Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:G. W. Fasel - Charles G. Crehen - Nagel & Weingaertner - Martyrdom of Joseph and Hiram Smith in Carthage jail, June 27th, 1844.jpg

Martyrdom of Joseph and Hiram Smith in Carthage Jail, June 27th, 1844[edit]

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 4 Aug 2010 at 16:52:42 (UTC)

Reason: A rather fine example of Mormon religious art, dedicated to one of the most important followers. It's a somewhat unusual lithograph in that it mixes one colour and black. I believe that the result should be the intended effect, after reviewing some other engravings, but it's possible that it's intended to be more saturated than I presumed.
Articles in which this image appears: Joseph Smith, Jr., Anti-Mormonism, Life of Joseph Smith, Jr. from 1839 to 1844, Death of Joseph Smith, Jr., List of sects in the Latter Day Saint movement [N.B. I've set up a bot to auto-replace a very low-res version of this image with the full-res. It may be a couple hours before that finishes]
FP category for this image: Arguable, Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Culture,_entertainment,_and_lifestyle/Culture is the normal place for religion, but it could also go under history or people.
Creator: G. W. Fasel and Charles G. Crehen; published by Nagel & Weingaertner.

Support as nominator --Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 16:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Very nice image, with the second tone of the lithograph beautifully shown. I would put it in history, as very few Latter Day Saints will have ever seen this interesting print. Cool Hand Luke 17:54, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. An excellent restoration. Extremely high resolution and good EV. Kaldari (talk) 20:03, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Heh. Yeah, about that resolution: It was so big, that it took three hours to do the crop, rotate, and colour adjustment. Ground my system to a halt, and I have a reasonably good computer. Mind you, I also spent three hours cleaning up the blank border surrounding the image - and maybe an hour or two on the image itself. Annoyingly, that's often the way, because every slight smudge shows on blank paper, but most are completely invisible when there's texture and patterns. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 20:06, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: There is considerable confusion in our articles about the actual death. Our article on Smith says "Later that day, an armed group with blackened faces stormed the jail and killed Hyrum instantly with a shot to the face.[308] Smith fought back with a pepper-box pistol that had been smuggled into the prison[309] but was shot while jumping from a window, then shot and killed as he lay on the ground.[310]". As such, this image's use there is a little confusing, as it does not appear to illustrate any part of that. Our article on the death has a longer description, and, one would assume, this picture illustrates the line "Daniels' account also states that one man tried to decapitate Smith for a bounty, but was prevented by divine intervention." (If so, the caption in the article could use some work.) (On an unrelated note, the article spells it "Hyram".) Basically, what I'm saying is we need some work/clarification on the articles so that the EV can be accurately judged. (Concerning other issues, the quality is great, and this belongs in history, to my eyes.) J Milburn (talk) 22:24, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Traditionally, article problems have not been an obstacle to images, if the images are notable. This was roughly contemporary to the event (a few years later), so I'd presume reasonable accuracy (at least to the LDS account), save that this has clearly been sanitized a bit, suitable to its purpose as a religious image: there's rather less blood than one would expect, for instance, and some of the posing seems based on traditional religious iconography (compare Smith to the Pietà, for instance.) Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 03:02, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, actually, they have. For instance, an article not existing, or the image illustrating something that is not in the article. Images can only be judged EV-wise in the context of the article. We can't just assume it would have EV if the article was better. J Milburn (talk) 09:59, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As such, unless it becomes clear what this image is actually showing, and what its value is, (and the article(s) and/or caption(s) is/are updated to reflect this) I don't see how we can promote it. J Milburn (talk) 10:01, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The image clearly shows the traditional account that one of the members of the mob was prevented from decapitating him. As for the name, it is spelled "Hyrum," but the lithograph uses a variant spelling. I don't think that's uncommon in 19th century printing, and I cannot fathom why it would disqualify the image. I agree that it probably shouldn't be used in Joseph Smith, Jr. (that article is quite long and its sensible that it doesn't cover the traditional but poorly-documented details of his death in great depth). Cool Hand Luke 16:52, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The spelling issue was any kind of opposition, it was a note. I'd feel more comfortable about this if the caption was updated in the article. However, I do have other thoughts- who's the chap in the top hat? J Milburn (talk) 17:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that the image captions in the articles definitely need some work. Kaldari (talk) 20:46, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. The traditional account is that it was a blinding light or lightening that stopped the beheading, so I thought that maybe he is an angel. But that seems unlikely to me—why not incorporate any of the hallmarks of angels? See this book, p. 276, where this lithograph is discussed. The author calls the person only a "dramatic figure." This seems to be a well-researched treatise, so there may be no authoritative answer here (on the other hand, the author also assumes that the figures are in black face, as they were historically, but in this print they seem to be wearing masks). The figure may have been the artist's own invention. See also that caption that the LOC give it here. Again, no explanation for the figure or how the beheading was "thwarted." Cool Hand Luke 21:54, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support —P. S. Burton (talk) 07:58, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- George Chernilevsky ^talk 10:49, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per my concerns about EV above. J Milburn (talk) 23:02, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Make that strong. I've got to say that the use of this image in some cases actually causes a great amount of confusion. Our criteria say that images need to help "readers to understand an article"- I'm not seeing how this does that. J Milburn (talk) 16:16, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:G. W. Fasel - Charles G. Crehen - Nagel & Weingaertner - Martyrdom of Joseph and Hiram Smith in Carthage jail, June 27th, 1844.jpg --Makeemlighter (talk) 21:36, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]