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The Dutch version of this page had a fantasy portrait as lead image. But Slive and other experts all say there is no portrait known of Jacob. On Wiki Commons there are these 2 fantasy portraits. There's also in the Louvre a marble statue of Jacob made by Louis-Denis Caillouette, although there is no public domain image as far as I can tell. It seems wrong to use any of these images as lead image, or in fact anywhere in the article. I fear most people will not read any caption and think it is real portrait. I have stated in the Life section that there is no portrait.
The best image available for the lead therefore is of one of his famous paintings. Edwininlondon ( talk) 20:22, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
I would like to get Ruisdael featured as Today's Featured article on the Main Page. Is anyone else interested in helping improve the quality of this article? First to Good Article status, then on to Featured Article status. I have a few books on him, including a Dutch one (I speak Dutch).
I don't want to offend anybody who has done so much already to get the article to where it is today. I'm happy to support rather than lead. Let me know. Edwininlondon ( talk) 06:25, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for your efforts! So it's a bit backwards completing his oeuvre without the main catalog, but there is so much online I think we can safely get about a third or maybe even half of these. His paintings are indexed by practically everybody who is anybody in the fine arts. I also created c:Jacob van Ruisdael exhibition 2005-2006, and will make a "2001 in progress soon". Yes please upload all of his drawings you can get your hands on. Though they may or may not have made it into the Slive 2001 catalog, generally these were models for lots of 19th-century copies, so it would be nice to get as many as possible. Are you comfortable on Commons? It's a pain using the default uploader. Generally I use a recent upload as a template and then copy/paste it into the old uploader here, using the previous upload data as a template. For a drawing I would use one like this one as a model to start with. The important thing is to make sure whatever template you use is suitable for international use. Jane ( talk) 06:51, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks! Oddly, we already had one of those, but it couldn't be traced back to the original location because the source links are dead. If your book references any other catalogs you can include those in the descriptions as well. Jane ( talk) 14:49, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
Is the remark "(or Ruysdael)" helpful? I thought Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael's surname is conventionally spelt with an "i" precisely to distinguish him from his painter relatives, especially his equally famous uncle Salomon van Ruysdael. Frans Fowler ( talk) 19:13, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
The lead section should be a short overview of what is to come. I think it should mention the other members of the family and the places he is documented to live and work. Slive claims that attributions are tricky among members of the family. Most attributions of drawings are based on old mentions in early collections. Not all works are signed and dated. Therefore, saying he was prolific is enough (every 17th-century painter who made more than 100 works identifiable today was prolific). I would delete any numbers unless attributed to a specific catalog (which one is leading?). There is probably well over a thousand paintings attributed to Ruisdael and that is just what is hanging in museums. His works are also actively sold on the open market. Various historians have tried to catalog them, but there is no forensic project along the lines of the Rembrandt Research Project, so I think it is wrong to be specific in the lead. There is also no need to mention his quality as opposed to other members of the family, because we honestly don't know. I also wouldn't mention his best known works, as these differ per country. Pictures of the top works should be included at the bottom and probably these should have articles so you can blue link them in text outside the lead. His windmill is famous in the Netherlands, but his view of Haarlem is more famous in German-speaking countries, and elsewhere he is known for his seascapes. Also, his influences on later painters was huge, and way more than just the three Englishmen you mention. He is considered the most important member of the "Haarlem Landscape School of painting" which never existed, but which is used to pinpoint a group of paintings that have retained their value over the centuries, not all of which can be attributed to a specific painter, but which can be attributed to a specific style (twisted trees, windmills, waterfalls, dunescapes, seascapes, winter landscapes, and panoramas, all with and without figures painted in by others) Jane ( talk) 06:40, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for that. My comments below:
Slive claims that attributions are tricky among members of the family. Most attributions of drawings are based on old mentions in early collections. Not all works are signed and dated. Therefore, saying he was prolific is enough (every 17th-century painter who made more than 100 works identifiable today was prolific). I would delete any numbers unless attributed to a specific catalog (which one is leading?). There is probably well over a thousand paintings attributed to Ruisdael and that is just what is hanging in museums. His works are also actively sold on the open market. Various historians have tried to catalog them, but there is no forensic project along the lines of the Rembrandt Research Project, so I think it is wrong to be specific in the lead.
