular case, I don't think that "the" is appropriate—"the renowned artist" makes it sound like he was the only one. I won't lose sleep if someone wants to change it, though. ‑ Iridescent 17:22, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The beginning of the first and second paragraphs of the Subject section say the same thing; you could probably tweak the second to smooth it out slightly.

I've left the second untouched and tweaked the first

The words "on the riverbank" are a bit lost after the quote: "leaves a note on the riverbank reading 'Bathe on... '" would avoid that and make it a smoother read.

Yup, done. ‑ Iridescent 17:22, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Needs a comma after "written by Damon"

Fixed. ‑ Iridescent 17:22, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I stumbled on reading "Etty illustrates the scene from his viewpoint", thinking "his" was Etty

Clarified—it has the unfortunate drawback of meaning four Damons in one paragraph, but I can't see an obvious way to avoid it. ‑ Iridescent 17:22, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The "now" in "Up to now his history paintings" strikes an odd note when we're talking about the mid 1840s

Fixed—that's an artefact of trying to avoid a repetition of "up to this time". ‑ Iridescent 17:22, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"The Literary Gazette called" and "The Critic described": should both technically be something like "A reviewer from ..." or similar, as the inanimate publications don't describe anything. (That's not to all writer's taste, so I won't push the point any further).

This has come up before—these early Victorian journals explicitly took a house line when writing reviews, so anything not specifically attributed to a named author was attributed to the periodical (and anything subsequently written by other staff writers was expected to adhere to it). ‑ Iridescent 17:22, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Aside from these very minor points, a very informative and enjoyable article. Thanks and all the best The Bounder (talk) 16:43, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks ‑ Iridescent 17:22, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You're very welcome. Moved to Support now. The Bounder (talk) 17:32, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Ceoil

Only reading through, but images all correctly licenced and the sources of the first rank - would be familiar with many of the art historians used. More later. Ceoil (talk) 19:32, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support Have read through fully; fine and enjoyable read, no quibbles. Ceoil (talk) 04:53, 17 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Johnbod

Support - up to the usual standard. I'd only say that the location of the 1843 version in a private collection (which the article seems to be saying, even if the nomination above casts doubt on it) should be made clearer in the lead. If that really remains uncertain, that needs to be spelled out. Johnbod (talk) 03:08, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I left that intentionally ambiguous. The most recent sale of the 1843 version I can find is Agnew's buying it for 60 guineas from an anonymous seller in 1947, and selling it to "Mrs Dunne" in 1948 for an unspecified price, but nobody's attempted a full inventory of Etty's works since Farr in 1958 so it may well have been sold on again since then. It's unlikely to have passed into public ownership since then—it's famous enough that any gallery acquiring it would likely be boasting of the fact—but I don't want to state definitively that it remains in private hands, just in case it's in a cache of paintings bequeathed to a gallery who promptly put it in a storeroom, or has ended up somewhere like Ponce, Iziko or the Ringling (all of which have substantial collections of 19th-century English art) where the acquisition wouldn't necessarily have generated press releases and which don't have full online catalogues. (It was hard enough tracking down the various versions of Hope, which is a genuinely iconic work.) It's hard to provide a citation for "I don't know and I can't find out". ‑ Iridescent 20:19, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think people understand that WP isn't all-knowing. You could say for example that it remained in private collections "until at least 1948" - me I'd include the 1947 price - and say the "present location is unclear". Or something like that. But I think deliberate ambiguity/muddle should be avoided. Johnbod (talk) 18:46, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've added "at least until 1948", and a footnote about the 1947/48 sale and the lack of a current inventory of Etty's works. (I don't really want to give too much weight to this sale, as if we include one sale we really ought to include all of them and this particular version changed hands quite frequently. Plus, I have no idea who "Mrs Dunne" actually was, and I really don't want to draw too much attention to that name as it conjures up quite the wrong connotations to anyone who's seen Dumb and Dumber.) ‑ Iridescent 19:09, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note: Unless I've missed them, I think we still need image and source reviews for this. As usual, they can be requested at the top of WT:FAC. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:15, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

With the sole exception of The Seasons, the sources are identical to the 12 other FAs in this series, so should all have been checked to death by now. ‑ Iridescent 10:07, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've checked them anyway. They're all reliable and formatted perfectly. I made one teensy tweak (which could well be wrong), otherwise no quibbles at all. Checking off as fine. Victoriaearle (tk) 17:50, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Victoriaearle: Does this include the images as well? Sarastro1 (talk) 11:54, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sarastro1, it does now. The images are fine and licensed appropriately. Victoriaearle (tk) 13:07, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Sarastro1 (talk) 23:54, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.