Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Gerrit Dou

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 6 Nov 2014 at 07:52:39 (UTC)

Original – Self-portrait of Dutch Golden Age painter Gerard Dow.

Reason: How about a self-portrait by an important Dutch Golden Age painter? Gerard Douw specialised in dimly-lit scenes with strong contrasts between light and dark. He fell into obscurity in the late 19th century, but was rediscovered in the 1970s, and quite rightly. We have one other good image by him, but let's start here, with a nice, clear, interesting self-portrait with lots of well-done details, like the hint of shadow on his upper lip, the gorgeously detailed hair, and the subdued metal reflections. I'm tempted to praise him for the wonderful depiction of dim light, but experience says that I should not presume that's original.
Articles in which this image appears: Gerrit Dou
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured pictures/People/Artists and writers
Creator: Gerrit Dou

Support as nominator – Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 07:52, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Question - Should the background on which the panel is placed be removed? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:07, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The artwork's nicked in the lower-left corner, so I couldn't remove it completely; hence I thought leaving a little bit of it all the way around was better than cropping tighter, losing the edges of the painting, but still showing some of the background without it being obvious what it was. I suppose we could do a transparency, but it hardly seems worth it. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 13:38, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I find that vastly changing the background colour rarely looks as good as you'd hope. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 14:34, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, but it's an idea. Not too sure I like the "black on white" we've got going with this scan. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:03, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Why not try this one instead. File:Gerard Dou - Self-Portrait - WGA06660.jpg or this File:Dou, Gerard - Self-Portrait - c. 1665.jpg (a better file of course) - exactly this artist has so many other much more interesting self-portraits.. Hafspajen (talk) 14:57, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think this one's better for seeing what he looks like. That's a more interesting painting, but he's smaller and less detailed. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:16, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Just wondering why the artist's name is spelled three different ways here: Dou, Douw, and Dow. CorinneSD (talk) 20:23, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Dou. Gerard Dou. But also known as Gerard and Douw or Dow ... Hafspajen (talk) 21:00, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There's actually a hidden message in white text below this line explaining that. Wanted to see if people would notice I used all the variant spellings. Though I didn't want to cause the closer trouble, so you'll notice the creator and article are spelt the same. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:15, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And, by the way - Adam we have like FIVE good images at least of him if not seven. I was working like a dog ... to bring them in all in the article, two days ago or so. Hafspajen (talk) 01:10, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Hafspajen: And they are lovely artworks, but my point was that this shows his face better than any of the others. I think we could feature other paintings of his, but wanted to start with a clear, detailed standard portrait, to show what he looked like. Then we can move to his other paintings, which are more interestingly composed, and possibly better artworks, but don't serve as well in the role this one fills. For example, File:Gerard Dou - Self-Portrait - WGA06660.jpg is a very good artwork, but doesn't fit into that niche as well, since his face is less detailed in it. This is admittedly, a very standard - but also a very well-painted self-portrait, and its detailed depiction of Dou is very useful to the article. The other self-portraits show his style and ability to create an interesting composition better, but we aren't limited to featuring or using only one self-portrait, when they are very, very different works that show very different things about Dou Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 02:26, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mmm, wish you could remove that gray plasterish plastic looking frame though, those edges are not so important... and they glow - and add an uncertain value to the colors that actually were not planned into this painting. Just Try - nothing will happen if you try. Artists generally count on that a bit of the edges will go under the frame. Would support an alt. Hafspajen (talk) 04:09, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think that would make the notch in the lower left corner far more obtrusive. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 11:51, 30 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Conditional support, if cropped. This painting is taken out of its frame. With some gentle cropping it could be a fine picture. Hafspajen (talk) 01:41, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 13:36, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, his name can be spelt multiple ways.