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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hope (painting)/archive1

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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 via FACBot (talk) 14:14, 22 October 2016 [1].

Hope (painting)

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Nominator(s): Iridescent 15:55, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In 1885 George Frederic Watts's adopted granddaughter died, leading to the state bailout of General Motors, drone warfare in the Middle East, and the PRISM program; I may have omitted a few intervening stages, but the basic causality is there. Hope is an artwork which 99% of those who see it consider the irredeemable nadir of Victorian sentimentalist kitsch. However, the 1% has included some disproportionately influential individuals, including back in 1990 a young attorney called Barack Obama. Thanks to Sagaciousphil and Ceoil for cleaning and tweaking. ‑ Iridescent 15:55, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Two notes:

  • The story as given here doesn't entirely tally with the official version as given by Tate Britain, where this painting currently resides, and the Tate's version isn't used as a source or given as an EL. This is intentional; the Tate's version contains demonstrably untrue comments (e.g. "Watts also omitted the star, the only note of optimism, at the top of the picture" when the star in question is very obviously still present) that I don't consider it trustworthy, and I suspect that it contains intentional errors as a means to track plagiarists. Most of the sources here are either from the Watts Gallery themselves, or impeccable expert publishers like the National Gallery of Art and the Yale Center for British Art, so I'm inclined to follow their version of events.
  • I know long quotes are frowned upon, but I feel the two lengthy quotes from Barack Obama necessary; the first, where he recounts his recollection of Jeremiah Wright describing it, demonstrates that the Hope which inspired Obama is based on a misconception (either Wright misremembering the painting, or Obama misremembering his words) as "the valley below where everywhere are the ravages of famine" doesn't actually exist in the original, while the second makes it explicit that the "hope" of Obama's early speeches and of The Audacity of Hope is explicitly a reference to this painting, not to the abstract concept. ‑ Iridescent 15:55, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from SarahSV

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  • Comment. Hi Iridescent, this is a very nice article, and I'm enjoying reading it. A couple of points in passing:
  • There's a sentence in the lead that I don't understand, especially "in response to social, economic and religious changes: "An effort to break with traditional methods of depicting hope in response to social, economic and religious changes, it was radically different from previous treatments of the subject.
  • It's a clumsy attempt to summarise the second paragraph of the Subject section in a single sentence, as the lead is already quite cluttered. Basically, the Panic of 1873 had knocked the economy into a slump from which it hadn't yet recovered, church attendance had nosedived (and Watts didn't much like the church anyway), and the emergence of industrial capitalism had brought in what he saw as a culture of greed; Hope was an effort to create something which rejected traditional imagery so that its message would have meaning in a modern society where the iconography of Christianity and the images of traditional English scenes no longer had meaning to the audience. (He can reasonably be said to have succeeded, since—if you disregard the sentimentality—the actual meaning of the painting is as clear to modern viewers as it was in his own time.) ‑ Iridescent 23:55, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's hard to summarize. Perhaps try "Radically different from traditional methods of depicting hope, the painting shows a ..."? You could link "traditional methods" to the Subject section or just leave it unexplained. SarahSV (talk) 00:29, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Both the proposal and the alleged rejection are mentioned on p64 of Tromans's book—the references seem to have been lost in transit, I've now added them. Tristram Hunt isn't just an activist, he was (pre-Corbyn) one of the intellectual driving forces behind the Labour Party in its third term (the period in question) so a public statement from him would have been understood to have been cleared by the party. I included the Daily Mail citation, along with the "According to an unverified report in the Daily Mail", precisely to make it clear to readers that this is coming from a potentially unreliable source. (In this case, I assume the Mail is correct in that Obama was actively avoiding the painting—given his previously expressed interest in it, even were the offer of a loan untrue he would certainly have been offered the opportunity to either visit it at the Tate or have it brought to somewhere he was attending while on a state visit—but I don't really want to be saying it in Wikipedia's voice.) ‑ Iridescent 23:55, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • A couple of punctuation questions:
  • "In late 1885 Watts's adopted daughter Blanche Clogstoun had just lost her infant daughter Isabel to illness ..." If Blachne was his only adopted daughter, it needs commas around the name; ditto if Isabel was the only infant daughter, though that might not be known.
  • Blanche seems to have been the only one he ever legally adopted; the other girl he tried to adopt (Ellen Terry) he changed his mind about adoption and married her instead (those were different times). Blanche definitely had at least one other child as we have an article on him, but I don't know if she had any other girls. I'm not convinced that this sentence actually needs commas—paging User:Eric Corbett, who's rulings on BrEng grammar are generally definitive, and who was tinkering with this article a couple of days ago. ‑ Iridescent 20:42, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think that commas are necessary in this case, and add nothing. Eric Corbett 21:29, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • This quote needs something around "poor little tinkle", unless the author wrote it without. "Hope sitting on a globe, with bandaged eyes playing on a lyre which has all the strings broken but one out of which poor little tinkle she is trying to get all the music possible, listening with all her might to the little sound—do you like the idea?" I can't see the source, but the Telegraph has dashes around it. SarahSV (talk) 05:32, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The author wrote it with just two commas (here, p. 2): "I am painting a picture of Hope sitting on a globe with bandaged eyes playing on a lyre which has all the strings broken but one out of which poor little tinkle she is trying to get all the music possible, listening with all her might to the little sound, do you like the idea?" SarahSV (talk) 06:52, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've just double-checked; the formatting and punctuation as used here (other than the spacing around the em-dash) is identical to that reproduced in Tromans's book, which as it's published by the Watts Gallery itself I assume is definitive in the absence of very strong evidence to the contrary. ‑ Iridescent 20:27, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry to take so long to get back to this. I read it through twice and I'm happy to support, though I think it would be better without the tabloid source. Regarding the punctuation, this is the original, and he used two commas in that sentence. SarahSV (talk) 20:02, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ceoil

