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Requested move 26 July 2024

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved all except Hudson River School and Pont-Aven School. There's a fairly clear consensus, backed up by evidence and even conceded by those who favour capitalisation, that all of those except the two named are not treated as proper names in sources. As for these two, I think it's no consensus on both. Some say that the bar for MOS:CAPS is met, others disagree. If editors desire, a fresh RM on their respective talk pages detailing the case for those specifically could be started in the future, but I do'nt see a need to hold up the others for now.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:01, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

– Schools of art, schools of thought, etc., are usually rendered in sources with lowercase school. We should fix, consistent with WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS. This is a logical extension of the consensus at Talk:Cretan School#Requested move 25 April 2024, but I thought I'd do another discussion just in case. And for the Cuzco school, restore the common spelling. (These are all found at Template:Western art movements, and there may be others there that I've missed.) Dicklyon (talk) 02:38, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hudson River School, scenically uppercased since 1860
Pure OR! Johnbod (talk) 13:01, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose Looking at the titles of the works listed as References and Further Reading items for the EN:WP articles on, for example, the Delft School, the Norwich School and the Boston School among others than the upper-case form is clearly the accepted and commonly used name.14GTR (talk) 17:06, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Capitalization in titles is irrelevant. We need to assess capitalization in sentence context, per MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS. Dicklyon (talk) 18:39, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note – I have removed all the "Strongs". No need to overheat the discussion. Revert if you object. Dicklyon (talk) 18:11, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Most of the discussion so far has been about how other sources capitalize, and that's relevant, but our own Manual of Style at MOS:MOVEMENT says: "Doctrines, ideologies, philosophies, theologies, theories, movements, methods, processes, systems or schools of thought and practice, and fields of academic study or professional practice are not capitalized" (italics in the original). If some of these are actual named organizations, then they are proper names and capitalization is appropriate, but most of these are informal groupings named for a locality. SchreiberBike | ⌨  19:27, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    As has often been pointed out, this silly part of the guideline has never been observed - we don't (of course) use impressionism, renaissance and so on. But who can be bothered to take on the lower-case fanatics? Johnbod (talk) 21:40, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm pretty sure all would agree that Renaissance is a proper noun; it's over 90% capped in books. Impessionism, on the other hand is only 2/3 capped, per book n-gram stats, and is used lowercase in over 800 Wikipedia articles. Some of those may be wrong, but I wouldn't assume it should always be capped, given the common lowercase usage in books. You're right though that a lot of article titles go against guidelines. That's a big part of what I work on. Dicklyon (talk) 23:38, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Based on previous discussions, I'm pretty sure all would not - and the MOS avoids using "proper noun" as the definition of that has been so much disputed in the past. Johnbod (talk) 19:46, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That just means another group to uppercase, in this instance 800 miscased examples of Impressionism. I've done uppercase correction runs in quite a few in that number range (most recently am chipping away at uppercasing 'Industrial Revolution', have finally got those down to under 500). Randy Kryn (talk) 00:11, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It's hard to see how you could justify capping at Abstract impressionism and such. Dicklyon (talk) 00:36, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed, I don't think I've uppercased any of the examples of 'Abstract impressionism', which is a different animal altogether. Randy Kryn (talk) 08:42, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, one of the important reasons why Impressionism needs capitalizing is that at least the adjectival form "impressionist" (and related forms) is otherwise ambiguous - it will be found in art history in both contexts where it refers to the specific Impressionist movement and those where it does not. Johnbod (talk) 14:16, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I'm glad I didn't make a big job for Randy then! And now I understand that Impressionism is like Renaissance in the way you said. As usual, the over-riding criterion at MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS leads to the right answer: these are consistently capitalized in sources, so we cap them. I apologize for my wrong first Impression. Dicklyon (talk) 14:47, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    So you agree we should completely ignore MOS:MOVEMENT aka MOSDOCTCAPS, which says "Doctrines, ideologies, philosophies, theologies, theories, movements, methods, processes, systems or schools of thought and practice, and fields of academic study or professional practice are not capitalized, unless the name derives from a proper name. E.g., lowercase republican refers to a general system of political thought (republican sentiment in Ireland); uppercase Republican is used in reference to specific political parties with this word in their names (each being a proper-noun phrase) in various countries (a Democratic versus Republican Party stalemate in the US Senate)." Johnbod (talk) 19:46, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Why would you ignore it? It's useful guidance. In the rare case where it conflicts with the top-level provisions of MOS:CAPS (about consistently capitalized in sources), you'll probably want to give priority to the senior guidance, so sure, ignore it if you wish. In cases like the current ones, where there is no conflict, it's not an issue. Or if it is, show us what's consistently capitalized in sources. Dicklyon (talk) 22:14, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This is precisely what MOS:DOCTCAPS is about, and these moves should also be effectuated per WP:CONSISTENT policy, to agree with our treatment of all other "schools of thought" sort of subjects. See also recent RM: Talk:French liberal school#Requested move 2 July 2024. Same issue. PS: If one or another of these things turns out to be an actual instution (a school in the usual sense) and a proper name thereby, then sever it from the rest, but proceed with lower-casing the others.