Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of National Treasures of Japan (paintings)/archive2

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Dabomb87 15:25, 9 January 2010 [1].

List of National Treasures of Japan (paintings)[edit]

Nominator(s): bamse (talk) 09:18, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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This list was a recent featured list candidate. The nomination failed due to a lack of reviewers. All comments of the previous nomination have been addressed and the list has virtually not changed since then. I nominate it again because I think that it meets all the criteria for a featured list. Hoping for more reviewers this time. bamse (talk) 09:18, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. Very informative and well written list. My only concern is the following sentence: All of these are counted double in this table. All of these five paintings are mentioned just one time in the table. Ruslik_Zero 16:20, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments and edits. Not sure if I understand the problem. There are five National Treasures which date to more than one period (In fact all of these five date to two periods.) In the "Age/National Treasures" table the sum in the "National Treasure" column is 163 which is equal to 153 (single period National Treasures) plus five (two-period National Treasures) which are counted double. So 153 + 2*5=163. I added the following sentence to the footnote to clarify: "For instance, the National Treasure "Portraits of Seven Shingon Patriarchs" appears twice in this table: under "Tang Dynasty" and under "Heian period"." bamse (talk) 16:50, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Support – On a second look at this list, the only problem I saw was the clarification tag, and steps have been taken to address this. This is normally where I would support the list's promotion, but I am a temporary delegate and must abstain as long as there's a possibility that I could close this. I might be back to my regular reiewer role before this FLC ends; if I am, I intend to offer support. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 22:10, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Excellent effort. I don't have any problems here. ≈ Chamal talk ¤ 12:40, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments from WFCforLife I didn't review this first time around because it's really not my area of expertise, but I'm sad to see that this didn't get passed. I may live to regret this, but a note to the directors. If an article fails its first FLC purely because of lack of interest (i.e. the director feels it could have passed with a couple of reviews, but was obliged not to promote), I'll review anything the second time if made aware of the second nom.
Resolved comments from WFCforLife (talk) 01:13, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
:*"The 158 entries in the list consist of the following: 90 are hanging scrolls; 38 are hand scrolls or emakimono; 20 are byōbu folding screens or paintings on sliding doors (fusuma); and three are albums." This does not tally to 158.
Indeed. I added "four are murals" and "Two items, the portrait of Kichijōten and Illustrated Biography of Prince Shōtoku do not fall in any of these categories." and re-counted the byōbu/fusuma which are 21 (not 20). Now it adds up to 158.
  • "20 are byōbu folding screens or paintings on sliding doors (fusuma)" Is there a reason that one term is in brackets but not the other? I've got no preference on formatting, but as far as I can tell byōbu and fusama should be used in the same way.
Fixed. Both without brackets now.
  • "The greatest number of National Treasure paintings are located in Kyoto with 50, and Tokyo with 46, and more than half of the Tokyo paintings are located in the Tokyo National Museum."
While they are wikilinked, it's not obvious at a glance if we are talking about the prefectures or the cities. Because specific statistics are being used, the distinction is important. Perhaps something along the lines of:
"The city containing the greatest number of National Treasure paintings is Kyoto with 50, followed by Tokyo with 46. More than half..."
Rewritten as you suggested.
  • On a related note, is Tokyo national museum mentioned because it is the building with the most treasures?
Added: "which is the structure housing the most painting National Treasures."
  • Perhaps wikilink the "Prefecture" heading to Prefecture#Japanese_sense_of_prefecture. It would be inaccurate to change the word, and cumbersome to add a footnote, but nonetheless some readers may not understand the term. Wikilinking seems a good compromise.
I wikilinked it to Prefectures of Japan which is the main article referred to under Prefecture#Japanese_sense_of_prefecture.
  • Most of the redlinks don't bother me. There is clearly scope for articles to be created for these in the future, and it's therefore correct that they are linked to. But what makes Kawabata Kinenkai notable?
Unlinked Kawabata.

I can't fault the table itself, that's absolutely wonderful. Hope these help for now, WFCforLife (talk) 01:35, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments. I think I addressed all of them.bamse (talk) 12:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy with the lead, it's very well-written.

