Talk:Old Master

I nominate this entry to be trimmed substantially, the list should be shorn (2007)

I nominate this entry to be trimmed substantially, the list should be shorn. There is perhaps a sense that post-Napoleonic sensibilities were different, and that grand manner is a style of painting whose substance declined in Italy when old regimes were toppled or transiently shelved by around the end of the 19th century: for example, republican Venice, Medici Florence, and transiently papal Rome. However academicism continued (continues) to live on. Christie's and Sotheby's categories have the academic substance of Sunday newspaper coupon books.CARAVAGGISTI 12:35, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

In English please. I have no idea what was transiently toppled by around the end of the 19th century. As the article says (my para I think) the term has been abandoned by academic art historians (and, as it does not say, very largely by journalists), and the auction houses usefully define how the art trade now uses it. I see no harm in a greatest hits list, although it predates my contribution. Otherwise the article will be a very short stub leading people nowhere much. The list needs watching - I have just snipped Caracciolo or however he is spelt - who else would you nominate? Johnbod 02:35, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I have now added to it somewhat - I hope this makes it clearer that if anything the end-date should be pushed back not forwards. I see on reflection you (presumably) meant "by the end of the 18th century" above. I don't think the term relates to the "grand manner" or academic painting; it appears to have come into common use to describe Dutch Golden Age painting, especially genre scenes. Johnbod 13:18, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

The pope was kept in France during the Napoleonic takeover of Italy, hence his "political reign" was transiently toppled. I didn't keep track of what happened to all the small fiefdoms in Northern Italy, but I sense many of them were overthrown, but then restored in 1814. The Napoleonic wars changed the artistic sensibility and much of the patronage of Italy, such that one could say that panegyric paintings like Tiepolo, or paintings linking a family to glorious ancestors were less commonly apt or commissioned, hence the grand manner was ebbing.

You can leave the text of the article, and lose the list. Todays top fifty will not be all there tomorrow. CARAVAGGISTI 14:43, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Many small states in northern Italy were forged into larger ones. Genoa and some others came to Piedmont. Tuscany, Venice and Milan to Austria. Larger states were stronger in the eyes of the Congress. They made a similar decision in the Low Countries. 81.68.255.36 (talk) 18:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer, but since the 20 artists in the list would have probably been included in any list compiled since about 1850, I don't share your pessimism in this respect. Johnbod 14:56, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm late to this party, but it's hard to find fault with the list. If I can provide some references, I will. JNW 04:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Gainsborough

Gainsborough?... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.229.155 (talk) 19:20, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Thomas Gainsborough The Heakes (talk) 21:25, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Dutch vs Flemish

What's with the Dutch vs Flemish in the list section? Is the ("nationality") behind the names supposed to reflect the area where the Old Masters had made most of their paintings? Both the Flemish artists in the list were not born in Flanders..so, please explain. 81.68.255.36 (talk) 18:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

There are more than two, though Rubens & Van Dyck are in the section above for no very good reason, and there should be more. In English Flemish is the term, rightly or wrongly, for all the Southern/Spanish Netherlands, and sometimes more. We don't care if its in the County of Flanders, I'm afraid - far too complicated. Johnbod (talk) 02:32, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 22 January 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. There is a strong opposition to this retitling citing many sources. (closed by non-admin page mover) -- Dane ^talk 01:35, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

