Talk:Constitution of 3 May 1791 (painting)/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Fang Aili (talk · contribs) 20:27, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

FYI, Here are some comments from Nikkimaria, who reviewed my review. --Fang Aili talk 16:24, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll fix and/or reply to various issues raised above soon. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 17:34, 15 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately I am not a native English speaker. I don't know what is wrong with "Since 1984 the painting is in the collection of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, where Matejko declared that he would like the painting to be.", or "Unlike for most of his other large works with numerous historical figures, Matejko did not leave a legend for this painting."


 * Try this--
 * Matejko commonly identified the characters in his paintings with a written legend, but he did not create one for the Constitution.
 * Since 1984 the painting has been in the collection of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, where Matejko himself declared he would like the painting to be shown.
 * Done, thank you for the suggestions. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 04:25, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Lead has been expanded with the suggest information.
 * The last paragraph is disjointed in that it attempts to address several unrelated points. Needs editing.
 * You are right. How about the new version? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 04:25, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * With regards to smaller questions, I've addressed all but the ones I reply to below:
 * You ask "Why "once again"" with regard to oath. I have rewritten this sentence with a more interesting detail (and in fact I am not sure where the original "oath, again" came from. Weird. The new version is fully supported by the ref cited.
 * You ask "Who restored it? How was it done?" I don't think the names of the people who worked on the restoration are important; I don't recall that they were given in the source (which I no longer have), nor that anything about the technique struck me as important. And frankly, I wouldn't know how to translate such specialist terminology, if it was present.
 * You're probably right; I struck out this objection above.
 * You ask ""Matejko's technique in this painting was subtly but noticeably different compared to his other paintings" ... How so?" I don't recall that he source explained that beyond what is included in this para; I was simply summarizing what the source said. If this raise more questions, I'd say that the source was simply not comprehensive enough.
 * You ask ""Matejko decided to make the title page more explicit—and at the same time put the name of the painting right in its center." ... If that is so, why is the name of the painting itself not standardized?"" I could speculate why, but I have no reliable sources for that.
 * Question--was Matejko making the name of the Constitution document explicit, not the name of his painting? If so, that would answer my question. It would mean that he was being extra clear about what he is illustrating, not giving a directive on what he wants his painting to be called.
 * Yes to your question. Would you have any suggestions how we can make it more clear in text? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 04:25, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I eliminated some peackock terms were there were not 100% justified.
 * burgher transformed into regular wikipedia link.
 * "The painting is one of Matejko's best known works and is commonly seen as one of his masterpieces, an "education in national history." I assume you are not in a place you can access Google Book links. This work lists several of his paintings, calling them masterpieces (presumably listing the best known), and notes that his paintings became "an education in national history" (quotation marks indicate direct quote, obviously). Just in case, I've added another cite that clearly includes this painting among his best known works.
 * You ask: "This sentence is followed by, However, it was less well received by the contemporaries.. so is it only in modern times that the work is considered a masterpiece, etc? Who considers it so?" Well, those cited in the previous sentence, such as Reddaway or Rezler.
 * You are right. Please change it to "his contemporaries", though; this wording makes it flow better.
 * Done. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 04:25, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You suggest: "When you introduce "Wrede et al.", provide the name of the work and why it is significant.", but I don't think it is common practice to discuss such information in the article. In fact, I am tempted to remove their mention from this sentence completely.
 * You're right about not needing to name the work; my mistake. If you leave it in I'd recommend editing it to say something like, "Historians Wrede, So-and-So, and Otherguy suggest that..." It will flow better this way.
 * I am not sure if they are historians; I've added "authors". --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 04:25, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You ask: "I was left wondering why some characters were described when others were not. Why were some characters, apparently identifiable, left out of the guide picture? Is it because they are less historically important? If so, why would unnamed "old Jews" be identified, while other anonymous characters are not?" As far as I know the author of the illustration simply did not do as much research on this as I did for the article. Please note that (while this cannot be noted in the article), most if not all sources (at least, all the ones I run into) are not comprehensive, and I had to use several sources to arrive at the listing of persons we have. Also, I asked at Graphic_Lab/Illustration_workshop for help with updating the painting, but so far nobody is interested in helping.