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:19, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    So Renaissance and Impressionism should be lc? See just above. Johnbod (talk) 19:49, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That's my thinking. These aren't the names of institutions; they are just identifications of loose style categories or movements. Consistent lowercasing can help show that. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 19:04, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • On another ongoing RM... Dicklyon specifically uses 'the' and 'and' and 'the and 'was' as indicators of specific evidence of casing usage. Here is that usage for Hudson River School and Hudson River school. Please explain why using casing as evidence in one instance and not as evidence in the other is correct. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:08, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Those seem useful, limiting the context to things that make sense in sentences. They show that capitalization is not, and never has been, consistent in sources. Dicklyon (talk) 23:13, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Viewing that n-gram and then still arguing for lowercasing Hudson River School shows that you would be good in debate class. This n-gram further shows that Hudson River School is uppercased in American art history and in commonsense English. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:32, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per MOS:DOCTCAPS which says specifically not to capitalize schools of thought or practice. Also per WP:CONSISTENT, with prior moves of this sort, some quite recent. If something is an actual institution ("the Norwich School of Art & Design", etc.), then yes, that is a proper name. If there is also a "school" of thought and practice in one or more arts that shares the same name (presumably named for the originating institution), then that secondary usage is not a proper name and takes lower-case (except where it contains a proper name like "Norwich"). That we might have some additional articles to move to comply with DOCTCAPS is not any excuse to not move these now and clean up the others later (especially since the "resist all de-capitalizations at all costs" crowd will be the first to insist on separate RMs any time the cases in question might be distinguishable in some way). Existence of articles that fail to comply with a guideline is evidence of cleanup work to do. (Editors, especially new ones, do not memorize all the guidelines.) It is not a magical proof that the guidleine is broken. If someone thinks the guideline is broken, they can propose a change to it at WT:MOSCAPS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:03, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So do you, like BarrelProof above, believe that Renaissance and Impressionism should be lc? I note that Dicklyon, above denies that anyone thinks this, but clearly they do. As Dicklyon explains more than once above, the two policies we have on the question are contradictory in cases (like these two) where the usage criterion is met; MOS:DOCTCAPS makes no allowance whatsoever for usage. Johnbod (talk) 13:01, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't recall ever thinking about those two, so I prefer that you don't try to say what I think about them. This RM does not include those. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 13:58, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I see I was confused by the indenting in:
"So Renaissance and Impressionism should be lc? See just above. Johnbod (talk) 19:49, 27 July 2024 (UTC)
That's my thinking. These aren't the names of institutions; they are just identifications of loose style categories or movements. Consistent lowercasing can help show that. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 19:04, 27 July 2024 (UTC)"
- but what do you think about them? They clearly contradict MOS:DOCTCAPS, which elsewhere is treated as carved on tablets of stone, but are clearly normally capitalized. Johnbod (talk) 15:18, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My comment has less indentation than your comment above it did, so your quote seems to misrepresent that indenting. Examining the timestamps of the comments also shows that my comment was 45 minutes before yours, so it was not a reply to the comment about Renaissance and Impressionism; instead it was a reply to SMcCandlish's comment about MOS:DOCTCAPS, "schools of thought", and not being actual institution names. Since Renaissance and Impressionism are not part of this RM, I don't really want to spend time thinking about them now. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:16, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, those two seemed (when last I checked) to clearly and strongly meet the criterion of "consistently capitalized in sources", unlike the ones proposed for moving. The only real question here is which side of the line the Hudson River school falls on. I think we can infer from BarrelProof adding it that he thinks it does not meet the criterion for capping, and I agree with him on that; clearly Randy and some others such as you do not agree. Dicklyon (talk) 14:27, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