There is also no need to mention his quality as opposed to other members of the family, because we honestly don't know.
I also wouldn't mention his best known works, as these differ per country. Pictures of the top works should be included at the bottom and probably these should have articles so you can blue link them in text outside the lead. His windmill is famous in the Netherlands, but his view of Haarlem is more famous in German-speaking countries, and elsewhere he is known for his seascapes.
Also, his influences on later painters was huge, and way more than just the three Englishmen you mention. He is considered the most important member of the "Haarlem Landscape School of painting" which never existed, but which is used to pinpoint a group of paintings that have retained their value over the centuries, not all of which can be attributed to a specific painter, but which can be attributed to a specific style (twisted trees, windmills, waterfalls, dunescapes, seascapes, winter landscapes, and panoramas, all with and without figures painted in by others)
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Reviewer: Chiswick Chap ( talk · contribs) 16:08, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
I'll take this one.
Chiswick Chap (
talk)
16:08, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Rate | Attribute | Review Comment |
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1. Well-written: | ||
1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. | Prose: ok. Copyright: ok. Spelling: ok. Grammar: ok. | |
1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. | lead: ok. layout: ok. weasel: ok. Fiction: n/a. Lists: none. | |
2. Verifiable with no original research: | ||
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. | ||
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). | ||
2c. it contains no original research. | ||
3. Broad in its coverage: | ||
3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. | ||
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). | ||
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. | ||
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. | ||
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio: | ||
6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. | ||
6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. | Relevance: ok. Captions: ok. | |
7. Overall assessment. | This is a fine and interesting article, comprehensive and elegantly cited, and beautiful as well. Good work! Chiswick Chap ( talk) 13:38, 10 October 2015 (UTC) |
Thanks ever so much for your elaborate review. I will address the various points as quickly as possible. @Jane023 has already started on the images. Edwininlondon ( talk) 18:07, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
This seems a fine article, and given the subject, a large number of images seems to me entirely acceptable (whatever the folks at FAC may say). The images ought all to be roughly the same size, so if they are in portrait format you should use the "|upright" parameter.
The same goes for the section named "Gallery", which is generally deprecated (and has a double meaning in a painter's case, somewhat misleadingly). Perhaps it should be named "Example works" or something similar. (Ok, that degree of automation is some kind of a solution: but it consumes a lot of space, and now it's the portrait-shaped images that appear larger than landscape ones.)
In addition, I don't see why long low images should appear much larger in the "galleries" than tall narrow ones - there is a large disparity in surface area which is basically unjustifiable. I'd request therefore that you format the images in the "Life" section like those in the "Legacy" section (though you could use "|nolines" to avoid the frames in both cases, actually). The images in the "Gallery" section should be formatted the same way, whichever way that is, as should their captions (there seems no imaginable justification for having three galleries all formatted differently).
Could the dates of paintings be added to all the captions which don't yet have them, please.
Apart from these very minor comments, there looks to be very little wrong with the article. I'll have a careful look for specific issues, however.
It's a bit startling to see the spelling of the surname change in the second paragraph of the lead before any other family members are introduced. Perhaps this particular place should have "Ruisdael" (or, "Ruisdael's family", to avoid the problem), and then the variations in the spelling should be introduced. If you don't want to do that, then the sentence could avoid using the name altogether, and introduce the members and their varying surnames first.
Reference 6, "Jacob van Ruisdael in the RKD" is not in canonical form (and is not verifiable except by walking around the entire RKD site). Is there not an RKD web page you could link to?
Chiswick Chap (
talk)
16:19, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Reference 51 should have the article's date (Feb 26, 2006).
