Talk:Venus and Adonis (Titian)

Individual articles
Anyone wanting to see the individual articles combined here can look at the start of the page history here, when it was a disam page and all were listed. They all now redirect here. Apart from Madrid and Oxford they were very short stubs. They were:
 * Venus and Adonis (Titian, Madrid) (1553)
 * Venus and Adonis (Titian, London) (1555)
 * Venus and Adonis (Titian, Los Angeles) (c. 1555-1560)
 * Venus and Adonis (Titian, Oxford) (c. 1560)
 * Venus and Adonis (Titian, Rome) (c. 1560)
 * Venus and Adonis (Titian, New York) (c. 1560)
 * Venus and Adonis (Titian, Washington) (c. 1560)

Johnbod (talk) 02:31, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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Fringe insertion
I deleted this paragraph with the edit summary "irrelevant to air a fringe theory in a section on literature," which has since been reverted with the summary, "take it to talk."

There were print versions of the image, but Shakespeare mentions three times that Adonis wore a "bonnet" or hat,<1> which these do not have,<2> and from the surviving early versions, is only in the Rome, Dulwich and Alnwick ones. Supporters of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship argue that the real author of Shakespeare's works, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, saw the Rome version at Titian's studio in Venice on his travels in Italy in 1575–76, and based his poem on it. This is regarded by some of them as a weighty piece of evidence supporting "Oxfordian" authorship.<3>

The references for this are as thus:

1.Magri, 86

2.Magri, 80. One of the Sadelers did a print of a "hat" version in 1610.

3.Magri, 87 and throughout; "Titian’s Painting of “Venus and Adonis” – Reason No. 13 Why Edward de Vere Earl of Oxford was “Shakespeare"

According to WP:FRINGE, If discussed in an article about a mainstream idea, a theory that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight, and reliable sources must be cited that affirm the relationship of the marginal idea to the mainstream idea in a serious and substantial manner....If an article is written about a well-known topic about which many peer-reviewed articles are written, it should not include fringe theories that may seem relevant but are only sourced to obscure texts that lack peer review. Introducing a fringe topic in an article violates WP:ONEWAY, which states that Fringe views, products, or the organizations who promote them, may be mentioned in the text of other articles only if independent reliable sources connect the topics in a serious and prominent way.

The material does not belong in this article on the basis of sourcing alone. The first source, Noemi Magri's Such Fruits Out of Italy, is special issue No. 3 of the Neues Shake-speare Journal, a German fringe publication that promotes the fringe theory that Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford, was secretly Shakespeare.

The second reference, "Titian’s Painting of “Venus and Adonis” – Reason No. 13 Why Edward de Vere Earl of Oxford was “Shakespeare," is a blog post by Hank Whittemore, an advocate of the same fringe theory. Neither of these sources are peer-reviewed nor are they considered to be reliable sources for this article.