At the time I suggested to add Hudson River school, I didn't realize it was a less clear situation than the others, but the discussion since then has not convinced me that it needs to be treated differently (e.g. per your own analysis below). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 14:53, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello BarrelProof. Please study these ngrams which, to me, clearly show that the Hudson River School, uppercased, is the common and most recognizable name in English for this famous group of painters. They are not just another school from the depths of history, but the predominate artist affiliation in United States history. English Wikipedia, of all places, should allow this artistically renowned name to stay. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:40, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I may put a higher priority on trying to achieve uniformity in the class of "school" titles than some do, and I take some comfort in seeing the Grove Art Online and Britannica titles. I don't think lowercasing "school" makes the name any less recognizable, and Wikipedia isn't supposed to capitalize to indicate being "famous" or "predominate" or "renown"ed. In fact, I think the lowercase can be helpful to show which subjects are not the names of actual institutions. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:27, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, English Wikipedia is supposed to capitalize when the article title is a proper noun as well as the most recognizable form of the name in English. Adequate evidence has been presented here that Hudson River School, a school of thought, is a proper noun. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:38, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Please respect what I have to say without being so directly argumentative as to declare a flat 'No' to what I have to say. Feel free to say "I disagree", but the "No" was rude. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:40, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll strike the "No". Then back to my point. Please consider commenting directly about the linked n-gram which shows Hudson River School to be a proper name. Does "preferring uniformity" justify ignoring the proper name? Since proper names stand on their own merit, as in the linked n-gram, other considerations run counter to the factual stats. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:33, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know you're asking BarrelProof, but I'll repeat my answer anyway: your premise is flawed. The n-gram stats there do not "show Hudson River School to be a proper name". They show it's capitalized in sources about two-thirds of the time. What proper name is used in lowercase in books one-third of the time? You'd have to conclude that one-third of the books or authors are just wrong. We don't see such a thing with any proper names that I'm aware of. Dicklyon (talk) 01:35, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • To the closer..., if you haven't as yet please take a look at this n-gram for the Hudson River School. It refutes the attempts to lowercase it by an abundance of bias-to-lowercase language which confuses the fact that uppercasing is much more prevalent. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:49, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Leaning support, rather to my surprise. I must say I find it persuasive that a reference work as authoritative as the Grove Dictionary of Art follows the proposed style, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica does too. They still capitalise the initial letters of "Renaissance", "Impressionism" and "Abstract Expressionism" in running text, so no danger there. Their use of sentence case for schools of painting isn't the majority usage for the Hudson River School or the Pont-Aven School (though the latter case is fairly close, and not the "substantial majority" required by MOS:CAPS), and ngrams may be too blunt a tool to determine many of the others. But with Grove as a precedent, I don't mind applying our house style for these. I still think MOS:MOVEMENT is wrongheaded about the art movements which Grove capitalises (though I don't care too much about Arts and Crafts movement not having a capital M, which it has in Grove) – there is a need to differentiate Realism from realism, and so on. Ham II (talk) 09:13, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ham II, maybe take another look at the n-gram you link for Hudson River School. It shows over 80% uppercased. Compare it to the seemingly determinative n-gram I link in the post just above yours. Abstract expressionism, by the way, is lowercased on Wikipedia, countering Grove and our now poor second cousin, Britannica. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:38, 20 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I was saying that title case is in the majority for the Hudson River School. I chose Abstract Expressionism because Abstract Impressionism is one of the examples that came up above, but the latter doesn't have an article on either Grove or Britannica, and I didn't think to check our capitalisation. Perhaps Art Deco or Art Nouveau would have been better examples of two-word terms in title case on Wikipedia, in Grove and in Britannica. Ham II (talk) 07:32, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The tell-tale n-grams prove a strong case for uppercasing Hudson River School. Making an exception in this 'case' seems apt and preferable to ignoring standard casing. Then there's the historical significance of the thing: the Hudson River School is smack dab all over the history of art in the United States. Going against the n-grams for the sake of conformity would place a deliberate error into a major art subject on Wikipedia, thus not maintaining the project per WP:IAR and probably other alphabet choices. IAR should count here just to close this thing and keep Hudson River School while, sadly in some "cases", lowercasing the rest. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:37, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Preferring one rule over another rule is not ignoring all rules. Arguing to capitalise for importance (as I read from the comment above) would fall to MOS:SIGNIFCAPS - which we also don't do. Capitalisation of many such terms (ie a descriptor preceded by a proper name) is common in some fields for a term of art or to emphasise such a phrase. This is what is happening here and such terms are not (true) proper nouns for which capitalisation is necessary. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:03, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with the exception of Hudson River School and possibly Pont-Aven School. I'm slightly surprised that I find myself supporting this, but in most of these titles, "school" is a descriptor rather than a proper name of an institution. Similarly to Ham II, I find it a convincing argument that Encyclopedia Britannica and Grove Art Online already use sentence case for most of these. However, for Hudson River School, a majority of sources use the uppercase version of that name, indicating that it is a proper name despite not being an institution. (For the same reason, I can also see the argument for leaving "Pont-Aven School" uppercase.) Epicgenius (talk) 14:02, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some source data