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Support, as mentioned above, read this before the nom. I had some c/e quibbles, now resolved. Did a scan of the sources and found them to be of the first rank of available scholarship. I didn't notice any logical inconsistencies and the slightly jaundice undertone in the writing is appealing. That said, the painting is attractive to me as whimsy. Ceoil (talk) 20:17, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks—while I do like a lot of Watts's output and think his influence on later artists is seriously underrated, I find it hard to summon up much liking for this particular piece, which to me comes close to Fidelity for sheer earnest mawkishness. ‑ Iridescent 21:06, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Mirokado

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I just have a few comments:

  • Lead
    • We don't paint a chalk reproduction, I suggest "He painted at least two further versions for private sale, and made a chalk copy..."
  • Background
    • believed to have been the first such exhibition by any artist: since we later have "In 1882 the Grosvenor Gallery had staged a retrospective exhibition of Watts's work..." can you be more specific as to how this was the "first such" exhibition?
      • It's usually (depending on who you listen to) considered the first 'blockbuster' exhibition-as-an-event. I've removed that line altogether; the only purpose is to illustrate that Watts had a high profile at this time and new paintings from him were considered A Big Deal, which is already done. ‑ Iridescent 09:30, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Legacy
    • I was curious about the redlink for printsellers: would it be possible to create at least a stub for that, since there is otherwise no indication of what in particular is meant (presumably a historical context I don't know about)?
      • I'm quite surprised it's a redlink as well, given that the term is used fairly often on Wikipedia. (A printseller is exactly what it sounds like; someone who deals in reproductions of pictures.) It's a redlink which ought to stay, as someone will no doubt write an article at some point. ‑ Iridescent 09:30, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Later influence

Some stylistic points, your call:

--Mirokado (talk) 00:22, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Thanks for the responses. --Mirokado (talk) 10:40, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Done for the first two. Regarding the stamp, I've changed it to {{non-free stamp}} – per my comments on the FUR, I think this is 99% certain to be PD since the copyright on Hope itself has obviously long since expired (thanks to Teddy Roosevelt, this is a case where we have absolute proof that the design was published in the US pre-1923), and I'm fairly certain that the other elements fall below the threshold of originality, but I'm reluctant to treat it as PD just in case it is actually considered copyright. ‑ Iridescent 20:28, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Johnbod

