Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Visual arts/Archive 1

Archive 1

Image caption

Here are two different formats for image captions,[1] namely:

1. Lucien Pissarro Reading by J.B. Manson

2. J.B. Manson, Lucien Pissarro Reading

I see 2 is the currently recommended means, but it seems to me to be less intuitive than 1. There is also the ready possibility of confusion with 2 between the name of the artist and the title of the painting. I note that 1 is used in FAs Restoration of the Sistine Chapel frescoes and Salvador Dalí, for example. Tyrenius (talk) 20:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

(Lost reply) That bit predates me, but I hadn't taken it to mandate a sequence, which I'm not sure we should do. Personally I more often use 2 (and rarely bold the name), but it all depends on context - sometimes the artist is the more imprtant point, sometimes the subject. Glad to see someone's looking anyway! Please chip in. Johnbod (talk) 21:12, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I usually use 2. Actually I've seen 1 used on Wikipedia a lot, but I think 2 is used most often in print and catalogs. A long time ago a dealer (of all people) said to me - artists name always comes first. I like 2 because it usually is a succinct format. Its good to dialog though, I agree with the notion of bold sometimes, sometimes not. Modernist (talk) 21:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Industry standard is a good starting point. I think user-friendliness should be the bottom line. A provisional solution would be to use either, based on who starts the article or what is already on the page. Mixing them in the same article is not desirable. Not sure I see any need for bold. It is not recommended for article text anyway outside the mention of the subject in the lead section. It usually occurs when the article subject is wikilinked within the article, and hence redundant. Tyrenius (talk) 00:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Industry standard with or without bold, although wikifying the artist name in blue is sometimes called for, and since most editors aren't privy to industry standard, user-friendliness usually gets the point across... Sometimes I change captions to industry standard and I think consistency within articles makes sense. Modernist (talk) 01:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, generally - I always link the artist, unless there are several by the same (or its his article of course), which I think gives enough emphasis. I like, where possible, to say something about the work, so often end up with sentences like " bla bla bla in Foo by Fred". Once you start that things can be in any order. I don't think we should be prescriptive here, though OTBE I agree consistency is good. Johnbod (talk) 01:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• I've rejigged the section. Thoughts? Also what else should we cover generally? Johnbod (talk) 01:41, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Heavy lifting

I'm doing some heavy lifting at Western Painting because of the {non-free} tags there and on Self-portrait and History of painting placed by the image hunters....There is a little banter on Talk:Western painting When I finish western painting I'll remove the tags, and start on the other two articles. Any thoughts? Modernist (talk) 01:59, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• I see T has stepped in, much better than I could. Is it really the case that there is a policy saying caption text does not count? Personally I think (as you know) galleries are better with longer informative captions & I see no reason at all (rather the reverse) why this should be less privileged. I'll ask him there. I'm copying this to the main Project talk page if that's ok. - let's continue there. Johnbod (talk) 12:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Now part of Manual of Style

To record the matter, the following is copied from the MOS talk, with the old name as linked header:

This has been in Category:Wikipedia style guideline proposals for some time now. It has been worked on by several people at Wikipedia:WikiProject Visual arts since it was begun in 2005 and is now pretty stable. I would like to add it to the "official" list, and will do so if no one objects. Of course improvements, suggestions or comments on specific points are welcome - please use the talk page there. Johnbod (talk) 13:50, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Now done - page is now at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (visual arts), aka WP:VAMOS. Johnbod (talk) 15:46, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

MoS naming style

There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 20:58, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

RFC which could affect this MOS

It has been proposed this MOS be moved to Wikipedia:Subject style guide . Please comment at the RFC GnevinAWB (talk) 20:54, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Italic titles

The text says The title of a work of art is italicised in text, but not in the article title itself. But Wikipedia:Article_titles#Italics_and_other_formatting says Use italics when italics would be used in running text. For example: Taxonomic names, names of ships, titles of books, films, and other creative works, and foreign phrases are italicized both in ordinary text and in article titles. There seems to have been a major discussion about this: a footnote adds:

This was decided during a July–September 2010 poll on the article talk page. See Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Wikipedia:Requests for comment:Use of italics in article titles as well as the discussions that led up to the poll at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 116#Italicised article titles and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 116#Request for comment: Use of italics in article names

So as that page is a Policy, and Policy trumps Guidelines, I suggest that this page should be updated to reflect that change. PamD (talk) 17:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

RFC: restructuring of the Manual of Style

Editors may be interested in this RFC, along with the discussion of its implementation:

Should all subsidiary pages of the Manual of Style be made subpages of WP:MOS?

It's big; and it promises huge improvements. Great if everyone can be involved. Noetica^Tea? 00:49, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Invite for overlinking?

What is the rationale for wikilinking particular dates in an article? WP:OVERLINK says don't. I think I'll WP:BB and delete the links. --S. Rich (talk) 02:13, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Article titles for multiple untitled artworks

There's currently a lengthy and contentious discussion at Talk:Arts on the Line over the use of non-free images which hasn't resulted in much consensus. However, it has emerged that if individual artworks are notable enough to have their own pages then fair use images are allowed on the individual pages. Many of the artworks have been given sufficient attention to justify individual articles. However, a problem then emerges with naming. Take, for example, Richard Fleischner's untitled work at Alewife station. Untitled (Richard Fleischner) or Untitled (Fleischner) are insufficient because Fleischner has had at least three major untitled works which may be sufficiently notable for their own articles. Untitled (Alewife station) or similar is not viable because there are no less than four untitled artworks at the station which I plan to have articles about. For the time being I'm working with the clunky Untitled (Richard Fleischner artwork at Alewife station). I would very much appreciate suggestions of a better title to move the article to. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:54, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

A possible alternate title I'm considering is Untitled (1985 Fleischner sculpture). Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:09, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't he even give them numbers like Henry Moore? How tiresome of him. Are they single works or in editions? Otherwise, name, date, anything that works. If there are 4 at the station it might be best to do one article on the group. Johnbod (talk) 01:37, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, he gives names to some works but no title whatsoever to others. Due to disagreement over use of non-free images it's probably best to have the notable artworks separate for now. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 03:24, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

If the artwork is notable, i.e. it gets indepth coverage at multiple reliable secondary sources they must have some way of identifying it. That's frequently the best place to start for finding a title Nil Einne (talk) 17:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Source material from the time of its construction simply omitted text from the title field of a pamphlet; modern sources simply call it "Untitled". For whatever reason, about a quarter of the works constructed for the project had no title. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 17:56, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

GLAM-Wiki Section

I am interested in creating manuals of style for institutional pages, library entries, and archival/museum collections entries to aid the GLAM-Wiki initiative. Perhaps they could even be written under a section title GLAM-Wiki. Or do people think that it would be better if another article titled something like Wikipedia:Manual of Style/GLAM was created to house these kinds of GLAM-specific templates, and that could be referred to in GLAM learning resources. OR drohowa (talk) 16:46, 24 September 2013 (UTC) Also continue this conversation at the bottom of the Wikipedia talk:GLAM page.

The closest that we have now is Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Visual_arts#Museums_and_collections; perhaps that could be expanded to something like a 'Describing institutions' section to parallel the 'Describing works' one. Or we could fork to a more specialized Wikipedia:Manual of Style/GLAM sooner or later.--Pharos (talk) 01:27, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Might as well do it here for now, at least for the objects. Why not set up a sub-page for a draft. Templates and MOS are generally different things though. Johnbod (talk) 01:49, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

This conversation is being continued at Wikipedia talk:GLAM#GLAM-Wiki Section in Manual of Style? please contribute to discussion there! OR drohowa (talk) 18:48, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Sources

I had just posted this idea and was told of the effort to document source information here.

