Talk:Hockney–Falco thesis/GA1

GA Review

Hey. I'm going to review this GA Nom Intothewoods29 (talk) 01:28, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I reviewed this, and everything seems to check out... but I'm worried it's not comprehensive enough... so I'm going to ask for a second opinion. All I could recommend would be to expand the sections about the actual thesis and get rid of the two red links. Intothewoods29 (talk) 01:57, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Why get rid of red links? Red links are what makes Wikipedia grow. Far better to redlink needed articles than remove redlinks just to make Wikipedia seem more complete than it really is.--ragesoss (talk) 02:02, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I've expanded the section on Hockney's argument.--ragesoss (talk) 02:45, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Protonk Comments

• Images: Tags check out.

• Style: MOS basically checks out, some thoughts:

• The first sentence in the lead needs to be slightly rewritten (to put "in art history" in the front).
• Wikilinks are mostly good. Link targets seem proper and link placement follows the MOS. red links are fine
• Criticism section could do to be wikilinked more.
• The lead is largely proper (gives a succinct summary of the article with an appropriate hook). the second to last sentence in the lead is a little POV.

• Sources Why is Secret Knowledge not cited in this article? We (of course) wouldn't use the book to establish contentious claims about itself, but wouldn't we use it to better explain what the thesis means? Other sources are find, but writing this article without the book is like getting a third-hand description of a roller coaster ride. You'll get the basics down but the vital elements of it are likely to be lost in the translation. Don't be afraid to cite the book!

• Treatment of the subject: This is lacking, generally. The lead provides the basic idea:

...advances in realism and accuracy in the history of Western art since the Renaissance were primarily the result of optical aids such as the camera obscura, camera lucida, and curved mirrors, rather than the development of artistic technique and skill.

But beyond that, we never get a taste (for the general reader) of how extraordinary a claim this was. The orthodox (or at least, what they teach in high schools) explanation is that there is some progression in art, analogous to the apparent progression in science. We start painting bears on cave walls and slowly become more advanced, picking up new techniques and applying them as the society becomes more sophisticated. During the middle ages, we were supposed to have 'regressed' (in science, art, etc) but when the renaissance brought back thoughts about geometry and such, we 'advanced' to be able to treat perspective properly, set up accurate sketches and distort images where necessary. I don't mean to argue that this is the default feeling in the PROFESSION, but this is the mid-20th century explanation. That explanation, as it stands, is pretty repugnant. If you follow it to the logical conclusion, you derive the result that any strictly 2d art is somehow 'delayed' and that conveniently artistic technique proceeds ever upward until we get to where we are now. The argument that technical tools, rather than some cultural progression, produced these changes in the art form (especially technical tools supplied by a non-european) is a powerful and (if it is true) important one. Even if it isn't true, it is an important challenge to the strong inclination to view artistic expression as a solely cultural product. This sense is not conveyed in the article.

With that in mind, this article does not give a good impression as to the perceived validity of the subject OR even what the authors technically mean. First the perceived validity. We cite (and offer time to) some criticisms of the work, but do not give an overall picture of where those criticisms stand in the field. Is the thesis generally disbelieved? Is it technically correct but hard to verify? Have scholars found counterexamples? Etc. With three paragraphs on the subject of criticism, we need to show a result. If we can't show it without resorting to OR, then we shouldn't, but seven years is more than enough to garner some 'retrospective of the controversy' in some book or journal somewhere, assuming the thesis generates sufficient controversy. Lack of technical explanation. This article deserves a section (probably citing the book) explaining what is meant by the above quote. An example, perhaps the Van Eyck example, would be perfect. The article should explain what is meant by "He was struck by the accuracy of portraits by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and became convinced that Ingres had used a camera lucida or similar device." We can navigate away and learn that we are dealing with cameras, projectors and mirrors (basically), but it would be better to have a clear example for the regular reader within the article.

With the above concerns in mind, I am going to delist this article for now (I would put it on hold but ~7 days would be an impressive time for a turnaround of this nature. My suggestions are:

• Dig out Secret Knowledge and see how citations from that work can be integrated into this article.
• Context, context, context. The subject should be framed against the larger art and art history world.
• Provide an easy to follow technical explanation of each claim (use of cameras, projection devices and mirrors). Assume your audience has never heard the latin terms for these objects and assume they are not familiar enough with the artists in questions to have an "Aha!" moment.
• Provide some clear summation of the 'criticism' section.

Overall this was a fun article to read on an interesting subject. Don't be discourage by failing a GA nomination. I'm listing this article as B class (it wasn't attached to a project before. Protonk (talk) 15:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)