Talk:Passing Mother's Grave/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Ppt91 (talk · contribs) 04:59, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for starting this review. Bruxton (talk) 22:41, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Final review comments: @Bruxton I haven't heard from you since my last ping and I don't really want to make any more edits without your knowledge of approval (nor do I think it's fair to you). Unfortunately, given that the article still requires a lot of work, I am afraid I will need to fail it for now. I really appreciate the edits you've made so far, but there are too many generalizations and repetitions and not enough focus on actual art historical content to warrant a pass. I know you have been very active and passionate about adding WP:VISUALARTS content (and were able to successfully nominate multiple GAs), so I don't want to discourage you. If you would like to re-nominate this article in the future after making the necessary changes, I think it will be a much stronger nomination. In the meantime, it might be a good practice to do some GA reviews (I saw you haven't done one yet) before any more GA nominations to help lower the backlog and give back to the community. :-) Please feel free to stay in touch. Good luck with your work!  Ppt91    talk   22:18, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Initial comments: I am happy to review this interesting article on a painting by Jozef Israëls, although I wanted to mention at the outset that the article will require a fair amount of work--including expanding its scope, adding more secondary sources, and improving prose--to bring it up to GA level. Being one of his best-known compositions, Passing Mother's Grave has been quite extensively discussed in secondary literature, only some of which is included in the article. Other sources already included need to be used more carefully; for instance, the Scribner's Magazine article from 1912 presents a critical view of the work (and of the artist) that should be discussed in the reception section rather than being used as citation for visual description. That would be sufficient for C-level but it is not enough for GA. Moreover, the painting, which itself exists in several versions, has been widely reproduced in other media (one print is even included in the corresponding nl-wiki page on the work) and printmaking needs to be addressed in this context. These are just some preliminary comments and I will provide a more detailed feedback soon, along with suggesting additional sources that should be of help. I should be able to do so in the next few days and look forward to working with you on improving the page. Please let me know if you have any questions in the meantime! Ppt91   talk   04:59, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

GA review
@Bruxton Here's the first batch of feedback, which relates to structure, scope, and sources.
 * Structure
 * I think the article would benefit from a slight tweak in section names where it would start with "Background" (or "History" as is) and instead of "Description" use "Analysis"; that way, you'll be able to incorporate more relevant information about the work from art historical literature while also providing a visual description. The scene is fairly simple as far as visuals go and, I think, not enough to warrant a separate section just for description. Let me know what you think and whether you'd prefer different structure.
 * I changed description to Analysis I will take a few days to go through the rest of the review and implement changes. Thank you for the review! Bruxton (talk) 21:29, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I worked on this along with expanding the section Bruxton (talk) 22:41, 15 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Scope As you note in the article, this was an important painting in establishing the artist's reputation as a leading Dutch realist and that necessitates more context. The painting has been compared to Courbet's The Stone Breakers (1848), a seminal work of French Realism (in fact, I think that a reproduction of the painting should probably be included in this article), and was directly praised by van Gogh, whose work, while not representative of realism as such, still very much sympathized with the "common man" and engaged with the notion of the "real" in rapidly industrializing late 19th century Europe (think his famous Shoes compositions). Conversely, the painting was criticized by others for being to "mawkish" and the lack of craftsmanship in the work of Israëls was also discussed (see Scribner's Magazine source already cited). There is also the artist's dark and almost monochromatic color palette, which was noted by several critics. This is all very much within scope and based on existing literature without any WP:SYNTHESIS or WP:OR. You'll likely find other relevant aspects of the work and its history of reception as you go through the sources.
 * on that note, please keep in mind how widely the painting was reproduced; the existing versions should be discussed in more detail to clarify (apparently, one of them was sold at Lempertz in recent years, which perhaps could be a good idea for better quality reproduction, although we'd need to make sure there are no copyright issues given it's from an auction house); print reproductions need to be addressed, if only briefly, because of the impact printmaking had on its popularity (the current source you have Art and Reproduction... by Verhoogt should probably be more than enough here).
 * I worked on accomplishing this Bruxton (talk) 22:41, 15 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Sources Here are some useful sources which should be included in the article; I've included specific pages for a few of them, but otherwise just search for the painting in each using Google Books or archive.org for coverage. Let me know if you are having any trouble accessing any of these.
 * I worked on this, I added several but did not have access to at least one, the Kloosterboer source Bruxton (talk) 22:41, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Charles Dumas, John Sillevis, Ronald de Leeuw The Hague School: Dutch Masters of the 19th Century. Netherlands: Royal Academy of Arts, published, 1983.
 * 2) Sheila D. Muller, Dutch Art: An Encyclopedia. United States: Taylor & Francis, 2013. (edit just saw this is already listed in sources, though I think there is still more material to be used here)
 * 3) Novotny, Fritz. Painting and Sculpture in Europe 1780-1880. United Kingdom: Yale University Press, 1995. (p. 298)
 * 4) Dekker, J. J. H. (2003). "Family On The Beach: Representations Of Romantic And Bourgeois Family Values By Realistic Genre Painting Of Nineteenth-Century Scheveningen Beach." Journal of Family History, 28(2), 277–296. (https://doi.org/10.1177/0363199002250978)
 * 5) Kloosterboer, Martha., Israëls, Jozef., Dekkers, Dieuwertje. Jozef Israëls, 1824-1911. Netherlands: Groninger Museum, 1999. (might be hard to get, just an option)

There are some other sources, especially from the early 20th century, that could be of use, but I think this should be sufficient for GA-level scope. Of course, feel free to ping if you have any questions or if anything is unclear! I'll put the article on hold and will be happy to resume the review when you're ready. :)  Ppt91    talk   18:15, 9 March 2023 (UTC)


 * @Bruxton Thanks for the ping and for implementing my suggestions. I'll read over the edits and provide more feedback as soon as I can, hopefully by the end of the weekend.  Ppt91    talk   17:50, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

@Bruxton Thanks for your patience. While the article has improved, it still needs work and I think that the points raised earlier need to be expanded upon and incorporated more carefully. I know you have other nominations you're working on, so my big piece of advice is: please do not rush it. :-) I'm going to keep the review on hold for now and give you another week to address these issues. Here's just one helpful example (in this case, a late 19th-century Serbian work) of the kind of scope a GA-level article on a painting with significant coverage in literature should look like: Happy Brothers. I'll be happy to provide more detailed feedback on each section and continue the review process when there is more carefully drafted content. Please let me know if you have any questions in the meantime. More details below.  Ppt91    talk   20:55, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * @Bruxton Thanks, will get to it hopefully by Tuesday. As for the article, I just double-checked and it's available through the Wikipedia Library, so you should not have to pay any fees. And while it could certainly be useful, it's by no means critical, especially if you're having trouble accessing it.  Ppt91    talk   03:47, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
 * @Bruxton I just made some extensive edits to the lead and the History section. If I may, I think it'll be much easier I go through the rest of the article myself and ping you when I am done. While it's closer to GA and the bulk of the information is there, there's still stuff that needs to be fixed and I think it would be much more time consuming to again list these suggestions here.  Ppt91    talk   17:56, 13 April 2023 (UTC)