Would it be helpful to have more info, maybe like a checklist or comparison good/bad table and not reliable sources - linking to places that go into more detail:

• Museums - good
• Books - good, unless self-published or use Wikipedia as a source
• Auction houses, like Christie's, Sotheby's - ok
• Journals and magazines
  • Print - good
  • Online with an editorial staff or function - good
  • Online without an editorial staff (no tabs or information that mentions staff / editorial staff) - not good
• Web sites
  • Galleries - generally don't use (sales / promotion / POV issues), unless the gallery is with a museum
  • Blogs - not generally good, exceptions may be news source blogs
  • no social media sites (facebook, linkedin, etc.), personal web sites, genealogy
  • Art based web sites - AskArt, Mutualart, etc. -- this would be helpful to get clarification
• Primary sources - secondary is preferred, only use if from a WP:Reliable source and there's no extrapolation of the data
• Tertiary sources - secondary is preferred, some tertiary sources, such as with gravestone / cemetary data, like Find a Grave, may be used if taking the raw information: dates of birth, death, etc.???

And have a bibliography of particularly good sites and books, starting with Women artists article and other good sources. Plus, a section that links to the articles about Reliable sources, verifiabilty, Original research, etc.

I'm not sure about

• AskArt http://www.askart.com - can we use anything from here (Quick Facts, artwork), I've seen different takes on this
• Mutual Art - same as Ask Art
• Artnet - http://www.artnet.com
• Contemporary Art Daily, which looks like a blog ("Contemporary Art Group is the organization that produces Contemporary Art Daily, Contemporary Art Venues and Contemporary Art Quarterly.") http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com

If you like that idea, I would be happy to start a draft on my user page. Do you think that would that be helpful?--CaroleHenson (talk) 19:58, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Title

One situation that the section on title doesn't address is when there are multiple portraits of the same subject by the same artist -- possibly in the same institution. Can one disambiguate using date of painting instead of institutional name? -- kosboot (talk) 18:25, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Your solution for Beethoven (Mähler, 1804-05) seems to me the best there is for this case. Ewulp (talk) 05:18, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Article titles that include "century"

I'm working on a GA review of Scottish art in the eighteenth century and haven't been able to find a guideline for use of century in an article title. Is this article title copacetic / ok?

Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 19:16, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Capitalization and art movements

I was surprised to find that MOS:VA has its own "Capitalization and art movements" section that contradicts the Wikipedia MOS:CAPS rules. Namely, MOS:DOCTCAPS and MOS:GENRECAPS say that movements and styles (genres) are not capitalized, except when they are derived from proper names. This is a very simple rule, and it agrees with the general English rules — see, for example, The Chicago Manual of Style:

8.78 Movements and styles—capitalization

Nouns and adjectives designating cultural styles, movements, and schools—artistic, architectural, musical, and so forth—and their adherents are capitalized if derived from proper nouns. (The word school remains lowercased.) Others may be lowercased, though a few (e.g., Cynic, Scholastic, New Criticism) are capitalized to distinguish them from the generic words used in everyday speech. Some of the terms lowercased below may appropriately be capitalized in certain works if done consistently—especially those that include the designation “often capitalized” in Webster’s. (But if, for example, impressionism is capitalized in a work about art, other art movements must also be capitalized—which could result in an undesirable profusion of capitals.)

(Notice the "undesirable profusion of capitals", which reminds our "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization".)

MOS:VA#Capitalization and art movements instead claims that "capitalization ... is a complex issue" and refers to some obscure guides that do not even exist now. I searched for the origins of that section and found that it was first created and later appended by Sparkit (talk · contribs) at Wikipedia:WikiProject Visual arts, then moved to MOS:VA and since then survived here without much changes. The talk pages apparently do not contain any discussions related to this stuff. Although MOS:CAPS did not exist at that time, the corresponding section of WP:MOS seemed to recommend using the lower case, and current MOS:CAPS does so explicitly.

Therefore, I think, MOS:VA must be brought in agreement with the general WP style by removing that "Capitalization and art movements" section and adding "Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters" after "Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)" in the MOS:VA#Helpful Wikipedia links section. If you believe that WikiProject Visual arts should be inconsistent with the rest of Wikipedia, please provide your rational reasons for that.

— Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 02:39, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Capitalization_and_art_movements. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 02:44, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

• The "general WP rules" (which are actually full of "area-specific quirks"), do not spring from thin air but reflect the general usage in WP:RS. In these areas the situation is somewhat complex. The advice given is by quotation from the style guide of the leading American art history journal, which in this field frankly outranks the Chicago Guide (though I expect the Chicago Guide has compatible specific advice somewhere in its many pages). As the examples above show, that has grown out of writing about Eng. Lit. How anyone thinks the Chicago passage quoted above is clearer defeats me, and it seems clearly wrong on some points - for example, to not capitalize "Impressionism" referring to the art movement is clearly wrong, as any search of sources will show. Are there specific issues here? The guideline has been much the same for years, without giving rise to disagreements that I can recall. Johnbod (talk) 04:20, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

This, the Association of Art Editors Style Guide, 2013, seems sound, as one would expect. We should add this as a reference. If chicago does indeed say that "impressionism" shhould be used, they are just wrong; it happens. Also, sections 6.3 and 6.5 in this style guide are relevant. Johnbod (talk) 04:48, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

It would be nice if you read more carefully the sources that you refer to. ;–)

The Association of Art Editors Style Guide begins with a warning: "Authors should consult with their publisher/editor before making final stylistic decisions" (which in our case says to avoid capitalization). Then, well before the list of random words that you cited, they have a special section "Art movements, periods, and styles" where the capitalization issues are discussed. It begins with a claim that there is actually no strong agreement, although they recommend (but not insist on) capitalization in some cases and admit that it might be subjective (which, for us, can cause NPOV problems).

The MHRA guide is a little bit self-contradictory. First, in 6.3, they tell to capitalize "when the use of a lower-case initial might cause confusion with the same word in a more general sense", but then, in 6.5, they write "post-Impressionism" as if impressionism had any other meanings. Nevertheless, the section "6.3 Movements and periods" does not say that everything must be capitalized and therefore is consistent with MOS:CAPS (and CMoS).

Thus the claim "If chicago does indeed say that 'impressionism' shhould be used, they are just wrong" look quite strange and unfounded. If you have rational arguments, please provide them. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 09:04, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

You raised the issue and need to produce specific evidence, as I said above. The policies you quote carefully avoid mentioning art - for a reason- & the general principle is firmly based on usage by RS. I suggest you look round the world's top museums/publishers and see how they treat Renaissance and Impressionism. Then come back and tell us about it. Johnbod (talk) 15:00, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

These policies avoid mentioning any particular area simply because they are general. If some people want to differ, it is their responsibility to explain why. I have no idea why some visual-art museums and publishers decided to go against the common rules and capitalize some terms; if you know, please provide their reasoning. However, Wikipedia is not a museum and does not need to blindly follow their trend, especially since not all reliable sources capitalize, as can be seen from examples provided by Ewulp at Talk:Neo-impressionism#Requested_move.

