Talk:Dried fish

Lead image

The lead image for this article should be of dried fish. The current lead image should be replaced with a more illustrative picture.

• 
  Fish barn with fish drying in the sun – Van Gogh 1882
• 
  Drying fish in Oqaatsut, Greennland

The problem with the current lead is that one cannot see the dried fish, either in the thumbnail nor even when one clicks to follow the link. The image we have is low resolution and low quality and the fish are mere specks in the overall scene. It is a nice painting but really not appropriate for this article. Also the lead should not be setting the width of the thumbnail (currently set to 300px in an attempt to show some detail). Colin°^Talk 11:33, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

• It is surprising the different takes we can have on the same situation. To me the matter is entirely in reverse. It is the Van Gogh that appropriately and comprehensively illustrates the topic of dried fish. As the lead says, "The oldest traditional way of preserving fish was to let the wind and sun dry it...". The Van Gogh shows small, apparently fish split hanging out in the wind and sun, suspended from a rack of wooden beams, surrounded by rush reed baskets used to transport the fish, and set in the context of a period and a life style. It captures something of an a era when dried fish was a staple of life. As the lead says, and the image illustrates, "the work can be done by the fisherman and family". An an additional bonus, the image is beautifully constructed by Van Gogh himself.

The next image in the article complements the Van Gogh. It shows a fish flake, a Scandinavian rack used for drying fish in the wind and sun, loaded with what appear to be cod. The key point of historical importance about dried fish is that fish could be dried by exposure to the wind and sun, and that was often achieved by hanging fish from racks. These and many other factors are beautifully captured in the Van Gogh. By contrast, the image you are proposing as a replacement lacks the wealth of context and other associations with dried fish, and certainly lacks the aesthetic component. However it would be a good image to have further down the page. --Epipelagic (talk) 20:15, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

The original painting may well show what you describe. The 694 × 474 jpg, so compressed it is only 41KB, shows little white blobs on wooden beams. At 300px in the article, the white blobs are white dots. That's no illustration. You see what you want to see. We're illustrating an article on dried fish, not doing art. There's a whole host of images at Commons: Dried fish that could illustrate this article. This painting has some historical interest for the History section perhaps, but even then, I think it is just too small to be of any use. Colin°^Talk 22:18, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Well I disagree. The painting at 300px shows a setting to perfection, a whole context, for drying fish. Readers can look further down the page if they don't know what a fish looks like. By contrast, you are offering a relatively unattractive image with very little context. You are implying that the historical interest is secondary. In fact, for dried fish it is the primary interest. Drying fish is an unimportant process these days, since we have much better ways of preserving fish, canning, freezing etc. But in history drying fish was a process of great importance. For example, it hugely expanded the trade in fish, since dried fish could be transported over long distances. The article is basically about a historical topic, and an historical image is most appropriate for the lead --Epipelagic (talk) 23:34, 15 March 2013 (UTC).

I think this needs other opinions as you are clearly in love with this artwork at the expense of the article. Go show this 300px thumbnail to someone unfamiliar with the painting. I guarantee none of them will think it is of dried fish -- you can't actually see the fish are fish. A picture that requires a caption before someone knows what it is, and even when a caption is supplied evokes the "I'll take your word for it" response, is no illustration. This is all backwards, with the painting requiring text before one can understand it. The picture should be adding to the existing text. As for the historical aspect, well you're showing bias wrt where you live. It seems to be an important preservation method in northern Europe and clearly in use in the rest of the world, if you peruse the images on Commons. So giving the impression that fish drying is something that happened in cities generations ago but no longer, is absolutely misleading for the lead. Colin°^Talk 10:54, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Muck the article up anyway you want, I've taken it off my list. --Epipelagic (talk) 11:15, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

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