User:AnnieG22/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
California Impressionism

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because it is something we have recently discussed in class. It matters because it is an important movement in California art history and essential to understanding the progression of art periods in the state. My preliminary impression was that the article is shorter than I would have expected it to be. Additionally, there is a distinct lack of images for a article discussing an art movement. However, it does appear to be organized, with a good amount of footnotes considering the size of the article.

Lead section
The topic of the article is defined in the first sentence of the lead in clear language. The lead section is one short paragraph long, which probably could be expanded to give an overview of the rest of the content in the article. Additionally, the lead mentions the California Plein-Air School, which is not elaborated on anywhere else in the article (although I'm not sure if a section should be included for it or if the single mention should be excluded).

Content
The separate sections of the article all relate back to the topic at hand, giving a good overview of the artists and geographical locations and development of California Impressionism. There are several sources from as recently as 2022, discussing the continued influence of the topic. All the content included does seem relevant to the topic and the article appears to cover a good range of information about its topic. However, the discussion of the decline of Californian Impressionism is considerably shorter than the other sections, and additionally, is lacking sources. That section should be elaborated upon and cited to help balance the article. As far as I can tell, there is no deliberate mentions of historically underrepresented populations within this article.

Tone and Balance
The article is mostly neutral in tone. There are no great controversies surrounding the topic, so there is no great bias apparent. In the section concerning the revival of California Impressionism, however, there is an edit that accredits certain events and books to the revival of the topic, with no source to back it up, making it appear to be an opinion rather that credited fact. There are no viewpoints, fringe or otherwise, over or underrepresented.

Sources and References
This article mostly references published books as well as museums in California. There are quite a lot of references to exhibition catalogs and magazines as well. All catalogs and magazines are art related, although it is unclear the qualifications for publishing within the magazines. As I mentioned above, there are sources from as recently as 2022. There does appear to be a diverse spectrum of authors, in that there are many different people and publications being referenced. However, this does not extend to historically marginalized individuals. Most sources come from articles within magazines and books relating to the topic at hand. Most of the links appear to be functional, however, in the external links section both the link to The Laguna Plein-Air Painters and the website about Lukits, appear to have typos or no longer exist. Those would have to be reviewed and readded.

Organization and writing quality
The article, save for typos in the links, appear to have no glaring grammatical errors. It is professionally written, and easy to follow. The sections flow and give a concise overview of the topic at hand.

Images and Media
There are not many images present in this article, in fact, only two are included. For an article about an art period, it may be helpful to include a few more images in order to visualize the topic. One image is a part of the public domain, the other has a link to a website where the picture can found but the link does not connect to the database. The images are laid out in an appealing way, although the article would benefit from have more visual cues to help understand the topic.

Talk page discussion
There is not much recent discussion concerning this article, however, in 2013 the revival and history portions were merged into one article entitled California Impressionism. The most recent conversation was in 2021, where an editor explained that the article need a rewrite, and that the revival aspect of the topic was repetitive. Since then I believe there has been some edits, although they are not discussed in the talk page. It is part of the WikiProject visual arts and is rated as Start-Class. A lot of the content is similar to what has been talked about in discussions.

Overall impressions
Overall, I would say there is more that could be included and elaborated upon. There are sections that are not cited, nor are there many visual markers to help understand the topic. It is slightly underdeveloped and more could be added, with less repetition and more new information. What is there, however, is well written and easy to understand. It gives a good overview, and the geographical designation makes it easy to digest the topic. The section about specific artists makes it easy to learn more about them, with links to many other Wikipedia articles.