Looking at publishers that are not fixed on visual arts alone, Associated Press does not capitalize, most dictionaries do not:

American Heritage	impressionism, often Impressionism
Cambridge	Impressionism
Collins	impressionism (often capital)
Macmillan	Impressionism
Merriam-Webster	impressionism, often capitalized
Oxford (AE & BE)	impressionism
Oxford English	impressionism

Even the Association of Art Editors Style Guide that your identify as a RS explicitly states that there is no agreement! In my opinion, this simply means that we should use our established style ("avoid unnecessary capitalization") consistently, without singling out "visual arts" from other arts (music, literature and so on) and everything else. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 01:32, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Writing conventions develop differently in different fields; why is that a problem? I can't say that I give capitalisation that much thought, but when reading a text about art I would expect it to use the conventions used in art-historical writing; if it didn't I would question how well the writer knows the subject. On Wikipedia we even have some articles in American English and some in British English, according to whichever is most appropriate for the subject (in cases where that's applicable), so what's wrong with some diversity in the idioms used for different topics in this case? Ham (talk) 14:41, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

The point is that the simpler are the rules, the easier it is to follow them. For example, if somebody writes an article about a mathematician who likes impressionism, it is much more likely that the author will follow WP:MOS/MOS:CAPS rather than trying to find a specific MOS:VA (not even mentioned in MOS:CAPS), which might set different rules. The result will be an inconsistent usage across the encyclopedia. Another point is the usability. The rule "avoid unnecessary capitalization" means that if capitalization does not add any information (is there any semantic difference between "impressionism" and "Impressionism"?), it just produces visual noise and thus should be avoided. Regarding AE, BE and other variants, they are too close to separate them into different language editions, and a decision has been made (after discussing it!) to allow them all here, with the requirement to be consistent within each article. If visual-arts editors cannot stand lowercase "impressionism", they can go to Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Capitalization_and_art_movements and express their concerns there. May be, it will be added to "exceptions". — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 00:51, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm happy to do exactly that. Ham (talk) 08:39, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Ok, so as I suggested you have looked "round the world's top museums/publishers and see how they treat Renaissance and Impressionism." You have discovered they all capitalize these terms. This puzzles you (again) so you say: "I have no idea why some visual-art museums and publishers decided to go against the common rules and capitalize some terms; if you know, please provide their reasoning." This shows your fundamental error; they don't need to have a reason or rationale, and we don't need to know whether they do, or if so what it is. It is enough that this is observably what they do, even if in defiance of prescriptivist non-specialist dictionaries and style guides. Johnbod (talk) 19:24, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

It's well off-topic, but it is amusing to see how these prescriptivists tie themselves up in knots by trying to pretend there are simple rules they can apply. Chicago have decided to go with only capitalizing terms derived from proper names: very sensible for Platonism, Darwinism etc, but they then capitalize "Romanesque" as derived from "Rome" and "Gothic" as derived from the "Goths"! But not Renaissance. Ridiculous! AP decide to go with "historical periods", so Renaissance and Gothic are capitalized on those grounds, despite Gothic not actually being a "historical period", except when the artistic style is used to cover the "Gothic age". Equally ridiculous! Johnbod (talk) 20:23, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Please be more careful with your words. I have not looked, have not discovered, and this does not puzzle me. Actually, the examples that I pointed to were clearly against the "they all capitalize" claim. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 00:51, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh, which were these, from "the world's top museums/publishers"? Johnbod (talk) 11:40, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

The discussion at WT:MOSCAPS has resumed here. Ham II (talk) 10:31, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Image display

Currently, in case of landscape images as lead images, the maximum display is 300px horizontal. A user is now allowed to switch preference to "400px". Nevertheless, we should change from 300px to upright=1.35. I.e. 35% larger than normal preference. Therefore, someone with "400px" preference can view a large-scaled image well. --George Ho (talk) 00:23, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation for unknown artist?

Hello, a question on how to disambiguate the title when artist is unknown. Specific case in question: Battle of Orsha (unknown). I moved it to Battle of Orsha (painting) but it was moved to the "(unknown)" citing MOS. I find it really odd and there is nothing actually in MOS about it. Thoughts? Renata (talk) 23:54, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I've moved it back. Battle of Orsha (unknown) is clearly silly. Maybe I should add to the text. Johnbod (talk) 14:33, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Titles for the Faberge egg articles

There is a discussion taking place on the talk page of the article Red Cross with Triptych egg (discussion located here) on how to name this article, a decision which hopefully will lead to a consistent method of naming these objects on Wikipedia generally. Many of the Faberge egg articles now exist with parenthetical disambiguation titles (e.g., Lilies of the Valley (Fabergé egg) but this is far from regular. My own recent attempt to move the above-mentioned red cross egg back into Red Cross with Triptych (Faberge egg) is what caused the discussion (the proposed move was met with what seems like well-founded opposition). If the red cross egg does not go to a title with a parenthetical, then the question will be: To what title does it go? I understand that there is a strong preference for what various museums call a piece of art, but in the current case this may be more complicated as there are about 60 eggs with names in various museums and the museums have not attempted to harmonize their names according to any particular style. Add to this the fact that Faberge himself did not assign the eggs names or titles, and that the names by which they are currently known are those which have been assigned to them by a variety of art dealers, politicians, businessmen, and heirs to fortunes, as well as by authors of a number of books and by museum curators. I am uncomfortable having the eggs appear under a variety of inconsistent title styles because this obfuscates the fact that they all belong to the same class of object. I am not altogether certain that parenthetical disambiguation isn't appropriate, but the discussion needs more input on this point. Please consider visiting the talk page and reviewing the proposals made there so that we can reach some consensus on this matter. Much thanks! KDS4444 (talk) 04:37, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Very well said. Help appreciated, and those lurking on this page are most likely to have answers.

Category:Fabergé eggs and its subcategories help a great deal, but can and should we seek more consistency in the article names? Or should we at least, for example, have a redirect from Gorbachev Peace Egg (Fabergé egg) (currently a redlink) and similar, to help readers who have no idea of its title but simply associate it with Fabergé and Gorbachev? Andrewa (talk) 05:59, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Meh. Nobody is listening, it seems. KDS4444 (talk) 13:22, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps not many - but they don't want to start a discussion in 2 places, or just aren't very interested in the eggs. Johnbod (talk) 12:41, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Only just seen this note. There is certainly a problem with naming consistency and a confusing mess of redirects. Seems strange to have an article entitled e.g. Empire Nephrite with no context in the name. Maybe an admin can help the discussion going again. --Lessogg (talk) 12:35, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

MOS:TONE, WP:PSTS, and reviews of fictional or artistic works

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film#Proposed clarification of reviews' relation to WP:PSTS and MOS:TONE. This is a request for comments in the general sense, but not a WP:RFC at this stage, being an initial discussion draft (broadened to cover writing about fiction generally), building on a lengthy discussion/dispute at the same page.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:51, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

An arts-and-media MoS proposal

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

At Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Proposal: Adopt WP:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines into MoS, it's been suggested to merge that WP:PROJPAGE into MoS, as one of the last remaining genre/medium-specific style guide kinds of pages that isn't in MoS, especially since someone's already put a guideline tag on it, and given it a misleading MOS:VG shortcut.

Strangely, several people from the WP:VG wikiproject have shown up to make what appear to be WP:OWN-based arguments against the idea. I hope that people from other media and arts projects, all of which have MoS pages (largely authored and maintained by people from those projects, but without a claim of absolute control by them) can participate in this discussion and assuage the unreasonable fears of people in that particular project. Promotion of topical style advice pages into MoS has not proven any kind of problem for WP:VISUALARTS, WP:ARTS, WP:FILM, WP:TV, WP:COMICS, WP:ANIME, WP:NOVELS, WP:MUSIC, etc. Meanwhile, the continued fragmentation of such a page to an "un-MoS" page (while simultaneously claiming to be an MoS page, somehow), is misleading and a recipe for conflict.

Or, if you think there's is some kind of problem, feel free to give the opposite opinion. I'm not telling anyone how they should !vote. I'm pointing out that that all the arts-and-media projects and arts-and-media MoS pages share a common sort of history, as well as the same practicality of their advice being included in MoS or shunted to a wikiproject backwater where no one is apt to take "guideline" claims seriously; it's the same across all these projects and pages. So is the increased level to which they agree instead of conflict, by virtue of MoS maintainers ironing out WP:POLICYFORKs between them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  23:40, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Naming conventions for public statues

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should the naming convention for public statues be the subject's name used as an italicised title, with disambiguation by artist's name, "Statue of [Subject]", disambiguated by location, or another variation such as "[Subject] Statue"? Ham II (talk) 19:46, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

The general naming convention for articles on works of art is to put titles in italics and disambiguate where needed, usually by the artist's name. In some cases this principle has been applied to public statues. In other cases the style "Statue of [Subject]" has been followed, sometimes disambiguated by location. (See all examples here.) A third convention in use is "[Subject] Statue", sometimes with disambiguation. There has recently been much discussion at talk pages in Category:Statues of Abraham Lincoln and Category:Statues of Mahatma Gandhi over which conventions to use.