Why are the artists in the captions to the images in Life named only as forenames or surnames, and not wikilinked? It would be kinder for non-expert readers who may start with the images to give all these names in full and to link each name in the first caption in which it appears. This is not overlinking as you may link the first occurrence of a term in the lead, the text, and the captions, i.e. up to three times in all, before overlinking is even considered to have occurred: and even then it can be justified in special cases.
"Admitted as a member": is this usual? "Admitted to membership" feels more comfortable. Or simply "became a member", indeed.
"But despite his numerous..."; "But Slive concludes..." - perhaps not ideal to begin a sentence like this.
"The first panoramic landscape of his hand": perhaps "... from his hand" would be more usual, while "His first panoramic landscape" would be simpler and arguably more encyclopaedic. There's also "from his brush": perhaps these elegant variations would best be avoided.
The image View of Naarden, 1647 is rather low, making the area of the image very small. I'd suggest widening the image a little, perhaps with "|upright=1.2" if you're comfortable with that, to make the image area roughly the same as the other images near it. It's a gorgeous image, by the way, that is utterly lost in postage-stamp format. If we were feeling bold we'd recommend making it a "
wide image".
"recalls the elegiac tenor of the Virgilian pastoral": well, yes, but this is getting a little bit flowery for a global encyclopaedia. Perhaps this had better be toned down.
"a way to explore a search": explore and search are rather too similar here. Perhaps "a way to hint at a search". I'll leave it to you to consider whether "unambiguous epistemology" is really necessary for our readers.
"in which he later was buried.": presumably after his death. Perhaps "in which he would one day be buried."
"Modern day critics rate Ruisdael still highly." Reword.
"A first account, in 1718, is from Houbaken": Houbaken who? And shouldn't it be Houbraken anyway?
Legacy: Constable: should be spelt out with forename and wikilinked on first usage, as indeed should Gainsborough, Turner and anyone else.
Footnote "Landscape with Hut of 1646 is one example of which, after careful study, it currently is assumed Ruisdael did the figures himself." could be better worded.
Thanks again for all your improvements. I really appreciate your experienced view. If there are any more details to fix, let me know. Edwininlondon ( talk) 20:52, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Some thoughts on the images in this article:
– Editør ( talk) 13:09, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
It is wonderful to see a featured article on one of the old masters. Never thought it'd happen again – I mean, look at Hieronymus Bosch, who's so much more popular than Ruisdael! My compliments and congratulations to all involved – a great effort, and a noble one, drawing attention to a painter who I think is very underrated and somewhat neglected.
That said, is there a specific reason for such terrible images used througout the article? Perhaps a license issue? Examples include practically all of the images in the article. I'm sorry if the word "terrible" is too strong, but they really are... To be more specific:
And finally, I wonder why the above question about drawings wasn't answered? We don't have too many drawings at Commons, but this is a decent enough picture, and this one is even better. And of course at least one etching should make it into the article, as Ruisdael's incredibly detailed etchings are very much worth explporing - unfortunately we only have this image at Commons, but it would work better than nothing. (There is a larger image of another etching, but it is an earlier work, not entirely characteristic of Ruisdael's other etchings.)
I'd replace all of those images myself, but since they were all bad, I suspected a license issue with museum images and decided to take the question here first.
