Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/William Simpson - Attack on the Malakoff

Attack on the Malakoff

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 31 Aug 2010 at 00:42:09 (UTC)

Original - Attack on the Malakoff by William Simpson, part of the Siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War.

Reason

A fine lithograph by William Simpson; in addition, it being published very soon after the battle gives it extra value according to the historical method.

Articles in which this image appears

Battle of Malakoff, Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855)

FP category for this image

Wikipedia:Featured pictures/History/War.

Creator

William Simpson (artist)

• Support as nominator - Oh, by the way, there's an interesting optical illusion used here. Have a look at the flag. --Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 00:42, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
  • Not seeing the illusion - any chance of explaining it? Thanks. gazhiley.co.uk 15:29, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
• Info Large image viewer - Original scan.
• Oppose FPCs should be eye-catching (for eliciting a reaction to either click the article or click the image) as a regular-size thumb at the placed size in the article. This one, while fine when zoomed, has uninspiring, non-eye-catching color (or lack thereof) and too-small details. Greg L (talk) 20:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
  • If you mean 220 px wide, that's not true and has never been true of FPs, particularly landscape-oriented ones. This is a lithograph from a famous series by a famous artist, and you're trying to claim that if it doesn't look good at some arbitrary and tiny thumbnail size, nothing can ever be an FP? That's horse pocky. Works out to saying that nothing but the blandest, single-subject images can ever be FPs. Battle scenes? Throw 'em out. (as you are). Engravings? They're black and white. Throw 'em out. That's stupid nonsense.
  • I mean, seriously, this is a lithograph by one of the masters of using such to document historic events. It's contemporary to the image. It contains a visually striking use of colour. UYou object that if you shrink an large lithograph to under 2 inches wide on most monitors, that it loses detail. no freaking duh. And that's why we don't use very large landscape-oriented images at 220px in articles. Because that would be stupid. We put them at a larger, more reasonable size, and always have done.
  • Don't make up your own bullshit rules which have nothing to do with either how things are used in articles, nor the image itself, nor FP requirements. Further, we promote panoramas all the time, meaning that this is evidently a rule only to be used when looking at historic media. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 22:52, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Well, I’ll meet your “Bull shit” and raise you a “Hog wash.” There’s no point getting into a lather because it won’t change my opinion if the lather isn’t accompanied by logic. Sorry. An important FPC criteria is that pictures should be “eye-catching to the point where users will want to read its accompanying article.” In my opinion, this image on the Main Page as a Featured Picture would not be eye-catching. Why? Because, as I stated above, it is busy with small detail. Certainly, it is reasonably interesting if one has already clicked on it and is inspecting the zoomed version, but it I do not find it sufficiently “eye-catching” as the thumb to induce readers to want to inspect the image up close. So, you do find that this image would be eye-catching as a Featured Picture on the Main Page; I don’t. Sorry. Greg L (talk) 03:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
    • Right. You don't like the way every single war documentation painting or lithograph looks: busy, with small figures. Got it. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 13:44, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support. I find this eye-catching. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 23:14, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
• Question Are the colors correct? The sky seems purplish. --I'ḏ♥One 23:44, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Two answers:

1. Should be. I was very careful about that,a nd you can certainly csee it in the uncorrected scan (File:William_Simpson_-_Attack_on_the_Malakoff_original.jpg as well, despite the yellow cast created by poor colour settings (Luckily, the LoC makes sure to include something white in their scans (almost all the time, anyway) which allows correction to be done with reasonably high accuracy, if you use it, and you can then decide whether to deal with the paper aging itself or not (Here, since it was pretty close anyway, I did.)
2. William Simpson worked as an on-the-spot reporter, and interviewed heavily for more information, and hence can be considered fairly accurate. However, he was also working for a newspaper at a time when every single colour used required a different plate, and hence his use of colours aren't exactly realistic, but instead use a limited pallet to allow lithography to be done with a reasonable number of plates. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:52, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support Made me interested enough to read the corresponding article. I'm thinking of starting an article called The Crimean War in Art and Literature, seeing as wee both has Tolstoy's Sebastopol Sketches, Russell's dispatches, as well as several good illustrations. P. S. Burton (talk) 20:04, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
  • There's been a whisper that there might be a corresponding FP category at some point. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 19:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support: "Busy with small detail"? The sweep up the hill to the bravely erected flag and the dramatic sky does it for me. It looks good, is interesting, thumbnail or otherwise, and EV is fine. Maedin\^talk 18:21, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support per Maedin. Mostlyharmless (talk) 10:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
• Support per Maedin. --Avenue (talk) 23:14, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Promoted File:William Simpson - Attack on the Malakoff.jpg --Makeemlighter (talk) 00:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)