Where the first style is used for public statues, it usually seems to be either for ones in the United States, e.g. Abraham Lincoln (Rogers), or else for multiple works by the same sculptor with at least one being in the US, e.g. Jeanne d'Arc (Frémiet) and Robert Burns (Steell). The main arguments for applying this style to public statues have been that the italicised title is the statue's "real name" and that it would therefore be unencyclopaedic to use a different name, and that the prefix "Statue of" does not satisfy WP:BREVITY. The opposing argument is that titles such as Mohandas Gandhi (Patel) – which was moved to Statue of Mahatma Gandhi (New York City) – do not satisfy WP:COMMONNAME ("use commonly recognizable names").

A number of move requests at Category:Statues of Mahatma Gandhi have resulted in the style "Statue of [Subject]", disambiguated by location, being established more or less consistently there. The current move request at Talk:Abraham Lincoln (1912 statue) is leaning in that direction as well, but there is vigorous opposition to the same trend at Talk:Abraham Lincoln (1920 statue). The fragmentation of the discussion could lead to uneven results, so I think it's important that we discuss this in one place.

For my part, I think the standard should be Statue of [Subject], disambiguated by location where necessary, as that's the style with the greatest clarity. It allows the general reader to identify the essentials of the article's subject by looking at the article title alone. Ham II (talk) 11:44, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

@Another Believer, Born2cycle, Carptrash, IJBall, In ictu oculi, Johnbod, Necrothesp, Randy Kryn, Roman Spinner, SelfieCity, SmokeyJoe, and Yann: pinging you as you've all been involved in previous discussions on this subject.

• A statue is an artwork. Artworks are sorted in an encyclopedia by their real name. Changing, for example, Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial) to a generic "Statue of..." removes the artist's intent. This isn't done with paintings, nor should it be done with known and named statues. Not broken (in fact, the opposite), so nothing to fix. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:00, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

  The statues under discussion (public ones, usually meaning outdoors – so the one in the Lincoln Memorial is a debatable example) are landmarks as well as artworks. They are therefore a different case from paintings and even from other kinds of statue, e.g. ones in museums. The same statue can be referred to as "Statue of John Wesley in the forecourt of Wesley's Chapel" in a database of historic buildings, monuments, etc., and "John Wesley (1703–1791)" in a database of artworks. Each of those styles is appropriate for its context; a style that specifies that the work is a statue is more appropriate for a general reference work like Wikipedia, because it has a broader coverage than the database of artworks. Can you prove Daniel Chester French's intent about how he wished his statue to be referred to? Ham II (talk) 13:22, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

• I think “Statue of” is good because it makes clear the topic of the article, putting it on the right side of WP:ASTONISH. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 12:05, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Moses (Michelangelo). David (Michelangelo). This new-think will change the names of these honored artworks. Again, nothing is broken, there is no shock to the nervous system (Astonish), and the names of artworks carry with them the artist's intent and appropriate encyclopedic identification. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:16, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

    What about Michelangelo’s ‘’David’’ as an option? Reasonably common. Blueboar (talk) 11:08, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

    ”Statue of” should precede “Moses,” IMHO. Otherwise, it is implied that Moses is a painting or some other non-statue work by Michelangelo. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 12:18, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

    And there you have the result of this "let's fix 'er up" idea. Let's start on Rodin next, then have a go at Calder. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:29, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

    It doesn’t have to be fixing. I think improving is a better word. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 13:51, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

• I broadly agree, but this should be generally restricted to portrait statues of historical (excluding for this purpose Biblical) figures that don't have a clear other name, even an informal WP:COMMONNAME. There should be exceptions for those mainly known as art, rather than as public monuments, & generally a degree of flexibility. I'm not fixated on whatever the local park bureaucracy claims is the official name - dig around & you typically find all sorts of variants have been used, as with portrait paintings. Sometimes the sculptor gave a work a fancy name that has been quietly ignored - read the lead of perhaps London's best-known statue, the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain (a name that few Londoners would recognise). But I'd agree with Randy that Moses (Michelangelo), David (Michelangelo) should not be changed (also neither is strictly in a public place), and eg possibly Statue in the Lincoln Memorial would be the best. Johnbod (talk) 13:54, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

  I agree with most of this. The scope of the proposal is intentionally limited, and David (Michelangelo) and Moses (Michelangelo) are meant to be outside it. I'm not sure about exempting Biblical figures – there's a small number of them in the current "Statues of..." list which don't seem to need changing, but none of those are very typical examples. My preference for the Lincoln Memorial statue would be Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial). Ham II (talk) 14:37, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

  • The only well-known common name using 'Statue of...' that I can think of is Statue of Liberty. So these other uses not only change the artworks name as given it by the artist, but deliberately ignore the common names of the pieces. Today, Gandhi, tomorrow someone else will come by and point to these 'Statue of...' discussions as precedence and ask, in a serious voice, to change David to "Statue of David" and tomorrow's editors might just move the bar further away from common names. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:12, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

  I don't think the artist called his piece "Statue of Liberty" - a good example of how the artist's title is often ignored. Johnbod (talk) 17:44, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

  That's my point. The only time a named statue should be titled as "State of" is when the common name contains those words. The Statue of Liberty is the only one I can think of which does. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:52, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

  • On Ham's points, Category:Statues of Abraham Lincoln & other presidential/political/royal ones are generally the ones in most need of change, and where a simple general guideline can work. It seems to me that Category:Buddha statues, Category:Statues of the Virgin Mary and Category:Statues of Jesus, which are much bigger, also are more complicated. These are by far the largest religious cats. For one thing, Risen Christ (Michelangelo, Santa Maria sopra Minerva) could be a painting, but at least it is clear to almost all it is an artwork, so the Abraham Lincoln (Frilli) problem does not arise (chosen at random - my, that's an odd photo!). By the way, might we extend the convention to cover "Bust of..." cases? Johnbod (talk) 17:44, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

    Yes, if there's consensus in favour of any convention I think it should extend to public commemorative sculpture in general, busts as well as statues. To avoid overcomplication these should be in a section titled "Public art" in VAMOS, which is not to say that I'm proposing a convention for all public artworks. I've looked through the Buddha, Virgin and Jesus categories and I don't think the convention would apply to any of the works there other than the existing Statue of Jesus (Saidnaya). Ham II (talk) 18:21, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

• I have been side tracked by (1) tracking down what DC French called his Lincolns (Lincoln) in books by his wife, his daughter, lists generated by Chesterwood and the Richman book. None of which really helped, and (2) the list of "Statue of" articles linked to above and compare and contrasting it with the "List of monuments of" articles (Don't know how to make these links) and wondering how much excitement that will generate? Carptrash (talk) 18:44, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

  Sounds to me like a very helpful contribution. Please carry on – and thank you for spending time looking into this. Ham II (talk) 19:00, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

• I ought to say that the cases of Moses and the other statue are not of the most importance here. My main interest is seeing us use “Statue of” for the majority of statue articles. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 20:59, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

  Then, @SelfieCity:, you should have a lot of fun at [2]

  Maybe “Monument to” should also be acceptable... --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 21:32, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

  Yes, I notice almost everything in Category:Statues in Russia is a "monument to...", presumably reflecting local preferences; they all seem to be a "Памятник" in their Russian wp articles.. Johnbod (talk) 22:09, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

@Ham II: What is your brief and neutral statement? As it stands, it is too long for Legobot (talk · contribs) to handle, and so nothing is shown at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Media, the arts, and architecture apart from a link. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:10, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

I've boldly tried to fix this but the silly bot reverted me. Tried a different way - just using the 1st para as the "brief and neutral statement". Let me guess, are the template instructions as clear as mud? Johnbod (talk) 03:08, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