I'm very glad that two images – at least – have been replaced with much better versions. I'd love to see more discussion on the rest of them, though, and maybe thoughts on adding a gallery of good quality pictures, as Johnbod suggested? I've also located a large image of Dune Landscape at the new Hermitage website: the image is here (or, if the link doesn't work, it is possible to save one from here). Having been to Hermitage a few times, I can vouch for the image. It is still a bad choice for the article, I think, because the Hermitage is notorious these days for having very, very few restoration jobs done, and neither this, nor any other of the Ruisdaels had any work done on them. The yellow you see isn't the painting, of course – only the very old layer of varnish. -- Jashiin ( talk) 19:12, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
The article reads: "Jacob's earliest biographer, Arnold Houbraken, called him Jakob Ruisdaal, and claimed the name resulted from his specialty in waterfalls, namely the "ruis" (rustling noise of water) falling into a "daal" (dale) where it foams out into a pond or wider river." Source is Arnold Houbraken (1718) De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, p. 65 here. The source writes about the part 'Ruis' in the family name: waar op zyn naam schynt te zinspeelen, translated: on which his name seems to be hinted. So, Houbraken isn't sure. He claims nothing! Furthermore: he doesn't mention waterfalls. He only mentions the noise which is made when water falls on rocks. He writes: "eindelyk met geruis (...) in en door de dalen, of laagtens zig verspreid: en wist de sprenkelingen, of het schuimende water door het geweldig geklets op de rotsen," Ruisdaal only started to paint waterfalls (mainly small rapids) since 1659. The family name was changed much earlier by his father and uncle, not by Jacob van Ruisdael. It is avowed that the origin of the family name is a castle's name, not waterfalls which actually don't exist in Holland. I write this to explain why I deleted the sentence about the non-existent claim of Houbraken. Happytravels ( talk) 04:24, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
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During most of the article's history it used "Ruisdael" to refer to the artist. In the last year, "van Ruisdael" has been used. While it is true that following Dutch rules, the surname is "van Ruisdael", all English language sources used in the article today (Slive, Walford, etc.) just use "Ruisdael". Even Dutchman Boudewijn Bakker, when writing in English, uses "Ruisdael" instead of "van Ruisdael". And even when he writes in Dutch he uses "Ruisdael" and not "van Ruisdael", see [ [1]], He's not the only Dutch art critic using "Ruisdael" even in Dutch, see [ [2]]. So it seems to me that in art historian circles 'Ruisdael" is common.
Looking at what some English-language mainstream sources are doing:
I think we should use here on WP what is commonly used in the sources, even though it would technically be wrong. In sum, based on what I find in the sources, I believe we should change all "van Ruisdael" instances back into "Ruisdael". @ JakkoWesterbeke: Edwininlondon ( talk) 09:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
This is the
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Jacob van Ruisdael article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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Jacob van Ruisdael is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so. | ||||||||||||||||
This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on March 10, 2016. | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
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The Dutch version of this page had a fantasy portrait as lead image. But Slive and other experts all say there is no portrait known of Jacob. On Wiki Commons there are these 2 fantasy portraits. There's also in the Louvre a marble statue of Jacob made by Louis-Denis Caillouette, although there is no public domain image as far as I can tell. It seems wrong to use any of these images as lead image, or in fact anywhere in the article. I fear most people will not read any caption and think it is real portrait. I have stated in the Life section that there is no portrait.
The best image available for the lead therefore is of one of his famous paintings. Edwininlondon ( talk) 20:22, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
I would like to get Ruisdael featured as Today's Featured article on the Main Page. Is anyone else interested in helping improve the quality of this article? First to Good Article status, then on to Featured Article status. I have a few books on him, including a Dutch one (I speak Dutch).