Tom Reedy (talk) 18:08, 15 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Actually, I just now saw that the Magri refs are from *Magri, Noemi, "Titian's Barberini Painting: the Pictorial Source of Venus and Adonis" in Great Oxford: Essays on the Life and Work of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 1550–1604, ed. Richard Malim, 79–90, 2004, De Vere Society, google books, which is a reprint of a chapter from her book. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:11, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The prose takes a clearly very distanced and skeptical stance towards the Oxfordian idea, right at the end of a pretty long article. I see you are going around eliminating all references to Oxfordian stuff, perhaps without looking at the context in the article. The "connection" is pretty clear, & some of the facts can be verified from the illustrations here alone. Johnbod (talk) 01:54, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * What connection, exactly? That fringe theorists spin "evidence" out of history's gaps is not a connection. If every such topic from which they spun their fantasies included such a mention, every article on Wikipedia would have it.
 * > I see you are going around eliminating all references to Oxfordian stuff, perhaps without looking at the context in the article.
 * I check what links to the Oxfordian page about every year or so, and I scrupulously check the refs and the context. Are you saying that Wikipedia policy does not apply to this article? Because unless you can find independent reliable sources connecting the topics in a serious and prominent way, it doesn't belong here. And FYI, there are 222 direct links to the Oxfordian article; I deleted three of them.
 * Also you should provide a ref or expand on your Salviati collection mention. Tom Reedy (talk) 06:10, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * And just in case you want to read the rebuttal to the Oxfordian nonsense: "Adonis and His Hat." I think you'll be amused. Tom Reedy (talk) 21:46, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I may well have done so when I expanded the article, adding this, back in 2017. I think the text is perfectly clear that the Oxfordian stuff is not to be taken seriously imo. Your checks aren't as thorough as you seem to think. Johnbod (talk) 06:14, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * You didn't answer the question of sourcing, and WP isn't a joke book. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:05, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The Oxfordian Theory has surely had its day. The odds of the plays having been written by the Earl of Oxford share a probability neighborhood with those of space aliens, time travellers and hitherto undiscovered species intelligent sloths. But whether you agree with those odds or not, enough has been done, more than enough, to demonstrate any nonsensical connection between Titian and the canon to forbid mention here.
 * There's no evidence that Oxford saw this or any other Titian. There's precious little evidence that he looked at any painting in his stay in Venice in 1575. Nothing. It's a wildly speculative claim supporting a wildly speculative theory. Sicinius (talk) 13:10, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, hello Sicinius - haven't seen you before. I see you say "Interests, Shakespeare and WW1. Webmaster at oxfraud.com a Shakespeare Authorship site dedicated to exposing the Oxfordian Fallacy." Johnbod (talk) 13:49, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * What's your point? There's no good argument for keeping this, and it violates WP policy. You have yet to articulate a good reason to keep it in, except for pride of authorship. Three days ago you reverted my deletion with the summary, "discussion continues," yet you haven't discussed nor rebutted my policy-based objections. I'm deleting the material until you bring forth some convincing argument. And even though I'll gladly participate, I would ask that you please don't waste our time going to dispute resolution; you and I are both busy with more substantial things. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:53, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I disagree on both points, and there's no pride of authorship, although any long-term WP editor knows articles sometimes have to be defended from people with particular hobby-horses. Johnbod (talk) 04:56, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

>>There's no good argument for keeping this, and it violates WP policy. >I disagree on both points