@Johnbod: Please don't edit Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Media, the arts, and architecture - to see why not, read its editnotice. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:40, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Sorry to have missed that part of the instructions; I've not done one of these before. I've formatted it correctly now. Ham II (talk) 19:46, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: Two things to consider: 1.) Sometimes there are multiple copies of a statue. For example, many of the statues displayed in the Category:National Statuary Hall Collection have copies installed at state capitol buildings. Here we would not want to change to "Statue of XXX", and we'd want to disambiguate by artist instead of location, right? There are many similar examples, so I assume we'd only want to go with the "Statue of XXX" disambiguated by location for independently notable statues, right? 2.) Some statue articles are disambiguated by location using "(location)", while others are ", location". Do we need to be consistent? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 01:32, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

  Good points. One issue is that the sculptors of 19th-century portrait statues are rarely big names, so titles like Abraham Lincoln (Rogers) are not just uninformative, but leave it unclear what type of subject/object the article is talking about. This is less of a problem with images of standard religious subjects, where the images with articles tend to be by famous artists (Saint John the Baptist (Rodin), St. John the Baptist (Ghiberti), though others are less clear). Johnbod (talk) 02:54, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

• Unless they have a common name, the titles of articles on public commemorative statues of individuals should use the format "Statue of XX", with the appropriate geographical disambiguator. Using just the subject's name (even with a sculptor, geographical location and/or date appended) is both exceptionally confusing and against common practice in the real world. We don't say "I saw Winston Churchill in Parliament Square". We say "I saw the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square". Obviously things like Nelson's Column with clearly recognised names should stay as they are. And statues that are regarded as works of art instead of public commemorations (e.g. David (Michelangelo)) should be considered on a case by case basis, since they are indeed often commonly referred to by the name of their sculptor ("I saw Michelangelo's David"). -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:33, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
• Ok, there seems broad agreement for a change. Does anyone want to start a draft wording? Johnbod (talk) 14:29, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
• We should not aim for consistency. And we should err on the side of longer titles containing a greater number of search terms. And we should use alternative means—such as hat-notes and See also links—to other articles and subsections of other articles. Bus stop (talk) 15:27, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
• Statue of makes lot more sense to me. Dicklyon (talk) 16:45, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
  • "[M]ore sense" than what? More sense than this song? Bus stop (talk) 11:38, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
    • More sense than a statue of a barrel of monkeys. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:02, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
    • Presumably, more sense than what you said, Bus stop. Johnbod (talk) 12:57, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
      • There are various situations. Sometimes a 3-dimensional outdoor entity has a common name. That should probably be a term in the title. A title can also be descriptive. Descriptive terms could include the location, the name of the subject, and the sculptor's name. The titles of such articles need not be cryptically brief. I think it is ill-advised to try to draw up too-strict guidelines for this. I am suggesting we should just be addressing general principles in this discussion and discussing specific entities on their Talk pages. A problem arises because well-known subject matter generates multiple iterations of variations on that theme. So you have many Statues of Simón Bolívar. I would suggest linking such articles with hat-notes at the top of such articles. Bus stop (talk) 14:03, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

        They are normally all in a category, eg Category:Monuments to Simón Bolívar, which is probably enough. Johnbod (talk) 15:13, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

      • The italicized part of the title should only be the proper name and it should be the first term in instances in which there is a proper name. Bus stop (talk) 14:21, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

        This should be simple: why disguise the subject of an article with an unclear title? --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 14:45, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

        So using the real name of a statue is disguising the subject? Maybe the closer will see past the numbers and, after reading things like that, will use common sense and keep the names of the statue as much as possible as the title of their articles. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:34, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

        I'm highly dubious of the assumption that all statues have a "real name" the same way that a book or a film clearly has a real title. A lot of works of art (certainly not all) have titles which are more like labels of identification, and which would not have had input from the artist. The same painting may be called Adoration of the Magi or Adoration of the Kings according to the writer's preference; likewise with Virgin of the Rocks or Madonna of the Rocks. In the case of a subject I'm reading about at the moment, Tityus and The Punishment of Tityus are used interchangeably as titles for the same works.

        Knife Edge Two Piece 1962–65, Broadway Boogie Woogie, Meridian and No. 5, 1948 are examples of "real names" which shouldn't be deviated from. Not every title of a work of art is like those examples. In running text, you can write "Daniel Chester French sculpted the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial" without breaking from encyclopaedic style. You can also write "Daniel Chester French sculpted Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial". (If I've understood Carptrash correctly above, that was how French referred to it.) But the former is more natural, and Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial) would reflect that natural style. Ham II (talk) 18:06, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

        For our purposes I think not only an artist can bestow a title on an entity. I agree that our aim is not to "astonish". There should be no better title for the article than the one we choose. As you say, we want the most "natural" title for our article. Bus stop (talk) 19:48, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

        SelfieCity—you are telling us what the "subject of an article" is. But that is not necessarily the subject of the article. An art student might consider the subject of the article to be the sculptor. It is not out of the question that the term Daniel Chester French could appear in the title of Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial). Bus stop (talk) 15:07, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

        The general WP:TITLE principle is "The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects." - usually given a pretty strict interpretation, so the titles of paintings only include the artist's name where there are more than one articles with the same title. This can often be silly and unhelpful to the readers, but it is a firm WP principle. So in effect we would normally have to chose between location and sculptor. In the past sculptor has often been used, but the general feeling now seems to be that location is usually better. Johnbod (talk) 15:22, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Does this mean that articles such as Admiral David Glasgow Farragut (Manhattan) should be changed to Statue of Admiral David Glasgow Farragut (Manhattan)? I am only thinking of doing this (if I do it at all) for statues in the United States. For sure we leave the Russians with their "monuments." Carptrash (talk) 20:46, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

I think agonizing over the title of an article is generally a waste of time. Yes, we want to choose the best title, but redirects can make it easy for a reader to find what they are looking for. Bus stop (talk) 21:41, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, like much other activity on WP - but wikipedians can't get enough of it. To Carptrash, yes, except that we (and the NYC Parks dept) say it is also known as the Admiral Farragut Monument, which I'd speculate is actually the commonname. Nb our bio is at David Farragut. It is not just the US - Queen Victoria, for one, has a whole load, but they all seem to follow this approach already. Johnbod (talk) 22:53, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

If a briefer, natural-sounding title like Admiral Farragut Monument is available and supported by sources, we should use that. Ham II (talk) 05:16, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Absolutely. Using "XX Monument" or "XX Memorial" is a very common structure for the names of memorial statues, especially in Continental Europe. If such a name is commonly used for a particular statue then that should be our usage too. "Statue of XX" should be our default only if there is not a common alternative name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:50, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I'd add to that – "XX Monument" and "XX Memorial" are good styles, but I don't think "XX Statue" is. So, what if the guideline were "if the work is usually referred to using the word 'monument' or 'memorial' in reliable sources, use the style 'XX Monument' or 'XX Memorial'. If, however, the work is usually referred to as a statue or a bust, use the style 'Statue of XX' or 'Bust of XX'"? Does that check out? Ham II (talk) 16:16, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation by location: parentheses or commas?