I don't want to offend anybody who has done so much already to get the article to where it is today. I'm happy to support rather than lead. Let me know. Edwininlondon ( talk) 06:25, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for your efforts! So it's a bit backwards completing his oeuvre without the main catalog, but there is so much online I think we can safely get about a third or maybe even half of these. His paintings are indexed by practically everybody who is anybody in the fine arts. I also created c:Jacob van Ruisdael exhibition 2005-2006, and will make a "2001 in progress soon". Yes please upload all of his drawings you can get your hands on. Though they may or may not have made it into the Slive 2001 catalog, generally these were models for lots of 19th-century copies, so it would be nice to get as many as possible. Are you comfortable on Commons? It's a pain using the default uploader. Generally I use a recent upload as a template and then copy/paste it into the old uploader here, using the previous upload data as a template. For a drawing I would use one like this one as a model to start with. The important thing is to make sure whatever template you use is suitable for international use. Jane ( talk) 06:51, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks! Oddly, we already had one of those, but it couldn't be traced back to the original location because the source links are dead. If your book references any other catalogs you can include those in the descriptions as well. Jane ( talk) 14:49, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
Is the remark "(or Ruysdael)" helpful? I thought Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael's surname is conventionally spelt with an "i" precisely to distinguish him from his painter relatives, especially his equally famous uncle Salomon van Ruysdael. Frans Fowler ( talk) 19:13, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
The lead section should be a short overview of what is to come. I think it should mention the other members of the family and the places he is documented to live and work. Slive claims that attributions are tricky among members of the family. Most attributions of drawings are based on old mentions in early collections. Not all works are signed and dated. Therefore, saying he was prolific is enough (every 17th-century painter who made more than 100 works identifiable today was prolific). I would delete any numbers unless attributed to a specific catalog (which one is leading?). There is probably well over a thousand paintings attributed to Ruisdael and that is just what is hanging in museums. His works are also actively sold on the open market. Various historians have tried to catalog them, but there is no forensic project along the lines of the Rembrandt Research Project, so I think it is wrong to be specific in the lead. There is also no need to mention his quality as opposed to other members of the family, because we honestly don't know. I also wouldn't mention his best known works, as these differ per country. Pictures of the top works should be included at the bottom and probably these should have articles so you can blue link them in text outside the lead. His windmill is famous in the Netherlands, but his view of Haarlem is more famous in German-speaking countries, and elsewhere he is known for his seascapes. Also, his influences on later painters was huge, and way more than just the three Englishmen you mention. He is considered the most important member of the "Haarlem Landscape School of painting" which never existed, but which is used to pinpoint a group of paintings that have retained their value over the centuries, not all of which can be attributed to a specific painter, but which can be attributed to a specific style (twisted trees, windmills, waterfalls, dunescapes, seascapes, winter landscapes, and panoramas, all with and without figures painted in by others) Jane ( talk) 06:40, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for that. My comments below:
Slive claims that attributions are tricky among members of the family. Most attributions of drawings are based on old mentions in early collections. Not all works are signed and dated. Therefore, saying he was prolific is enough (every 17th-century painter who made more than 100 works identifiable today was prolific). I would delete any numbers unless attributed to a specific catalog (which one is leading?). There is probably well over a thousand paintings attributed to Ruisdael and that is just what is hanging in museums. His works are also actively sold on the open market. Various historians have tried to catalog them, but there is no forensic project along the lines of the Rembrandt Research Project, so I think it is wrong to be specific in the lead.
There is also no need to mention his quality as opposed to other members of the family, because we honestly don't know.
I also wouldn't mention his best known works, as these differ per country. Pictures of the top works should be included at the bottom and probably these should have articles so you can blue link them in text outside the lead. His windmill is famous in the Netherlands, but his view of Haarlem is more famous in German-speaking countries, and elsewhere he is known for his seascapes.
Also, his influences on later painters was huge, and way more than just the three Englishmen you mention. He is considered the most important member of the "Haarlem Landscape School of painting" which never existed, but which is used to pinpoint a group of paintings that have retained their value over the centuries, not all of which can be attributed to a specific painter, but which can be attributed to a specific style (twisted trees, windmills, waterfalls, dunescapes, seascapes, winter landscapes, and panoramas, all with and without figures painted in by others)
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Reviewer: Chiswick Chap ( talk · contribs) 16:08, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
I'll take this one.
Chiswick Chap (
talk)
16:08, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Rate | Attribute | Review Comment |
---|---|---|
1. Well-written: | ||
1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. | Prose: ok. Copyright: ok. Spelling: ok. Grammar: ok. | |
1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. | lead: ok. layout: ok. weasel: ok. Fiction: n/a. Lists: none. | |
2. Verifiable with no original research: | ||
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. | ||
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). | ||
2c. it contains no original research. | ||
3. Broad in its coverage: | ||
3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. | ||
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). | ||
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. | ||
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. | ||
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio: | ||
6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. | ||
6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. | Relevance: ok. Captions: ok. | |
7. Overall assessment. | This is a fine and interesting article, comprehensive and elegantly cited, and beautiful as well. Good work! Chiswick Chap ( talk) 13:38, 10 October 2015 (UTC) |
Thanks ever so much for your elaborate review. I will address the various points as quickly as possible. @Jane023 has already started on the images. Edwininlondon ( talk) 18:07, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
This seems a fine article, and given the subject, a large number of images seems to me entirely acceptable (whatever the folks at FAC may say). The images ought all to be roughly the same size, so if they are in portrait format you should use the "|upright" parameter.