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  • "In 1938 the Tate Gallery closed their room dedicated to Watts, where Hope had been displayed." I can't see this anywhere else, so it seems unreferenced. "closed" seems a bit dramatic - presumably they just hung other stuff there. Johnbod (talk) 13:39, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are you talking about that Hope was hung in the Watts Room, or that the Tate closed it in 1938? If the latter, it's referenced in the final sentence of Hope (painting)#Artistic influence—if the former, I'd have thought it's implicit in "an entire room of the new museum was dedicated to his works", but if you want it spelled out that Hope was in there that's easy enough to do. ‑ Iridescent 14:26, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • (adding) Regarding the room, it vanished in one of their rebuildings and is now a pair of temporary exhibition spaces (labelled "Hockney's Double Portraits" and "Jo Spence" on the current floor plan), but I'm not sure of the date of that. The Tate's own description of what happened in 1938 is "the room was finally disassembled". ‑ Iridescent 14:34, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I was talking about the "closure" which still seems unreferenced, and not the best word. Johnbod (talk) 14:50, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's definitely referenced ("in 1938 the Tate Gallery closed the Watts Room.[78]"). I'm not sure what better term to use here; what happened in 1938 was that the permanent exhibition of Watts's works came to an end, rather than that the Tate disposed of their collection, but something like "removed from public display" won't be accurate either, as they still regularly showed (and still show) the collection, just not all at once and not as a single entity. "In 1938 the Tate Gallery ceased to have a room dedicated to his works" perhaps? ‑ Iridescent 14:59, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ok on the ref. Does "dispersed" work?
To me "dispersed" suggests that they broke up the collection and sold it off, rather than hung on to it but put it in storage. "From 1938 onwards the Tate Gallery no longer kept the works donated by Watts on permanent display"? I do think it's important that this be mentioned, since we previously mention that they had a room dedicated to him so readers might otherwise wonder if it still exists. ‑ Iridescent 15:21, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ok; the 2nd mention still has "closed". "discontinued the grouped display" might be a variation. Johnbod (talk) 15:34, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Reworded to "In 1938 the Tate Gallery ceased to keep their collection of Watts's works on permanent display" in the lead and "in 1938 the Tate Gallery removed their collection of Watts's works from permanent display" in the body text, which should hopefully do it. ‑ Iridescent 18:01, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I try to rotate between "composition" and "design" to reduce repetition; there are already four instances of "composition" (five if you count the one in the TOC). ‑ Iridescent 14:26, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • He's never been Director to my knowledge (Perdita Hunt has been Director for well over a decade). He's Curator now, but wasn't at the time he wrote this, and "Senior Lecturer at Kingston" is still his day job. ‑ Iridescent 14:26, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not easily without losing either Luna, Idle Child of Fancy or Burne-Jones's Hope, which I'm loath to do, especially since those three don't have existing articles so there's no easy way for a reader who wants to see what they look like to get to them (anyone wanting to see Night can just click the link). ‑ Iridescent 14:26, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "She sits on a small, imperfect orange globe" I think I see how it is "imperfect" but it might be better to explain this.
  • "Imperfectly drawn sphere" is the wording in Tromans, the only source I can find which describes it at all—I can't find any other description more in depth than "globe" or "ball". ‑ Iridescent 14:26, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do any sources discuss a relationship to the medieval blindfold Synagoga?
  • Only a passing mention in a discussion of the transition from Idle Child to Hope: The youthful personification of Love was traditionally shown blindfolded, an attribute that for the first time in western art Watts gives to Hope herself. Also blindfolded in traditional iconography were the figures of Synagogue (suggesting the blindness of the Jews towards Christ and thus providing a further Jewish echo in Hope) and Fortune. (the "further echo" relates to other artists of the period using Psalm 137 as a metaphor for hope, which I do briefly touch on.) In the absence of further sources suggesting a link I'm a little reluctant to include it, as there's no obvious suggestion in anything either George or Mary ever said that there's any kind of link with the medieval Synagoga. ‑ Iridescent 14:26, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "since antiquity the unstrung lyre had been considered a symbol of separated lovers and unrequited love." Ok, but broken strings a symbol of disharmony, as in Holbein's The Ambassadors (Holbein) (as Waldemar Januszczak was pointing out on the telly a few days ago).
  • It's obviously true, but I'm finding this surprisingly hard to source in the context of English art. I'll see what I can dig up. This section is there purely to indicate that Watts was using iconography not traditionally associated with Hope; I've moved the "since antiquity…" part down into the footnotes, since it doesn't matter to the reader what Watts wasn't using it to illustrate. ‑ Iridescent 14:45, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lead: "Consequently, later in 1886 Watts and his assistant Cecil Schott painted a second version with the intention of selling it." Second version section: "In mid-1886 Watts and his assistant Cecil Schott painted a duplicate of the piece, with the intention that this duplicate be donated to the nation allowing him to sell the original."
  • I'm not commenting on false titles, but "before being sold to steam tractor entrepreneur Joseph Ruston in 1887." is taking me to my limit.
If we have a specific good link, that's fine, though the article isn't all that clear, and there seem to have been a succession of different processes. No typing involved anyway.Johnbod (talk) 15:04, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re this, it is exactly because both were in 1886 that this is not "superfluous"! If having an infobox is preventing both a) the display of the image at a decent lead size, and b) its proper identification, then better to remove the box, or put it below the pic.