Then give us the good argument for keeping it and explain how the sources confomr to WP policy. So far you haven't. Make the case for inclusion. Tom Reedy (talk) 06:50, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * There are better reasons for deletion. People who argue this connection have been spending more time reading Oxfordian argument than Shakespeare's poem. Shakespeare sets the scene at night. He's going to hunt on a horse with the boys in the morning. Titian's Adonis is hunting with dogs in the middle of the afternoon. It's simply unbelievable that Oxfordians attempt a connection with this flimsy drivel. Perhaps you could extend the argument and suggest that since Titian was notorious for refusing access to his studio to visitors (and more important visitors than The Earl), that the hat was the only bit that Shakespeare was shown.
 * The connection to Shakespeare's work could be the source of some enlightening comparison but only by someone who's actually read it. Otherwise, apart from an acknowledgement of its existence, I see no reason to keep any of it here. There's not really much to suggest that it is in any way based on Titian's work. Sicinius (talk) 17:29, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * People should certainly read things more carefully! At least the majority of versions of the composition are set at dawn, the rising sun personified in the sky. I've no idea where you get "Titian's Adonis is hunting with dogs in the middle of the afternoon" from. Johnbod (talk) 04:56, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Either way it isn't night, is it? Tom Reedy (talk) 06:52, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * No it isn't (that would be rather hard to paint). Do you have a point here? Johnbod (talk) 14:26, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Only that you missed his point--he's not referring to the painting, but Shakespeare's poem. And what makes you believe that painting set at night would be beyond Titian's capacities? Tom Reedy (talk) 17:11, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Er, right - "Titian's Adonis is hunting with dogs in the middle of the afternoon" is "not referring to the painting, but Shakespeare's poem"! You two just don't read anything. Johnbod (talk) 17:18, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Er, no. Might want to read the entire exchange more slowly. His main point is that Shakespeare's poem has the scene happen at night. Whether Titian's painting is morning or afternoon is immaterial; neither one is night, which argues that Shakespeare didn't write based upon seeing the painting. In any case, you still haven't provided any policy-based argument for including the challenged material in the article. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:19, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Er, yes. Despite his proven poor skills at text reading, I'm prepared to accept his assertion that the poem is set at night (I haven't read it for some decades & can't be bothered to check it myself). But what does that OR argument have to do with anything? Despite your desperate attempts to read it otherwise, the text (before your tinkering) clearly did not argue for the Oxfordian thesis. The Oxfordian interpretation forms a small but quite interesting part of the legacy, and whatever its merits should not be removed just for WP:CENSORSHIP. Johnbod (talk) 13:38, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
 * 19 years does not a legacy make. And I excised the material on grounds of WP:ONEWAY and WP:RS violations. If those do not apply, please set forth your rebuttal. So far you haven't made one. Tom Reedy (talk) 19:27, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your assessment of my reading skills. I'll give that all the attention that befits a man who thinks Shakespeare could not have imagined a bonnet on Adonis without having first having seen it in a painting (but is willing to credit the idea that a mediocre Courtier Poet morphed into one of the world's great playwrights with no intervening stages of development). I note that you "can't be bothered to check" whether I am correct in my use of those self-same reading skills.
 * None of which matters. I can't prove that the authors of the 1593 poem Venus & Adonis did or did not see Titian's painting, whether he was Shakespeare or Oxford. Neither can you and the highly speculative idea springs from a fantasy—a lame prop for a fringe theory which has failed. It should not be granted the hint of a reference on the page dealing with Titian's masterpiece. Sicinius (talk) 14:51, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I've said SEVERAL times here that I hold no truck with the Oxfordian or any other alternative Shakespeare authorship theory, which I would have thought was in any case obvious from the wording the Witchfinder-General is determined to remove. You REALLY don't read ANYTHING, do you? I'm not sure why it is necessary for me to make a Declaration of Ideological Purity for you two. Johnbod (talk) 15:21, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
 * It absolutely isn't, though UNESCO has recently declared war on conspiracy theories. What I'm saying, and I agree with Tom, is there is absolutely no reason to mention the mad idea, held only by the Oxfordian contingent of Shakespearean Doubters, that a version of this painting provides evidence that Oxford rather than Shakespeare wrote the verse epic Venus & Adonis that appeared in 1593. They can provide no evidence, whatsoever, that the behatted version was in Venice at the same time as Oxford, or that Oxford went to visit it, or Titian who was in his dotage and famously averse to visitors of any sort. Oxford, in the 50000 words he left behind, never refers to a painter, a painting or even art itself. It's like referencing the theory that Oliver Postgate's TV moon-dwellers, The Clangers, actually exist on the moon landing page. What possible reason could there be for that? Sicinius (talk) 12:40, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm sure you don't give any credence at all to it, but that's not the point. The point is whether you give any credence to Wikipedia policy, which clearly states that it should be included only if independent reliable sources connect the topics in a serious and prominent way. That's it. If you want to include it in the Oxfordian theory page, fine. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:36, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The text was already jaundice; the single purpose/overkill pile-on seems to be why we have WP:POINT. Ceoil (talk)

WP:POINT is indeed instructive: ''If someone deletes from an article information which they call "unimportant" or "irrelevant", which you consider to in fact be important to the subject...do explain on the article's talk page why you feel the material merits inclusion. . . . If you think someone unfairly removed a reference to a self-published source...do explain why the use of the source in question was appropriate in that instance, or find a better source for the information.''

Including material just because someone wants it in is not a reason for inclusion. Tom Reedy (talk) 06:50, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Its been explained to you, a few times. Finding it very hard to understand why you are being so irate and aggressive. Ceoil (talk) 23:48, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
 * And it has been explained by me why the material is not suited for the page. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:18, 27 January 2023 (UTC)