Talk:Four Freedoms (Norman Rockwell)/Archive 1

Latest comment: 9 years ago by 67.51.59.66 in topic Review
Archive 1

Page name

Four Freedoms (Norman Rockwell) would give a less ambiguous idea of the subject, while skirting "paintings/illustrations" issues. --Wetman (talk) 07:02, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

There is no Category:Norman Rockwell and there is a Category:Painting series. Feel free to move the page, but I am not sure what is a better location. These are paintings, that were popularly viewed in print form either in the magazine or in posters. What if someone wants to create a separate article about the poster version?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 03:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
It would certainly be merged with this one! I'm not sure what the relevance of the categories is; per the Wikipedia:WikiProject Visual arts/Art Manual of Style, Four Freedoms (Norman Rockwell) is preferable - it is on the whole more informative. Johnbod (talk) 19:42, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

A good article makes you ask more questions...

As an artist myself and a huge fan of Rockwell's, particularly of his more serious pieces, I was thrilled to see this up for GA. I considered reviewing this myself, except I have no experience in GA review...

However, in reading it, I notice the construction of the paintings is not described. Rockwell usually worked in oils (is it mentioned that it's oil on canvas, or did Rockwell paint on illustration board?) He also used models from his town in Vermont. He made one of his figures look remarkably like Abraham Lincoln - what was his reason for doing this? Who posed for these? My questions abound. --Moni3 (talk) 18:59, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Good job, TonytheTiger. The additions to the article make it extraordinary. Keep up the excellent work! --Moni3 (talk) 12:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Review

OK, Tony, you've been waiting a while. Some sentences:

  • "Some sources published after Rockwell's question whether the government was truly as discouraging as Rockwell claimed." - I don't understand this one
  • "There was also significant turmoil in the OWI as a faction had supported work by Ben Shahn as the writers division, led by MacLeish, was blamed for failing to deliver a message intelligible to people of varying intelligence." - difficult to parse this sentence (partly due to "as" being ambiguous)
  • "By the end of the war 4 million posters had been printed.[4] and in all..." - something lost in a C/E I guess
  • "Both the freedom from fear and freedom from want posters..." - if these phrases are the poster titles, shouldn't they be in quotes?
    • The stylistic convention is that paintings are italicized (not quotes) as are the names of the series they may be in. This seem sodd because Albums are italicized and songs are in quotes. Similarly, Books are italicized and Chapters are in quotes. Journals and magazines are italicized and articles are in quotes. However, series and their paintings seem to both be italicized. I did fix these to be capitalized and italicized, however.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Do you really need the Stahn poster in this article?
    • The point is that there was another style that caused a controversy with certain persons involved in the decisionmaking process when Rockwell's images were the prefered choice.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:11, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
  • What were the 1943 stamps?
  • In critical review, it's not obvious how "failed to demonstrate command of the bad" is opposite to "lack artistic maturity".
  • "The commercial success of the series is in part due to the fact that each painting is considered so understandable that they were viewed by their generation as the model of understandable art by the general public." - I don't understand this one (and "due to the fact that" -> "because" helps some)
  • The last paragraph of critical review could lead the section
  • Provenance - should make clear what the Evening Post had rights to, what the OWI had rights to, and what Rockwell kept.
    • This is not clear to me. If someone wants to take this to WP:FA that is something they can do. It is not in any of the books that I see.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:04, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
      • OK, the article says in one place the Saturday Evening Post donated the Four Freedoms to the Second War Loan Drive, and then Rockwell bequeathed the Four Freedoms. The wording is so similar it's confusing. I'm guessing this means the Post donated the reprint rights and Rockwell kept the original oil paintings. If so, you can just clarify these at the appropriate spots. Gimmetrow 06:04, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
  • "The book, is very detailed account..." This sentence needs serious work. "According to the Amazon.com review.[40][41]" - not a sentence and not a reliable source. I'm not sure it's important to say who wrote essays for the book, but if so it's from the table of contents and can be verified from the book itself.
    • Reworded. removed useless sentence. As far as sourceing goes, this source is not used for critical review, but as a source for a basic account of the book. For that purpose, this lesser RS should be sufficient for GA standards. WRT naming the authors of the Saturday evening post essays, that needs to be in this article for GA, IMO.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
      • OK, just don't separate the subject and verb with a comma in the future ;) Gimmetrow 06:04, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks good. Not needed for GA, but is there anything more about why Rockwell chose this subject? Gimmetrow 20:17, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Done. Nice job Tony. The article passes GA. Gimmetrow 06:04, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

THERE WAS NO COPYRIGHT RENEWAL BY ANY PARTIES, REGARDLESS OF WHO RETAINED THE RIGHTS, ON THE FOUR FREEDOMS AND THEY HAVE MOVED INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. (THIS IS WHY THE nrm ONLY SHOWS THE ORIGINAL 1943 COPYRIGHT ON THEIR IMAGES. 67.51.59.66 (talk) 21:33, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

GA Passed

This article has passed the GA noms. A few suggestions would be to if possible incoporate the quotes into the body of the article as per WP:QUOTE, and add information about the paintings' current state in the Rockwell Museum. If you feel that this review was in error feel free to take the article to WP:GA/R. Thanks. Tarret talk 23:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)