  • It's not a case of the date affecting the width—I just don't see anything to be gained by "Year: 1886 (2nd version)" given that both versions were 1886, and if anything consider it misleading as it carries the implication that the first version was created earlier. (I considered doing away with the infobox altogether and replacing it with the montage of the four versions currently at Hope (painting)#Other painted versions in a 2×2 grid, but felt that would be too much of a departure from Wikipedia norms.) ‑ Iridescent 17:58, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Huh? The lead is full of talk of the two versions. You must make it clear which is being illustrated, especially as it is not the prime version, and the infobox pic looks pretty different to both 1st & 2nd versions in the gallery below. The infobox would be better gone - as you have it it misleadingly implies (well, states) that there is one painting in one museum. Johnbod (talk) 18:59, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Does that work? The more I think about it, the more reluctant I am to have the first version as a lead image; not only is the second version the famous one, but we don't have a decent-quality image of the first version (and there doesn't seem to be one online anywhere that I can find). ‑ Iridescent 20:39, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fine with that. I wasn't suggesting using the first version in the lead, just clearly identiying the one used. Johnbod (talk) 23:37, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do we not know where the 1st version now is?
  • "In a private collection" but I can't any reference to who the collector in question is. (Usually for 19th-century British art the collector is either Juan Antonio Pérez Simón or Andrew Lloyd Webber, but I very much doubt it's either of them as they've both staged recent "highlights of my collection" exhibitions and it hasn't been included.) ‑ Iridescent 20:29, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support My only remaining point is that I still think a picture of Night would be good - possibly this one. There is space either under the infobox or at the end. I don't believe in making a fetish of having pics right next to the relevant text. But I won't delay a support for this. Well up to the usual standards! Johnbod (talk) 23:50, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The image of Mammon could be removed to free up space, but I quite like including it at this point as it serves a double purpose of both allowing the reader to judge for themselves whether it's actually a companion piece, and also is quite a good example of Watts's more typical style in contrast to the much more modern composition of Hope. There is some free space down at the bottom (initially I had Obama's Hope poster there, but then decided the connection was too marginal to justify inclusion), but I'm not sure it would be appropriate to include Night that far down, at a point at which the readers will likely have forgotten it. I'm not of the school that every image needs to be immediately next to the point it illustrates, but this section is so irrelevant to Watts's influences I don't feel it would really be appropriate. Anywhere else in the article would need the removal of one of the images currently there, to avoid clutter; the only ones that are really disposable are the platinotype (which I'd quite like to keep as it illustrates more eloquently than words what constituted a "high quality reproduction" in the 19th century), Watts's photo (which isn't essential, but I think readers often want to see what the artist looked like), and Felix on the Bat (which 1. illustrates how radically Watts's early style differed from his later works and 2. is such a striking image that I suspect it will encourage quite a few random-article skimmers to stop and read a page they'd normally not bother with). Plus, we don't have any particularly good quality images of Night—this, this or this are all we have to work with. ‑ Iridescent 18:14, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support As indicated, I did some very minor tweaking early on that I don't think were anywhere near sufficient to preclude my support of this quality nomination. I have watched as further tweaks etc have been made and feel this meets the FA criteria. SagaciousPhil - Chat 09:37, 7 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I finally read this top-to-bottom this morning and really enjoyed it. Well done for finding so much material (and mixing Agatha Christie with Barack Obama and Martin Luther King in the same article is no mean feat!). Two very small and not-important suggestions: 1., the first para of the "Background" section has a string of three "at the age of ... " that jumped out at as a little repetitive; 2., should grace of God be linked? That's theology beyond my comprehension - some people are born into God's grace whereas others not? Anyway, feel free to ignore, and nice job. Victoria (tk) 21:39, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • (1) Reworded to avoid the repetition of "the age of". (2) Given that we already have theological virtues linked in that sentence, it seems like overkill to link Grace of God as well. "Theological virtue" is a less highfalutin concept than it sounds—it's just a fancy way of saying "things which are considered good by the church even though, unlike most good deeds, they have no benefit to others". Traditionally they're Faith, Hope and Love (aka Charity, but the meaning of 'charity' has changed in modern times)—whether you do or don't feel them has no impact on anyone else, but God wants you to feel them. One or the other needs to be linked but both is overkill—it's just a case of whether one considers Theological virtues or Grace of God to be the least terrible article (both are fairly awful). ‑ Iridescent 22:03, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Basically I agree but thought I'd mention it. I read it early in the morning and was thinking about virtues and grace and wondering about their differences. For some reason I did not know about that, so I learned something. I thought about the painting today - can't decide if I like it or not - but it stuck with me and that means something. Thanks for writing this. Victoria (tk) 23:01, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I find a lot of Watts's output has that effect—they're often not particularly attractive, and are generally based on a set of moral values which is quite alien and unpleasant to modern tastes, but they stick in your memory more than most of the works of his contemporaries (even the more technically gifted ones like Monet and Rossetti). ‑ Iridescent 09:51, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Grace in Christianity seems better, and more appropriate. Johnbod (talk) 01:07, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, that works—didn't realise we had a separate article. Linked. ‑ Iridescent 09:51, 14 October 2016 (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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