 * I'm sorry to say I don't think this article can pass GA until the guide picture has been updated. It's confusing to be given an incomplete guide. The picture's coloring doesn't need to be perfect, but its contents should be complete.
 * Also, the guide picture (in whatever form) needs to be moved up to approximately where you start referring to people by their number on the guide.
 * Guide picture aside, as for why some people are identified and others are not, you could add a sentence like, "Historians have positively identified the following characters:..."


 * I've moved the picture and added clarifications per the suggestion, but I disagree that the imperfect guide should prevent this painting from being a GA. Consider this: if we removed the guide and references to it, would you be objecting? Even through the article would be less informative? It is akin to saying that an article with a map should not be promoted, because the map is not very good. I believe that we do not require illustrations to be perfect. It is nice, but it is dealt with through Good / Featured images, and articles do not require such quality images to be Good / Featured. We simply require sufficient illustrations, which in this case is present, though the picture of the painting itself. The guide is an added bonus, which while imperfect still goes above and beyond our requirements. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 04:25, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You ask: "Why is this painting considered an "iconic" representation of the event? Did other painters attempt such representations?". They did. I just spent half an hour trying to find a single clear cite in which this work would be called the iconic, or best know representation of the constitution, and failed. While I am pretty sure this is the case, per WP:V, I'll remove the iconic claim from the lead. I'll replace it with "a well known representation" instead, which is certainly the case.
 * I'll add a section expanding on the C3M significance shortly. I don't think we need to add Matejko's bio sketch here, interested editors can just click on his article... I can see why a section on the event in the painting would be relevant and helpful, but a bio of the artist seems to me too detailed for an article like this.
 * I wasn't thinking that a whole section was needed, and now I'm thinking it might actually be overkill. As for a Matejko bio, here also I was thinking a 1-3 sentence summary of his painting style, perhaps, which would support the bit about his changing styles for this painting. I'm open to more discussion on this point.
 * I don't know where a non-section would could fit. You are welcome to cut away pieces you consider redundant. As for his bio, I don't believe I have found anything relevant in the sources discussing the painting; there are some generalities but to try them with the critique present could be ORish. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 04:25, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * PS. Please let me know if I haven't addressed any of your comments (sufficiently), and if so, please strike out all the issues that have been resolved to your satisfaction. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 23:20, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The section headers need to be renamed. Maybe "Historical background" for the section on the Constitution itself, and just "Significance" for the other.
 * I also feel like this article is incomplete without at least a mention of other painters' attempts to represent this moment. It doesn't need to be long. --Fang Aili talk 20:57, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Which headers you'd change so? I will still disagree about other painters' attempts. Consider a random famous picture, let's say - Mona Lisa. Do you think that article should include a description of woman in art? Or even smile in art? If this was an article about Constitution of 3 May in art, I'd fully agree with you. It is not, however.
 * Thank you for all of your comments and suggestions! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 04:25, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, since it seems that Fang has become inactive, I'm going to finish up this review. There's some copy-editing needed - for example "Like many of Matejko's works, is a grand scene populated with numerous historical figures", "as potrayed". I also think the "History" header may need to be changed - "Display", perhaps? Is any further information available on modern reception? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:57, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Fixed the two grammar/typo errors. Display would be fine for the second part; I think history better sums up both para (creation and display, perhaps?). I was not able to find more info on the modern reception, it's one of those cases where everybody knows about it, but most just say nothing of consequence (or are not reliable sources). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 15:04, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay. I'd still like to see some more copy-editing done here - I've done the lead. Creation and display would work for that section. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:49, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not a native English speaker; I will ask some people to take a look at it (I've done it in the past but I guess they didn't do any edits). I am afraid I cannot really fix those issues myself. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 16:06, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

In the List of Characters section, the second list with those who "are identified by the historians but are not included in the guide picture", the name "Stanisław Kublicki" is listed twice: second on that list, and last on the list. Are these really two different people, and if so, are they related or not? This needs to be clarified; if they're the same person, the entries need to be merged. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:30, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * That's the same person, good catch, how could I've missed that... fortunately it's all referring to the single figure on the painting, I've unified the description. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 16:06, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Two editors did a c/e for the article (thank you, Malik and Nihil). I hope it is better now? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 03:54, 16 April 2012 (UTC)