If we decide to disambiguate statues by location, should we be consistent about disambiguating by "(location)" vs. ", location"? I mentioned this in a comment above, but would like us to discuss specifically. I often see specific sites disambiguated by "(location)" and larger areas disambiguated by ", location". I prefer "(location)" for statues, but I'd like us to at least be consistent unless there are reasons for having both options. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 16:59, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

My impression is that brackets are used more often for disambiguation in US-related topics, commas for UK-related topics, and that there is no particular pattern for the rest of the world. I don't know why this is and I doubt it's a genuine case of WP:ENGVAR, but we should probably look into whether the rationale for the different usage has been articulated anywhere on the wiki. There is a formatting advantage to using brackets and some US-related titles just look better with them – cf. Statue of Rosa Parks (Eugene, Ohio) and Statue of Rosa Parks, Eugene, Ohio. Ham II (talk) 20:14, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

FYI, Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Naming_the_specific_topic_articles and Wikipedia:Article_titles#Disambiguation should help this discussion. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 21:30, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Parentheses for North America, commas for most of the Commonwealth (except Canada) and Ireland, not established for other countries. This has been our standard for many years and there's no reason to change it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:05, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Necrothesp, Kind of an odd/inconsistent standard, but ok. Thanks for sharing. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:03, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

It's just what editors from those countries seem to prefer. Personally, I find parenthetical locations weird and unnatural (and obviously many other Commonwealth editors do too), whereas most North American editors seem to find comma-separated locations weird and unnatural. So there's been a long-established difference between the two, but with a fair degree of internal consistency. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:41, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Necrothesp, Thanks. If we updated the MoS to encourage disambiguation of statues by locations, would we want to make this standard known? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 16:41, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

To avoid mistaken naming, indeed we would. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:43, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Sadly, I think few editors, certainly not the students who do (or did - eg Indiana) any of these, ever look at WP:VAMOS, preferring to look at similar articles. Its advice is very often not taken. Johnbod (talk) 20:29, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Draft

• To be inserted in the 2.7.2 "Article titles/Works of art" section, before the current section on portrait titles (begins "Avoid "Portrait of Fred Foo" titles, if the individual is named – just use "Fred Foo", with disambiguation as necessary, even if the museum uses "Portrait"...." Draft new wording:

"For portrait sculptures of individuals in public places the form "Statue of Fred Foo" or "Bust of Fred Foo" is recommended, unless a form such as "Fred Foo Memorial" is the WP:COMMONNAME. If further disambiguation is needed, because there is more than one sculpture of the same person with an article, then disambiguation by location rather than the sculptor is usually better. This may be done as either "Statue of Fred Foo (Chicago)" (typically preferred for North America) or "Statue of Fred Foo, Glasgow" (typically preferred elsewhere). Examples: Monument to Peter I (St. Michael's Castle), Statue of Mahatma Gandhi (Houston), Statue of Queen Victoria, Sydney"

Thoughts? Johnbod (talk) 00:06, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Two-dimensional works and three-dimensional works could each be addressed under separate bullets. That may be what you have in mind, but I just thought I'd point that out. I think what is already there refers to two-dimensional objects. But what we are discussing here are "public statues", which are three-dimensional works. Bus stop (talk) 00:34, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't really see why two-dimensional works and three-dimensional works should be treated separately. In most respects the titling issues are the same, & this would involve a great deal of repetition. Are there ways the current text doesn't cover non-portrait sculptures? I've left the treatment of portrait sculptures in museums out, rather deliberately, as the artist will often be the most important disambiguator here. Something that probably should be covered is bronzes etc with multiple casts - like Bust of Winston Churchill (Epstein). Johnbod (talk) 00:46, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Johnbod, I'm trying to work out the issues posed by sculptures in the US Capitol here, and the issue of works with multiple versions is proving tricky. Do you the the style for such works should be Busts of Winston Churchill (Epstein) or Bust of Winston Churchill (Epstein)? Ham II (talk) 07:20, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Johnbod, thanks for grasping the nettle. This looks good so far (although Monument to Peter I (St. Michael's Castle) contradicts the "brackets for North America, comma elsewhere" point). What about equestrian statues? I think the style "Equestrian statue of..." should be chosen over "Statue of..." wherever applicable. Ham II (talk) 07:13, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

The "new wording" seems appropriate. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 12:11, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, both! On the points above - certainly Bust of Winston Churchill (Epstein) - we've had that issue with other non-portrait sculptures, Henry Moores etc, and to my mind the important things are a) the name should be singular, but b) the article should cover all examples, so a location name is inappropriate (where they are all the same). We've had issues in the past with eg editors covering a particular collection, & doing an article tied to that specific one in an edition. Having multiple articles on members of the same edition is surely undesirable? I tried to leave the wording on "Statue of Fred Foo (Chicago)" vs "Statue of Fred Foo, Glasgow" not too presecriptive, but can change the example. I agree re "Equestrian statue of...", though I suppose there might be cases where plain "Statue of.." is the recognised commonname. I'll wait a bit in case there are more comments then try a second version - or if any one else wants to, please do. Johnbod (talk) 14:31, 26 July 2019 (UTC) Johnbod (talk) 14:29, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I support Johnbod's formulation, I think it's more natural and helpful to the reader, and balances the art and monument concerns well.--Pharos (talk) 14:33, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I support it too. Seems fine. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:43, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

[Name of artwork] statue ([location])

Although I Oppose as WP:NOTBROKEN and WP:COMMONNAME, since I'm in the minority in the project and can see which way the wind is blowing, I'd ask, if the standard is to be changed, why not the better rendition: if a statue's actual name is known, then use he descriptor 'statue' after it. Example, Audrey Munson statue (Amsterdam). This works per brevity, common name, and real name, it contains less words, and it brings the topic up in the search engine and presents within the title the real name of the statue. If this common sense language has to be changed, Name of artwork statue (some city on the horizon) makes the most sense to me. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:52, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Randy, I think you are much too hung up on the concept of "a statue's actual name", as decided by the artist. This is a common problem on WP as regards old master paintings, where editors get tied up in knots over "real names" that don't actually exist, or if they do, we don't know them. The names given to most older paintings are made up by someone else, a dealer, auctioneer, art historian or curator, often much later, and are changed quite lightly (see Arnolfini Wedding). For the statues we're talking about, which were very expensive commissioned objects in almost every case, the original title (if any) will normally be decided by the committee running the appeal for funds etc. Different forms will very often have been used over the years - see Genius of Telegraphy, aka Genius of Electricity, aka Spirit of Communication, aka Golden Boy. When something is self-evidently a statue of Queen Victoria/Washington/Gandhi, most artists and committees don't find it necessary to dream up a special title, I would suggest. To do so verges on pretension at times. Johnbod (talk) 15:47, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

My comment was that if the actual name of the sculpture is known, which seems appropriate. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:52, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Audrey Munson statue (Amsterdam) and Lincoln statue (Lincoln Memorial) are more finicky in their formatting than Audrey Munson (Amsterdam statue) and Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial statue), so if the "real names" argument gains ground I would still prefer the latter style to the former. I share Johnbod's view on this and don't think it's a worthwhile use of time gathering the evidence for the "real names" of this kind of artwork – how many sources call a given statue "Lincoln", how many call it "Abraham Lincoln", how many "statue of Abraham Lincoln", etc., as had to be done to determine whether Mohandas K. Gandhi was the real title of Gandhi's statue in San Francisco. (There was the issue there of different forms of Gandhi's name existing, in a way that doesn't apply to Lincoln, but my point is about having to justify assertions about real titles.) And as far as "common sense language" is concerned, how is Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial) not that? Ham II (talk) 18:23, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

• I support that version. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 16:03, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support something along this line. I have no problem with Randy's proposed mod to allow "Name statue" when name is known. Discussions can determine of a case-by-case basis whether there's a known name. I'm not a fan of Abraham Lincoln as a sculpture name, but if that's known to be what it's titled, then Abraham Lincoln statue (Lincoln Memorial) would be better than the current Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial). (by the way, I am not able to find a source supporting the idea that Abraham Lincoln is the title of that work; Randy, can you point one out?) Dicklyon (talk) 16:25, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

  Dicklyon, Carptrash said above that he's looked at how Daniel Chester French referred to this and his other statues of Lincoln, and apparently it was by the title Lincoln. But that isn't to say that's how a majority of reliable sources refer to the statue at the Lincoln Memorial – if we really want to make that the basis of article titles for this sort of work. Ham II (talk) 18:38, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

  No, I haven't looked for sources, and would trust Carptrash to report on this one. Not too much leeway for creativity for past sculptors to title Lincoln statues, maybe some more good modern art pieces will emerge with surrealistic titles. Randy Kryn (talk) 19:33, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

  OK, then I'll take it that that one is not one with a "known title" (as far we know so far). Dicklyon (talk) 20:35, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. No, definitely go with "Statue of" as above as a more natural form of words. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:32, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