The same goes for the section named "Gallery", which is generally deprecated (and has a double meaning in a painter's case, somewhat misleadingly). Perhaps it should be named "Example works" or something similar. (Ok, that degree of automation is some kind of a solution: but it consumes a lot of space, and now it's the portrait-shaped images that appear larger than landscape ones.)
In addition, I don't see why long low images should appear much larger in the "galleries" than tall narrow ones - there is a large disparity in surface area which is basically unjustifiable. I'd request therefore that you format the images in the "Life" section like those in the "Legacy" section (though you could use "|nolines" to avoid the frames in both cases, actually). The images in the "Gallery" section should be formatted the same way, whichever way that is, as should their captions (there seems no imaginable justification for having three galleries all formatted differently).
Could the dates of paintings be added to all the captions which don't yet have them, please.
Apart from these very minor comments, there looks to be very little wrong with the article. I'll have a careful look for specific issues, however.
It's a bit startling to see the spelling of the surname change in the second paragraph of the lead before any other family members are introduced. Perhaps this particular place should have "Ruisdael" (or, "Ruisdael's family", to avoid the problem), and then the variations in the spelling should be introduced. If you don't want to do that, then the sentence could avoid using the name altogether, and introduce the members and their varying surnames first.
Reference 6, "Jacob van Ruisdael in the RKD" is not in canonical form (and is not verifiable except by walking around the entire RKD site). Is there not an RKD web page you could link to?
Chiswick Chap (
talk)
16:19, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Reference 51 should have the article's date (Feb 26, 2006).
Why are the artists in the captions to the images in Life named only as forenames or surnames, and not wikilinked? It would be kinder for non-expert readers who may start with the images to give all these names in full and to link each name in the first caption in which it appears. This is not overlinking as you may link the first occurrence of a term in the lead, the text, and the captions, i.e. up to three times in all, before overlinking is even considered to have occurred: and even then it can be justified in special cases.
"Admitted as a member": is this usual? "Admitted to membership" feels more comfortable. Or simply "became a member", indeed.
"But despite his numerous..."; "But Slive concludes..." - perhaps not ideal to begin a sentence like this.
"The first panoramic landscape of his hand": perhaps "... from his hand" would be more usual, while "His first panoramic landscape" would be simpler and arguably more encyclopaedic. There's also "from his brush": perhaps these elegant variations would best be avoided.
The image View of Naarden, 1647 is rather low, making the area of the image very small. I'd suggest widening the image a little, perhaps with "|upright=1.2" if you're comfortable with that, to make the image area roughly the same as the other images near it. It's a gorgeous image, by the way, that is utterly lost in postage-stamp format. If we were feeling bold we'd recommend making it a "
wide image".
"recalls the elegiac tenor of the Virgilian pastoral": well, yes, but this is getting a little bit flowery for a global encyclopaedia. Perhaps this had better be toned down.
"a way to explore a search": explore and search are rather too similar here. Perhaps "a way to hint at a search". I'll leave it to you to consider whether "unambiguous epistemology" is really necessary for our readers.
"in which he later was buried.": presumably after his death. Perhaps "in which he would one day be buried."
"Modern day critics rate Ruisdael still highly." Reword.
"A first account, in 1718, is from Houbaken": Houbaken who? And shouldn't it be Houbraken anyway?
Legacy: Constable: should be spelt out with forename and wikilinked on first usage, as indeed should Gainsborough, Turner and anyone else.
Footnote "Landscape with Hut of 1646 is one example of which, after careful study, it currently is assumed Ruisdael did the figures himself." could be better worded.