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Old Master → Old master – mos, we really don't have time to always discuss this kind of nonsense, see also onelook.com Espoo (talk) 23:05, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). -- Dane ^talk 05:12, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• The whole point of a manual of style is to prevent wasting time discussing the question of capitalization on each article. Professional copyeditors like me are discouraged from improving Wikipedia by endless discussions with fanboys of different topics. According to MOS:CAPS Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization, and the capitalization of "old master" is most definitely unnecessary as shown by its very widespread lowercase use, which is proven by this spelling being so much more common that the alternative is not even listed in major dictionaries. --Espoo (talk) 09:04, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support: there's no reason to capitalize in the article title or text. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:25, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support why was this contested? In ictu oculi (talk) 18:18, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose You haven't read onelook.com&nbsp (which is not an RS) properly. It was outrageous putting this as an "uncontroversial" technical request when your edit summary clearly shows you were well aware it was likely to be controversial. It is a term of art with a special meaning and needs the capitalization that it still normally receives. There may also be a WP:ENGVAR issue, with different weights of usage between British/US English, & this article uses British English. In Wikipedia above all it is necessary to make this clear to avoid the trouble that non-capitalized technical terms like "colossal statue" run into from well-meaning idiots, sorry, professional copyeditors. Professional copyeditors like you are certainly discouraged from wasting the time of those who actually do improve Wikipedia by, you know, actually writing stuff about subjects they know about. Johnbod (talk) 18:26, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
• Strong oppose: per this ngram, [1] that shows the lower case version declining. Maybe it is a Engvar issue (dunno, I'm American and to me it's Old Master) but regardless, this is a controversial move. I've removed the ref to Wikipedia's MoS from the article body. Victoriaearle (tk) 19:29, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
• Comment: Old Master is a proper name in art history texts. It is usually capitalized. Netherzone (talk) 19:43, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is a not a case of inappropriate use of titlecase. The article repeatedly and consistently uses "Old Master". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mduvekot (talk • contribs) 20:08, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose because Old Master works...Modernist (talk) 23:08, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. The ngram results become more telling when steps are taken to filter out irrelevant results. Of course the lowercase term prevails in narratives about slavery, apprenticeships, schoolmasters, highly skilled people in fields other than visual art, dogs not recognizing their old masters, etc. Compare ngrams of generic phrases "the Old Master was" and "our Old Master" against more targeted phrases "Dutch Old Master", "Dutch Old Masters", "Spanish Old Masters", and the like. Ewulp (talk) 07:17, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose, on the basis of the major news articles revealed in a Google search of the term, e.g. Financial Times, New York Times, The Telegraph. To be honest, the Christie's webpage cited at the bottom of the article is one of the only expert sources that uses lower case (Sotheby's uses upper case). However, the 'elephant in the room' is the appalling state of the article - unsourced and a bizarre attempt to list all major painters prior to 1800! Sionk (talk) 21:33, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support per MOS:CAPS. Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. This is not a proper noun. —BarrelProof (talk) 14:55, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Recent edits

My reversion of these edits] by User:Informed analysis have been reverted by him (he also wants to rename High Renaissance and has had an undiscussed move of it reverted by an admin already). The problems are:

1. He starts the High Renaissance too early - a number of artists should be Early Renaissance, not High High Renaissance - most of the first bunch in the High Renaissance group.
2. I think these sections and labels are probably undesirable anyway. A high proportion of artists spanned two periods during their careers, which this scheme does not allow for.
3. It may be time to remove of float off the whole list, which is ever-growing, and not always that well-selected.

He is new to editing on art, & doing so rather too boldly (this for example) on various articles.

What do other people think? Johnbod (talk) 02:40, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

To clarify, it is the Italian Renaissance Paimting article, which both in its intro and in its detailed section, says painters like Botticelli, Perugino and Ghirlandaio who painted the Vatican Chapel in 1880 should all be considered High Reneissance and that commission is the starting point (Birth of Venus would therebefore be High Renaissance and a picture of it is there). Other pages and certain art historians state that da Vinci in 1490s or 1498 (Last Supper) as the start.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Informed Analysis (talk • contribs) 22:58, September 25, 2018 (UTC)