  Wandering through The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, written both in first person by ASG and in third person by his son Homer, works are mostly referred to as “the statue of Farragut” or, more commonly, simply “the Farragut.” In the list of works by ASG in the same book we find, “”Robert Richard Randall. Bronze statue.” and “Admiral David Glasgow Farragut Statue” and “Abraham Lincoln. Bronze statue” and “President Garfield Monument” and “Abraham Lincoln. Seated Statue,” so the names are all over the place. This has led me to the conclusion that “Statue of ********” is the way to go for wikipedia, with some works having to be fine tuned by adding a location and in some cases, such as ASG’s two Lincoln statues in (Chicago) even farther. Carptrash (talk) 11:46, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

  Thanks, Carptrash - I'm sure this would be typical of many such records by the sculptors themselves. I still prefer the "Statue of" form as the default, given the deliberately loose wording of the addition, allowing for exceptions. I will address the issue of multiples in a separate section, as that doesn't just concern sculpture, but prints & many types of decorative art. Johnbod (talk) 14:21, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose the term "statue" should not be in the title unless it is part of the name of the work, or the work has no name and the article requires a descriptive title. --В²C ☎ 00:36, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

[Name of artwork] ([disambiguation only if necessary and what it is depends on other uses of this name])

• Support. This option reflects the basic principles by which we title all of our articles:
  1. If the subject has a unique WP:COMMONNAME, that's the title.
  2. If the name is ambiguous but is the primary topic, that's the title.
  3. If the name is ambiguous and is not the primary topic, then disambiguate with parentheses. Location may often be the preferred disambiguation, but it depends on what the other uses are. If the other use is, say, a building in the same location then the location (alone) would not be an appropriate disambiguation. In some cases there may be an obvious WP:NATURAL disambiguation. So this has to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
  4. If the subject has no WP:COMMONNAME, then use an appropriate descriptive title. --В²C ☎ 00:36, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. As far as I can see, consensus currently leans toward including the word "statue" somewhere in the article titles. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 13:30, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: Article titles such as Mohandas K. Gandhi (San Francisco) are too ambiguous; descriptive titles are better for that kind of artwork. Ham II (talk) 14:06, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Discussion continued

I wasn't aware that this discussion had already been had here. Pinging Agathoclea, Blueboar, Crouch, Swale, Dodger67, Ewulp, Izno, Jayron32, PamD, PBS, power~enwiki and SMcCandish who contributed there. Could you please weigh in on whether you think the naming convention for public statues should be Statue of [Person], disambiguated by location? Ham II (talk) 20:48, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Wow, I must say I'd completely forgotten this! I only came in at the end - I don't think it was advertised at the VA project. Johnbod (talk) 01:39, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• Location for consistency (for example Statue of Prince Albert, Kingston upon Hull) with settlements and other similar entities such as Jura, Scotland, Bolton Hall, North Yorkshire and St Mary's Church, Nottingham. Obviously only disambiguate when necessary, I moved some of Commons:Category:Statues in Kingston upon Hull that were disambiguate by location unnecessarily. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:54, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

  To clarify, I'm not asking whether statues should be disambiguated by location or by artist, but whether the style "Statue of Prince Albert" should be chosen over "Prince Albert statue". Ham II (talk) 21:06, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

  I tend to prefer “Statue of Prince Albert” (with a parenthetical for disambiguation if necessary). That said... Consistency is good, but over-consistency isn’t. Don’t over think this. Blueboar (talk) 21:44, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• For a statue, or any feature artwork that doesn’t move, if it needs diambiguation, location should be at the top of the list of considerations. Material belongs at the top too, marble or bronze for example. Artist is good, but less so if it was made by a company, no single artist. From looking at many examples, I think year created erected or unveiled is usually not good, the year adds little to recognizability and is easily confused with year of the image of the subject. Statues cover a massive range, from hood ornament to monolithic statues that dominate the landscape, and they often belong to series. I don’t think a simple rule is likely to work. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:25, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

  Statue of [Person] ([location]) is probably the best default solution. Local or national custom may in some cases favor [Person] monument or memorial. I wouldn't think we need to disambiguate by medium in the case of public sculpture; even if there are two or more statues of [Person X] in [City Y], refining the location is likely to be more helpful. Ewulp (talk) 01:48, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Draft 2

Ok, there seems broad support for expressing preferences for "Statue of" forms, and disaming by location. I'll substitute Monument to Philip IV of Spain (an equestrian statue in Madrid) for the Russian example. I'll add "Equestrian statue of Fred Foo" as a standard. Draft:

• To be inserted in the 2.7.2 "Article titles/Works of art" section, before the current section on portrait titles (begins "Avoid "Portrait of Fred Foo" titles, if the individual is named – just use "Fred Foo", with disambiguation as necessary, even if the museum uses "Portrait"...." Draft new wording:

"For portrait sculptures of individuals in public places the forms "Statue of Fred Foo" "Equestrian statue of Fred Foo" or "Bust of Fred Foo" is recommended, unless a form such as "Fred Foo Memorial" is the WP:COMMONNAME. If further disambiguation is needed, because there is more than one sculpture of the same person with an article, then disambiguation by location rather than the sculptor is usually better. This may be done as either "Statue of Fred Foo (Chicago)" (typically preferred for North America) or "Statue of Fred Foo, Glasgow" (typically preferred elsewhere). Examples: Monument to Philip IV of Spain, Statue of Mahatma Gandhi (Houston), Statue of Queen Victoria, Sydney".

I could add Bronze Horseman (equestrian statue of Peter the Great in St Petersburg) as an example where there is a distinct commonname. Any other tweaks? Johnbod (talk) 17:02, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Could I suggest Equestrian statue of Christian V instead of Monument to Philip IV of Spain? Advocating "Equestrian statue of..." as the standard, then giving as an example an equestrian statue with a title beginning "Monument to..." could be confusing. Ham II (talk) 12:19, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Ok, but then we need a "momument" example too. Johnbod (talk) 14:09, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Here are a few to choose from: Jefferson Davis Monument, Samuel Hahnemann Monument (a Good Article), Tadeusz Kościuszko Monument, Warsaw, Nelson Monument, Liverpool, Rizal Monument, Eleanor Roosevelt Monument, Mother Teresa Monument, Wellington Monument, London, Monument to the Women of World War II. I'll look for examples of works titled "[...] Memorial" too. Ham II (talk) 11:00, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks - I think a monument is enough, no? Johnbod (talk) 12:19, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm looking at the articles covered by the London public art task force, and there are only three pages with "Monument" in the title, compared to 106 with "Memorial". (50 of those are instances of "War Memorial".) In London, at least, "Memorial" is way more common than "Monument". Ham II (talk) 12:33, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

We saw monument was standard in Russia (although I'm a bit dubious about that). Category:Monuments and memorials to Christopher Columbus and List of monuments and memorials to Christopher Columbus is nearly all "monument"s for life-size statues on a plinth. We could use one of those, for geographic diversity. Maybe memorials are for the relatively recently-dead, & monuments for older historical figures. Or maybe "memorials" just doesn't work in some languages. Some languages/countries seem to have a rather pompous aversion to plain names or "statue of..", or maybe that's our local editors. Johnbod (talk) 12:55, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

OK, I'll leave the "memorials" alone. How will the wording cover the "monument" side of things? Ham II (talk) 19:46, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Draft 3

Sorry for the delay! Basically draft 2 plus points raised on that. To be inserted in the 2.7.2 "Article titles/Works of art" section, before the current section on portrait titles (begins "Avoid "Portrait of Fred Foo" titles, if the individual is named – just use "Fred Foo", with disambiguation as necessary, even if the museum uses "Portrait"...." Draft new wording:

"For portrait sculptures of individuals in public places the forms "Statue of Fred Foo" "Equestrian statue of Fred Foo" or "Bust of Fred Foo" is recommended, unless a form such as "Fred Foo Memorial" or "Monument to Fred Foo" is the WP:COMMONNAME. If further disambiguation is needed, because there is more than one sculpture of the same person with an article, then disambiguation by location rather than the sculptor is usually better. This may be done as either "Statue of Fred Foo (Chicago)" (typically preferred for North America) or "Statue of Fred Foo, Glasgow" (typically preferred elsewhere). If the sculpture has a distinct common name, like the Bronze Horseman, that should be used. Examples: Statue of Mahatma Gandhi (Houston); Statue of Queen Victoria, Sydney; Jefferson Davis Monument; Equestrian statue of Christian V."

