Wikipedia talk:GLAM/Wikidata art terms

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Missing[edit]

No entries for Statue, Bust, or Maquette? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:18, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is a lot more missing, but yes to all of those. Feel free to add items, properties, or pictures (probably best to add them on the Wikidata page). Sandra even added a whole column there for series (series of murals/paintings/frescoes) but I thought that is an extra dimension that goes too far. A few years back I worked on the List of artists in the Philadelphia Museum of Art handbook of the collections just out of curiosity how far I could fill in the index. We do well with painters and sculptors, but other decorative arts, unknown artists from Egyptian or Asian dynasties not so much. Jane (talk) 22:21, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

What other vocabularies are you looking at? There are several, that the museum world has been working on for years (without much success in synchronizing them). This clearly hasn't had input from professionals, which it needs, after comparing with public vocabularies, such as the Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus, one of the Getty Vocabularies. They also have an online book on this very tricky subject. The Library of Congress Thesaurus for Graphic Materials is another source, though mostly about subject matter. CAMEO: Conservation & Art Materials Encyclopedia Online, wiki-based from MFA Boston, is very reputable.

The British Museum database is maddening to use, but hitting the red "?" next to terms pulls up "scope notes" like: "drawing (Scope note): The Department of Prints and Drawings uses the term 'drawing' rather than 'painting' for watercolours. In the context of Ice Age Art, drawings are engraved into bone, antler, ivory or stone supports." and "drawn (Scope note): This term is a generic term used in the BM to cover all methods of hand-drawing on paper. In the Western tradition; it includes watercolour, pen and ink, and graphite. In the Indian tradition, the Technique 'drawn' and the Object Name 'drawing' are used for works in graphite, charcoal and pen and ink. The Technique term 'painted' and the Object Name 'painting' are used for works which include watercolours and gouache". These notes can be in turn very helpful, or very confusing.

Quick Comments:

  • Painting - ideally a head-term to be sub-divided by technique? You have watercolours but not oil paintings. If you mean oil paintings, say so. Most schemes divide by support/matrix - panel, canvas and several others. Tempera, encaustic?
  • Illumination - not a term much used for individual objects. "Miniature" for larger pics, but that does exclude non-figurative decoration. Probably best to use "manuscript" before all terms: manuscript illumination/miniature, manuscript illumination technique, manuscript illuminator. What about scribe? Terms for non-European manuscripts are different.
  • You need "paper" and "membrane", which they now prefer to "vellum" or "parchment". In general materials are poorly covered here.
  • Mural - what is a "mural" actually? Frescos, yes, but do oil on canvas paintings designed to be mounted on walls count?
  • "copper engraving" this is not a valid term in English - they are "engravings" (and engravers). Unfortunately engraving is often used in several languages as a loose term for all prints - most things identified as engravings on Commons aren't in fact engravings. Plus many types of prints routinely combined techniques. Equally "chalcography" is not a proper term in English.
  • "woodcut print" -- should just be woodcut. "woodcutter" is not a word used in English, nor is "xylography" (valid in French version). There are "woodcut artists" or designers, and the "blockcutters" ("formschneider" in German) like Jost de Negker, who just cut them, and rarely designed (and few artists actually cut their own blocks, though Durer could).
  • "camaieu techniquec" is not an English term - French etc. Just use "chiaroscuro woodcut".
  • "wood engraving print" - use just "wood engraving", and "wood engraver" is a term.
  • "pastel" - very complicated. Pastel is not much used by museum descriptions, which prefer gouache or "bodycolour" or other terms. But see these on CAMEO.
  • Relief, bas-relief, high-relief - I'd advise against trying to distinguish between these, certainly dropping high-relief. Don't use the French terms certainly, this isn't 1750. Low, mid, high, if you must. Many works vary their depth, and definitions vary.
  • "commemorative plaque" - huh? "plaque" ok, and also the different plaquette.

This needs a lot of work, and I'd strongly oppose changing anything on en:wp using this. Johnbod (talk) 15:32, 18 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nice to see you here Johnbod! To quickly reassure you about the Wikipedia side of things: this has nothing to do with adding content on Wikipedia, unless it's about adding content to this page or the individual items. What you see is nothing more nor less than a quick roundup of items and their current labels and how these relate to each other. It would be nice to illustrate these on Wikidata, because there are still very few labels on some of these, and a picture says a 1000 words while the label&description is about two tweets. Jane (talk) 15:45, 18 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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