Talk:Rokeby Venus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Featured article star Rokeby Venus 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.
March 18, 2008 Featured article candidate Promoted
Spain Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Spain, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Spain on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please join the project.
Featured article FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Visual arts, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to visual arts on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Featured article FA Class: This article has been rated as FA-Class on the assessment scale.

Contents

[edit] censor?

There might be something to say about Spanish prudery that didn't bring in the Inquisition... --Wetman 12:35, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What for? The pieces [1], [2] and others mention it. -- Ham 12:46, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism and Times quote

The article currently includes the following sentence: "The Times described a 'cruel wound in the neck', as well as incisions to it's [sic] 'shoulders and back'." There is a copy of the Times article here: [3]. It includes the first phrase, but not the second, nor anything very like it. I am therefore going to delete the second half of the sentence. Grafen (talk) 16:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

It might not have been the same edition. The case went on for some time and was widely and closely reported. From: The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity, and Sexuality. Contributors: Lynda Nead - author. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1992.
"Journalists were meticulous in their descriptions of the number and extent of the cuts to the canvas; The Times referred to a cruel wound in the neck and to cuts across the shoulders and back. In other words, the attack was assessed in terms of the wounds inflicted on a female body rather than in terms of the damage caused to a valuable painted canvas. But perhaps the most interesting example of this substitution of flesh for canvas is in the description of the damage caused where the blunt end of the chopper struck the canvas, causing rough tearing and an indentation rather than a clear cut with the blade. This was apparently more difficult to repair than the places where the blade had cut straight through the canvas and caused the greatest problems for the conservationists. 15 In a press statement, Mr Hawes Turner, the Keeper and Secretary of the National Gallery, described this damage as 'a ragged bruise on the most important part of the work' and most of the papers fixed upon this notion of 'bruising' in their own accounts of the damage to the painting. To bruise is to discolour or contuse but to keep the damaged surface/skin intact; it suggests a soft, three-dimensional form, and one might think of bruising to the flesh of fruit or a human body. To refer to the damage on 'The Rokeby Venus' as a bruise is instantly to confuse the distinctions between hardness (the canvas) and softness (the signified female body). The viewers of the damaged painting could not be confined to descriptions of a flat surface but moved directly to the evocation of a three-dimensional form with surface and volume - in other words, to the account of damage to a woman's body rather than to a picture." (oh and thanks for the link). Ceoil (talk) 16:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that. If you think the point is worth expanding, why not quote more from Nead? I would be nervous of attributing a quote to the Times if we cannot locate it in any Times article. Grafen (talk) 16:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I think your probably right. The section is underdeveloped anyway as it is; I found some more sources this afternoon so I might rewrite tonight. Ceoil (talk) 16:58, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Smuggled to England

I found a brief mention that the painting was smuggled out of Spain c. 1810-1820, but I can't find out why or by whom. Anybody have anything on this. Ceoil (talk) 16:42, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Per the NG it was brought to England by William Buchanan in September 1813, having been legitimately acquired. Buchanan was a Scottish dealer who sent an agent to Spain for a number of years. Btw they describe Lopez-Rey's account of the condition of the pic as "largely misleading". Johnbod (talk) 00:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clothes

"In contrast, French art of the period often depicted women with low necklines and slender corsets, while the engravings of such French artists as Wenceslaus Hollar and Jacques Callot show, according to Veliz, "an almost documentary interest in the form and detail of European costume in the second quarter of the seventeenth century" - Hollar was Bohemian, and Callot strictly a Lorrainer until the French occupied Lorraine shortly before he died. I'm not sure what the point being made is - most, certainly of Hollar's prints, are indeed documentary studies, especially of middle-class women, who are pretty well-covered up. Callot went more into high fashion, but I've not seen any very sexy ones by him either, and he did more of men than women I think. Johnbod (talk) 00:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I think some of this can be cut as it is a little off topic and broad. Ceoil (talk) 15:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Venus of Urbino

I would think that this painting Venus of Urbino by Titian 1538, and this one Sleeping Venus by Giorgione c.1510, had an enormous influence on Velázquez when he was in Italy. Given the limitations imposed by the Spanish inquisition he must have considered both of these pictures very carefully in determining to turn his model around. I added Venus of Urbino to the lead. Modernist (talk) 22:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lead

The third para no longer makes sence. Can somebody clarify. Ceoil (talk) 18:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Has been fixed by Johnbod. Ceoil (talk) 18:15, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clive Bell

Anybody know anything about the controversy(?) highlighted by Clive Bell in Art that this could be by Juan del Mazo rather than Velázquez? Yomanganitalk 13:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC) Art at Project Gutenberg for reference. Yomanganitalk 13:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Old hat, I think, though i was interested to learn] of Venus Velazquez in a search! MacLaren says: "The supposed signatures of ...Mazo and Anton Raphael Mengs in the bottom left corner are purely accidental marks." Johnbod (talk) 14:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
You're always on dangerous ground searching for nudes however lofty your aspirations might be - you're lucky you only got a drunken city councillor! (or is that just the cleanest result you felt you could share?) The disputed provenance might be worth mentioning as an historical aside, but its difficult to know where to lever it in. Yomanganitalk 15:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Goya

The legacy section sorely needs a word on the most famous and significant painting to borrow from the venus. Also why is the thumb for La maja desnuda showing in such a reduced size? Ceoil (talk) 20:20, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

During your revels, the thumbs have been made to have unforced sizes per the MOS. Put your thumbnail size preference up if you don't like it (a minimum size parameter would be a good addition to the image tag though, I have to agree) Yomanganitalk 20:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Done; may god have mercy on my soul. Ceoil (talk) 20:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)