Comments? I hope we can close this up soon. Johnbod (talk) 13:52, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Wellington Monument, London isn't a portrait sculpture of Wellington but a sculpture of Achilles – so sorry for suggesting that earlier. Nelson Monument, Liverpool might be a good substitute – and from a quick look it does appear to follow WP:COMMONNAME – but I think a multi-figure composition crowned by a portrait statue might be muddying the waters a bit. I think the most watertight of the "monument" examples I gave above is the (admittedly unsavoury) Jefferson Davis Monument. Otherwise this all looks good to me. Ham II (talk) 20:23, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Ok, swopped that above. Johnbod (talk) 20:44, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• Ok, I'll add this on the page. Many thanks to all who joined the discussion! Johnbod (talk) 21:34, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Draft text re multiples and sets

This comes out of the statue section above but has wider application, so I'll keep it apart. I'll suggest where it goes in later. Draft:

• "Where a work of art is produced in multiple copies, as with a cast bronze sculpture, a print, or works of decorative art produced under factory conditions, the article should as far as possible cover all copies, and normally should reflect this in its title and text, rather than specifying one location. The same generally goes for objects produced as a matching set, even if they are now separated. If the articles get long enough, it may be appropriate to give individual members of a set their own articles, as with the 6 paintings in Marriage A-la-Mode (Hogarth). Examples: Bust of Winston Churchill (Epstein) (10 or more casts), Sèvres pot-pourri vase in the shape of a ship (in porcelain with several examples), and Raphael Cartoons (a set)."

Thoughts? Johnbod (talk) 19:40, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

I think this is what we are talking about. We chose to deal with multicastings like this, where the same subject was done by two artists, each of whom (which?) had multiple castings. The Hiker (Kitson) and The Hiker (Newman). If by some chance someone does not like this treatment, please don't mess with it. Carptrash (talk) 02:12, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, especially the Newman. The Thinker is another example. Charging Bull has several copies on golf courses etc, but the famous original round Wall Street rightly gets most of the article. Though very different treatments, those article and the Hiker ones are all appropriate treatments in their different circumstances, imo, & compatible with the draft above. Johnbod (talk) 02:24, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

What you all are trying to do is very difficult. You are trying to come up with rules to apply to a wide variety of circumstances. The bottom line is that you have to use common sense. We know what is needed—we want to make the reader aware of related entities. The Hiker (Kitson) and The Hiker (Newman) address this issue very well, with hat-notes at the top of the articles, and The Thinker addresses this very well by a hat-note at the top of the article linking to a disambiguation page. It seems that disambiguation pages can serve to display links to related works of art. But I think (no pun intended) that common sense determines when this is called for. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Visual arts should say something like "use common sense". Bus stop (talk) 02:11, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

That there are two completely different sculptures (with many casts) both called The Hiker is irrelevant here; the point is how each deals with the many versions. With these and The Thinker, I don't see what the hatnotes have to do with it at all, or disam pages. The last thing we want is 50 ''The Hiker'' (location) articles - that's the point of the draft. Johnbod (talk) 02:25, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Has the situation ever arisen that we have two different articles for the exact same work of art based on its having been produced in multiples and then displayed at two different locations? Bus stop (talk) 02:42, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I think we might have done; if so they were merged following this principle - can't remember where though. We have certainly had articles treating examples of "multiples" as unique objects - those I've seen have been edited to change this, but no doubt many still linger, & new ones pop up quite often (mostly paintings in 2+ versions in fact). Many articles on prints were initially written by inexperienced editors whose grasp of the "print" principle was weak. Johnbod (talk) 13:47, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Actually, see The Hiker (Fall River, Massachusetts) & its history. Merged in 2012, after Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Hiker (Fall River, Massachusetts), where Carptrash fought the good fight! Johnbod (talk) 13:52, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Memory is no longer my strong point, but I am pretty sure that there were four of five different Hiker articles for both Kitson's and Newman's works before we pulled those two articles together. Folks producing the articles on individual statues were not aware that the works were part of a series, or multiple copies or whatever. Carptrash (talk) 14:05, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I found that via "What links here" on the main article, & didn't notice others, but it wouldn't surprise me. Johnbod (talk) 16:23, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Wouldn't "paintings in 2+ versions" be different paintings? It seems to me there are two ways of addressing these two works of art—in one article or in two articles. We should use common sense and consensus to decide whether to use two articles or one article to address these two works of art. Bus stop (talk) 14:31, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Well they are different paintings, but normally treated as the same work of art, if mostly identical. This is actually very common at many periods - see prime version etc. Even where there are differences, the best approach is to discuss them together, as with Virgin of the Rocks, where there are significant differences. Johnbod (talk) 16:23, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Here's another now-merged double: Talk:Statue_of_Harriet_Tubman_(DeDecker), once had 2 articles. Johnbod (talk) 17:24, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Those aren't different versions are they? Just duplicates casts of the same version? Dicklyon (talk) 17:33, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Johnbod (talk) 17:36, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

The wording should be something like "whenever possible, when faced with two related works of art—such as prints, bronze castings, multiple versions of a painting—merge into one article, but allow for the possibility of separate articles, if circumstances warrant". Bus stop (talk) 19:47, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I think of "related" as more being parts of sets, or drawn studies for paintings etc. What's most common is an article on just one example/casting/version, or that mentions the other version in the last line - this especially in museum-inspired articles like the Met ones. Articles should mention the others in the lead, if they are of equal importance, though the exact appropriate treatment will vary. Can you think of examples where two articles would be appropriate? Johnbod (talk) 19:57, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I know of no example but conceptually our default understanding should be that separate works of art are truly separate works of art. We are merely addressing related but separate works in a way that we find to be advantageous. Bus stop (talk) 20:24, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Maybe, but I'm always wary of "conceptually our default" arguments when there's no known example to discuss. Dicklyon (talk) 20:51, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

In general I think WP's tendency to have lots of little articles on similar things, rather than one big one, is bad. It's easy to imagine Olmec head as a series of little articles, & it would not be an improvement. Johnbod (talk) 02:26, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

What would be an example of "WP's tendency to have lots of little articles on similar things, rather than one big one", especially within the realm of articles on works of art? Bus stop (talk) 05:59, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Don't get me started on that - see the notes for a talk I gave in 2011 for an overview of the issue - nothing has changed. See what we have on Italian Renaissance sculpture (a full 2 lines) compared to Category:Renaissance sculptures . In the decorative arts the situation is even worse - we have no articles on European porcelain, English pottery or American pottery as general topics, but huge categories, most articles in which have little general contextual content. The same is true almost everywhere in our coverage - exactly the reverse of the normal pattern in an encyclopaedia. Johnbod (talk) 16:35, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• No comments for a while. Are we happy for this to be added? Johnbod (talk) 15:29, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

  Looks good to me. Ewulp (talk) 01:54, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

  Ditto for me. Ham II (talk) 06:11, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• So, prompted by Ham II, I think we have consensus for the draft as above, and I'll add it. Johnbod (talk) 14:59, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Diff [3] Johnbod (talk) 15:03, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

See RfC on changing DEADNAME on crediting individuals for previously released works

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#RfC: updating MOS:DEADNAME for how to credit individuals on previously released works
This potentially would affect a significant number of articles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Subcategories of Category:Paintings by collection at Categories for discussion

Please see this CfD discussion, which might have a bearing on the "Museums and collections" subsection of VAMOS. Ham II (talk) 06:37, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Please also see this nomination following on from the above, where a discussion is currently going on about the merits, or demerits, of the phrase "in the collection of". Ham II (talk) 07:02, 29 July 2021 (UTC)