It sounds as if you're using Wikipedia as a source, which is not a good idea. Many artists do not fit entirely into a single category—e.g., Michelangelo is Mannerist in his late works. Paragraphs of text can explain such cases better than a list, where there is a danger of false precision. (And FWIW, the lead section of Italian Renaissance painting places Botticelli in the Early Renaissance.) Ewulp (talk) 04:27, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I added Botticelli to the Early Reniassance lead section, but the years used there (1475) are wrong. Obviously, not all artists fit into one category - the list under Old Masters did put them in one, and I tried to add text explaining that certain ones were more than one. The fact is, the various wikipedia articles ARE NOT CONSISTENT in a lot of text. They should be. That is what I am trying to fix.Informed analysis (talk) 15:57, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

• I agree with Johnbod; we should go back to his edit. I wonder what this guy would think:User:C.Gesualdo?...Modernist (talk) 13:39, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

"However brief the period that we call the High Renaissance actually was, the 4 decades between 1490 and 1530 have always been regarded as the golden years of the Renaissance" The Art of the Italian Renaisance, ed by Rolf Toman, page 309. The chapter then discusses da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, de Sarto. Botticelli, Perugino and Girlandaio are discussed in the early Renaissance chapter.

"Italian art from the 1490s to about the the time of the sack of Rome in 1527 is called the High Renaissance." Art History, Marilyn Stokstad, page 662. I can cite several other books.Informed analysis (talk) 15:57, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

"In art history, the High Renaissance is the period denoting the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance. The period is traditionally taken to begin in the 1490s, with Leonardo's fresco of the Last Supper in Milan and the death of Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence, and to have ended in 1527 with the sacking of Rome by the troops of Emperor Charles V. The term was first used in German (Hochrenaissance) in the early 19th century and has its origins in the "High Style" of painting and sculpture described by Johann Joachim Winckelmann" extract from Wikipedia page on High Renaissance.Informed analysis (talk) 16:14, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Not everyone active in the 1490s, or even 1510s, was working in a HR style - far from it. The first seven you list as HR would usually, except for Leonardo, be thought of as ER, except perhaps right at the end. Likewise Carpaccio in the Venetian section is ER, where Lotto is more HR than Mannerist. Also Francesco di Giorgio Martini is more ER than HR. Frankly you are at art history 101 level (or below), and rashly rewriting stuff by people who know an awful lot more about the subject than you do. So far your edits overall are doing about as much harm as good. Johnbod (talk) 18:50, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

You seem to be mixing up what changes I did and did not make to the Old Masters list. The list of High Renaissance painters was already there. What I mainly I did was add a notation on which painters in the Venetian and Sienese schools headings were Early, High or Mannerism as just saying "Venetian school" does not tell the average reader what style they were; although it is known Venetian and Sienese painters were somewhat different than other Italian schools/painters.

Can you also now please comment on the time periods and headings used in the Italian Renaissance Painting article - that is what my 3 quotes mostly relate to.Informed analysis (talk) 21:22, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Ok, yes I was mixing up yours with earlier edits, though you did divide the Venetians and Siennese. I'll look at the other article. Johnbod (talk) 00:23, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Right, I'm not very happy with starting the HR about 1475, and if this date is used, it only applies to a (very) few artists and works. Nearly all my books are packed up at the moment or I'd tackle it. This 2012 book looks good - the introductory essay quotes a 2010 Wikipedia version of the HR article (gulp - since changed referencing that book); most sources quoted seem to start with Leonardo in the 1490s, or even later. Johnbod (talk) 01:23, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Turner and Constable

Given that basically every other major artist of roughly their generation seems to be on this list, should they be here? (I note specifically Lawrence, Ingres, Gros, Friedrich, Géricault, and Delacroix). It seems particularly weird to consider Delacroix an Old Master, but not Turner and Constable. john k (talk) 02:01, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Frankly these lists are a pain in the arse, and not needed, but people keep adding them. Myself, I'd add them & remove Géricault and Delacroix. You have to draw the line somewhere. Johnbod (talk) 02:29, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Delacroix as the last doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I'll add them, though. john k (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2019 (UTC)