Talk:Baroque sculpture

Cleanup, Additions, and citations

Dear fellow editors: I am doing some cleanup and additions on this article; and adding citations. I have reduced the first section on the Italians somewhat, putting the emphasis on individual sculptors rather than on the Popes, and adding citations and images of their work. I intend to add text and images to the other sections, by country, and adding citations, so it represents a European view, not just Italy. Suggestions and comments are of course very welcome. SiefkinDR (talk) 12:56, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm slightly concerned by what you say, and what you have done, though of course the article badly needs improvement. You tend, unfortunately, to use French sources, which tend to give undue emphasis (for a global audience) to French works. Imo there should be more on Italy than any other country, and also more on English sculptors than French sources are likely to provide. The current version doesn't even have a list of names section on Britain. The reigns of the Popes in this period work fairly well as general period markers in art, just as those of French or English monarchs do. You have removed a vast amount of stuff - you should really take the old article, slightly trimmed, and re-establish it as Roman or Italian Baroque sculpture. I know there weren't many cites before, but you have made an undiscussed change to the citation style (and to the widely disliked sfn style) in breach of WP:CITEVAR. Johnbod (talk) 14:56, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your comments. I do usually use a lot of French sources, because that's where I am, and they have very good libraries and bookstores, especially for books on art and sculpture However, in this case my main source is German (in French translation), the Geese article on sculpture in the book on Baroque art published by Ullmann. And I use English sources whenever I can find them. I'd be very glad to include more information about English Baroque sculptors, I just don't have sources.

I can return the old article on Baroque sculpture as a separate article on Italian Baroque sculpture, as you suggest, but for my taste it talks too much about the politics of art and not enough about the sculpture itself. It also would need some footnotes and inline sources; it currently doesn't have anything. But before I get to that I would like to add sections for the other countries with sources and footnotes to the Baroque sculpture article.

As to footnotes, I didn't know that the SFN footnotes were "widely disliked". Why? I've been using them for years, when there are a lot of footnotes from a single source. Is there a better way to do it? If so, I'm glad to try it.

Thanks again for your comments. It's nice to know that somebody reads these articles. I welcome your further critiques and suggestions. SiefkinDR (talk) 18:39, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Just on the sfn - they are very widely loathed, although I admit many people like them. This is partly because even the system's supporters admit they are complicated and hard to learn, so other editors will not be able to add to them. I for one would not know how to use them. The system I use (which you have just over-written - I added all the 4 refs the article had) is incredibly simple and in particular copes far better with multiple sources for the same passage, which is what a proper article on a major topic like this needs. I am alarmed that you seem to be saying that your sources don't have anything on English sculpture - if so you really need better ones. The huge number of books online from the Metropolitan Museum of Art probably have several relevant ones. Whinney, Margaret (revised by John Physick), Sculpture in Britain: 1530-1830, 1988 (2nd edn.), Pelican History of Art (now Yale), Penguin, ISBN 0140561234 is the sort of book a good library should have. Johnbod (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Sfns are loathed? They seem pretty harmless to me, and allow you to repeat the same source without a long cite each time, and there's no reason I can see they prevent the use of multiple sources for the same text. I'm sorry I took out the sources you removed; I can put them back in. I'll look for sources on English baroque sculpture. I'll also take a look for online books from the Metropolitan Museum. In the meanwhile I would like to continue the article on Baroque sculpture with the sources I have, with sections on the different national styles of approximately the same size, with links to the Ullmann book and any other relevant sources I can find. If you prefer, I'll not use the SFN and will give the full citation each time. Best regards, SiefkinDR (talk) 09:12, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, loathed - see various discussions at FAC talk over the years for example. As I understand the system, multiple sources either need multiple citations each time, or a customized one each time. There's no need to give a "full citation" - just put the source in refs, & do a no-template name & page in the ref. All forms of citation templates are much more trouble than they are worth, at least imo. Johnbod (talk) 18:00, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

One source

As much appreciated as SiefkinDR's editing of this article is, it relies - as he himself says - heavily on the populist Ullmann publication which is a Coffee table book based around a multitude of images with a little text around it. As is necessary for authors of a book of this type, the text simplifies matters considerably and leaves out a lot.

The original Italian section of this article was, for all its flaws in language, based on Bruce Boucher's book on Italian baroque sculpture. While also produced for a mass market by Thames and Hudson (in its series World of Art), it is not a coffee table book, and its main focus is the text while the images (mostly black and white) are used to illustrate the author's argument. It is very thoroughly researched. I can personally vouch for this as Boucher has quizzed me endlessly on my specialist knowlege (in this instance Melchiorre Cafà and Pierre Le Gros the Younger - two names which, by the way, don't figure in the current version of this Wikipedia entry, but should), and I'm sure he has done so with many other specialists.

As has already been suggested below with regards to English sculpture, the relevant volumes of the Pelican History of Art series would be an excellent starting point for improving this article. Although some of them were first published way back in the 1940s, the standard of their scholarship is so high that some have seen numerous new revised editions. Some, as Rudolf Wittkower's Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750 (first published in 1958, the latest Italian edition of it is from 2018!), are still the go to book for a quick reference (or a long read if the mood takes you).

Italy, in particular, has numerous very serious survey books about various epochs and even epochs in individual regions such as La scultura del Seicento by Antonia Nava Cellini (1982), so, if you can read Italian, go for it. You can dig even deeper with absolute unsurpassed classics like Klaus Lankheit's Florentinische Barockplastik (1962) if you can read German. Jennifer Montagu's Roman Baroque Sculpture (1989) is an interesting read although, as the subtitle The Industry of Art suggests, looks at it from a specific angle.

There is a multitude of serious publications out there. Look at the gorgeous photos in your Taschen, Könemann, Ullmann etc. heavyweights, don't necessarily rely on their text. Gerbis (talk) 14:13, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Sound advice! Johnbod (talk) 15:22, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Huhihiha

Huhihiha 2A02:A318:8244:D180:44A2:E87F:BB8D:518F (talk) 13:54, 18 May 2022 (UTC)