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People don't seem to have been checking, so I'll help. Dicklyon (talk) 18:39, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Easy cases: n-gram stats for Bolognese, Pont-Aven, Cuzco, Sienese, Cologne show between 50% and 80% lowercase, nowhere close to our criteria for capping. And Lucchese school only shows up lowercase.

Here is a clearer view for the Cologne school of painting; very much lowercase. I'm not finding much on the music, other than the actual school Cologne School of Music, which is not the topic of Cologne School (music); the sources are mostly in German, which won't help, so I'd say just follow our guidelines.

Harder cases are where caps are common due to actual school names (Delft School of Design, Delft School of Microbiology, Boston School of <lots of things>, Norwich School of Art & Design, Quito School of Art, Quito School of Fine Arts, Volcano School of Arts & Sciences.

Oftentimes, the n-grams will resolve these, e.g. Quito School of Art, School of Fine Arts, vs school of painting and school of art. Norwich school of painters or painting, Delft school of painting, Boston school of painting.

It's hard to find sources on the Volcano School. The article's reference are thin and not very inaccessible. In a Google Books search, I see 2 capped and 1 lowercase in the first 10 hits, where the rest of the hits are on different topics. On the second page of 10, find 1 and 1. So it's hardly "consistently capitalized" in sources.

The Hudson River School downcasing has been particularly objected to, as it's more commonly capped in sources. Here are n-grams, showing it's hardly a slam-dunk in light of the criteria articulated in MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS, but I do see their point.

That's all of them. Users who have expressed opinions without data would do well to have another look. Dicklyon (talk) 18:58, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You are the one who launched this slap-dash nom bundling unrelated subjects without proper research. "School" is such a common word that Google searches including it have to be taken with a strong pinch of salt, even more than most N-grams. What strong recent RS can you produce lower casing it in Hudson River School or Sienese school? A normal google search on the latter shows pages of very reputable pages from museums, art historians & auction houses capitalizing it, while those that don't are on linked-in, instagram etc. Johnbod (talk) 21:54, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I actually did check all that I listed before I did this RM. I just didn't post all the complicated evidence, figuring people would look for themselves in any case. Nothing slap-dash about it. And yes the common uses of "school" make it non-trivial, which I why I detailed my finding with links above. For Sienese school, check out recent books: 2023, 2013, 2021, for example. The Hudson River one is harder, admittedly. Here's one from 2005, and one from 2009 (and that wasn't part of my nom, recall). Dicklyon (talk) 23:17, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That "2023" result is a reprint of a book of 1855, the "2013" one is a reprint of one of 1923 and "2021" is a reprint from 1902! I wonder if all ngrams for "[Italian city] school" are scrambled and give an artificial boost to an antiquated turn of phrase. "Sienese painting" appears more in recent book titles, whereas book titles with "Sienese school" skew earlier. Ham II (talk) 08:42, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good point! Then we'll probably want to follow up with an RM to move to XXX paining instead of S/school, whichever way this RM goes. Dicklyon (talk) 14:08, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But it was you who accepted Hudson River School as part of your nomination, lumping it in with the questionable ones. Trying to "take out" a prominent uppercasing by mixing it in with obvious lowercasings? Not a practice that should be done on Wikipedia. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:20, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I said "feel free" without checking to see if I would have proposed it myself. That was not smart. It's fine if you and others oppose that one, but that's not a reason to oppose the ones that are more often lowercase in sources (like the Hudson River school was 50 years ago, but no longer). Dicklyon (talk) 03:30, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And yet you allow Hudson River School to stay in your nom knowing that editors 'support' the entire list. You pretty much admit here and elsewhere that Hudson River School has the n-gram and source evidence to uppercase but you still allow it to be lumped in with obvious lowercasings. What, do you hope it will slip through and be lowercased along with the others and, if so, why? Randy Kryn (talk) 08:51, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's not quite a correct characterization of my position. I agree that one has the weakest case, yet it's still not "consistently capitalized in sources" and I'd still downcase it for consistency with guidelines. It's not one I'd fight for, but others have supported it, so we'll see. I expect that with the explicit opposition to that one, a closer would treat it as the exception. Dicklyon (talk) 14:04, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here's how some other reference works treat the capitalisation of these names:

Ham II (talk) 20:05, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting. The Britannica and Grove Art seem closest to WP style, though in some other cases Britannica caps more than we do. Dicklyon (talk) 20:56, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also note that sometimes the use in sentences is lowercase when you've listed the title-case title, as in "...reputation of the Bolognese school remained high..." in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. Some others do not have the term in sentences, so provide no info on whether they would treat it as proper name. Altogether, you've shown considerably more lowercase than uppercase treatment in sentence context, which is what matters here. Thanks. Dicklyon (talk) 21:10, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
After the above comments, Ham II added to Getty entry. This one also has no uses in sentences, so provides no information on whether they would treat some as proper names. The closest it comes is using "the school" in reference to the Hudson River school. Dicklyon (talk) 15:18, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The capitalisation of terms in (the Getty's) AAT is how it would recommend they appear in running text, e.g. egg tempera, Tynecastle canvas, Renaissance. http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300379047 gives "Hudson River School" as the "preferred" form, but also gives "Hudson River school". Ham II (talk) 15:44, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. Since they recognize that there's a style choice to be made, and that lowercase school is acceptable, we can take that as supporting the observation that the term Hudson River school is not consistently capitalized in sources, which is the criterion in our guideline. Dicklyon (talk) 23:21, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

More sources again, all of them style guides (from User:Sparkit/capitalization, with slight updating):

  • Association of Art Editors Style Guide (2017): "Hudson River school" (the only term in this nomination which the style guide covers); "Ashcan school/Ashcan School"; "New York school/New York School"; "school (New York school)/School (Paris School)"; "school of Leonardo".
    (The penultimate entry quoted here seems to be intended as the general entry for all terms which include the word "school": it gives both forms, but lowercase first. It's hard to see why this style guide considers "Hudson River school" to be a different case from "Ashcan school/Ashcan School" and "New York school/New York School".)
  • New Hart's Rules: "Capitalize the names of institutions, organizations, societies, movements, and groups"... e.g. "the Ashcan School"... "The tendency otherwise is to use lower case unless it is important to distinguish a specific from a general meaning"... "Classicists... will often capitalize Classical to define, say, sculpture in the fifth century BC as opposed to that of the Hellenistic era" (p. 92).
    (As this is Oxford University Press's style guide, it must explain the choices in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms and The Oxford Companion to Western Art above. Grove only joined the OUP stable in 2003, and doesn't seem to have had its style changed to conform with Hart's Rules.)
  • The Guardian and Observer Style Guide: "art movements "art movements are generally lowercase, eg art deco, art nouveau, cubism, dadaism, expressionism, gothic, impressionism, pop art, surrealism, etc, but note Bauhaus, Modern (in the sense of Modern British, to distinguish it from "modern art", pre-Raphaelite, Romantic (to differentiate between a romantic painting and a Romantic painting)".

Ham II (talk) 16:29, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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.
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