Thanks again for all your improvements. I really appreciate your experienced view. If there are any more details to fix, let me know. Edwininlondon ( talk) 20:52, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Some thoughts on the images in this article:
– Editør ( talk) 13:09, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
It is wonderful to see a featured article on one of the old masters. Never thought it'd happen again – I mean, look at Hieronymus Bosch, who's so much more popular than Ruisdael! My compliments and congratulations to all involved – a great effort, and a noble one, drawing attention to a painter who I think is very underrated and somewhat neglected.
That said, is there a specific reason for such terrible images used througout the article? Perhaps a license issue? Examples include practically all of the images in the article. I'm sorry if the word "terrible" is too strong, but they really are... To be more specific:
And finally, I wonder why the above question about drawings wasn't answered? We don't have too many drawings at Commons, but this is a decent enough picture, and this one is even better. And of course at least one etching should make it into the article, as Ruisdael's incredibly detailed etchings are very much worth explporing - unfortunately we only have this image at Commons, but it would work better than nothing. (There is a larger image of another etching, but it is an earlier work, not entirely characteristic of Ruisdael's other etchings.)
I'd replace all of those images myself, but since they were all bad, I suspected a license issue with museum images and decided to take the question here first.
I'm very glad that two images – at least – have been replaced with much better versions. I'd love to see more discussion on the rest of them, though, and maybe thoughts on adding a gallery of good quality pictures, as Johnbod suggested? I've also located a large image of Dune Landscape at the new Hermitage website: the image is here (or, if the link doesn't work, it is possible to save one from here). Having been to Hermitage a few times, I can vouch for the image. It is still a bad choice for the article, I think, because the Hermitage is notorious these days for having very, very few restoration jobs done, and neither this, nor any other of the Ruisdaels had any work done on them. The yellow you see isn't the painting, of course – only the very old layer of varnish. -- Jashiin ( talk) 19:12, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
The article reads: "Jacob's earliest biographer, Arnold Houbraken, called him Jakob Ruisdaal, and claimed the name resulted from his specialty in waterfalls, namely the "ruis" (rustling noise of water) falling into a "daal" (dale) where it foams out into a pond or wider river." Source is Arnold Houbraken (1718) De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, p. 65 here. The source writes about the part 'Ruis' in the family name: waar op zyn naam schynt te zinspeelen, translated: on which his name seems to be hinted. So, Houbraken isn't sure. He claims nothing! Furthermore: he doesn't mention waterfalls. He only mentions the noise which is made when water falls on rocks. He writes: "eindelyk met geruis (...) in en door de dalen, of laagtens zig verspreid: en wist de sprenkelingen, of het schuimende water door het geweldig geklets op de rotsen," Ruisdaal only started to paint waterfalls (mainly small rapids) since 1659. The family name was changed much earlier by his father and uncle, not by Jacob van Ruisdael. It is avowed that the origin of the family name is a castle's name, not waterfalls which actually don't exist in Holland. I write this to explain why I deleted the sentence about the non-existent claim of Houbraken. Happytravels ( talk) 04:24, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
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During most of the article's history it used "Ruisdael" to refer to the artist. In the last year, "van Ruisdael" has been used. While it is true that following Dutch rules, the surname is "van Ruisdael", all English language sources used in the article today (Slive, Walford, etc.) just use "Ruisdael". Even Dutchman Boudewijn Bakker, when writing in English, uses "Ruisdael" instead of "van Ruisdael". And even when he writes in Dutch he uses "Ruisdael" and not "van Ruisdael", see [ [1]], He's not the only Dutch art critic using "Ruisdael" even in Dutch, see [ [2]]. So it seems to me that in art historian circles 'Ruisdael" is common.
Looking at what some English-language mainstream sources are doing:
I think we should use here on WP what is commonly used in the sources, even though it would technically be wrong. In sum, based on what I find in the sources, I believe we should change all "van Ruisdael" instances back into "Ruisdael". @ JakkoWesterbeke: Edwininlondon ( talk) 09:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)