Not speaking Japanese, it's difficult for me to express opinions on most of the references. The best quality sources are going to be Japanese, and therefore we should use them. What I would ask is that at least one of the |publisher= or |author= fields is filled in for each reference, so that a non-speaker can ascertain where the information is coming from. There are a few references with a Japanese title, followed by (in Japanese) and retrieved on yyyy-mm-dd, which isn't really enough information. WFCforLife (talk) 01:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do that as soon as I am back to a computer with Japanese fonts; likely either today or tomorrow.bamse (talk) 13:34, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Added publisher or author information to all references. Also started to add translations of reference titles with "trans_title" if the title is in Japanese. With almost 150 references it will take a day or two until I am done with it. bamse (talk) 20:01, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done. All references have publisher or author information and all foreign language reference titles are translated.bamse (talk) 18:01, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fantastic work! Those refs all look credible, so I'm very happy to support. WFCforLife (talk) 02:37, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • May sound patronising, but I'm glad to see this back at FLC, and doubly glad that bamse hasn't been discouraged by the current lull in reviews. And moreover, thanks to those of you who have shown an interest, made a review, come to a decision. Happy new year! The Rambling Man (talk) 00:55, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Great work so far...Modernist (talk) 23:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - the red links bother me, the artists, museums and schools hopefully can be eventually filled in...Modernist (talk) 23:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I did previously say this in my capped comments, but I feel it worthy of repetition. In my opinion the redlinks are fine, as they all link to things that I believe meet the notability requirements for a stand-alone article. I would be very much opposed to encouraging someone to create stubs for the sake of it. There's no rush. WFCforLife (talk) 10:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with WFCforLife, there's no harm in having red links. Ideally, they would all be blue, but also ideally they'd all be Featured Articles as well. We're not judging the content (or existence) of other articles, just this list. I'm sure they'll get filled in eventually. Nev1 (talk) 18:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Support

  • The lead image could do with being bigger; currently, the detail is unclear. Try 300px.
    I used "upright=1.4". If I replace it with "300px", for my screen the picture actually shrinks. So I made it bigger with "upright=1.6". Big enough?
    That's better. My preferences for image size are set to default so it appears as it does for unregistered editors. Nev1 (talk) 22:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead is unusual. Why does it start with religious art, rather than paintings as a whole. Unless religious paintings are the first known or surviving examples of paintings?
    As far as I know, there are no surviving Japanese paintings (apart from maybe some primitive art) from before the introduction of Buddhism (mid 6th century). The oldest paintings in the list and the oldest surviving paintings are religious (Buddhist). Basically the intro traverses the table by age starting with the oldest paintings (click on the arrow next to "Date" to have it sorted this way). I don't think it is necessary to explain what a painting is.
    It's certainly unnecessary to explain what a painting is. I think it would be worth explaining what you've just said about survival in the lead. Nev1 (talk) 22:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Added: "They comprise the oldest extant non-primitive paintings in Japan." to the lead.
  • When talking about the different kingdoms and different styles, it would be useful for anyone not familiar with Chinese history to be given date ranges. It's done in some cases, but perhaps not often enough.
    I'll add date ranges.
    Done.
  • The lead is a little woolly, and I'm left wondering what the scope of the article is. Is it religious paintings from the 6th century onwards? If so, why is the article's title not more specific? There's no preamble ("There are x number of national treasures that are paintings; they cover such and such a date range. Although Japanese art stretches back to this period, the earliest natural treasure dates from a different time because... etc) and the reader is plunged straight into a summary of religious art, without any direct connection being drawn between art and national treasures.
    The scope is as the title says, National Treasure paintings. Mainly the older paintings are religious. Since the intro is written chronologically, it starts with religious paintings. However the intro also clearly mentions other types of paintings that are contained in the list: "illustrated novels", "historical" topics, landscape paintings,... At least at the sentence: "The paintings listed show Buddhist themes, landscapes, portraits and court scenes." it should be clear that there are not only religious paintings in the list. Would it be OK to use the term "National Treasure" in a preamble before its definition (=last paragraph of the intro)? Or do you mean to move the last paragraph up to the top?
    I think moving the last paragraph of the lead would help with the flow. Nev1 (talk) 22:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Moved it up to the start.
  • Can you find a source which discusses the breakdown of the paintings? You already have a table with the periods, but for an explanation (perhaps a particular period was known for its quality) a source would need to be found.
    I don't have a source, and think it would be impossible to find a reliable source for it as it means interpreting the decisions of the Agency for Cultural Affairs which designates the National Treasures. The criteria are basically a very high "historical or artistic value", but in the end it is up to a group of people to decide which paintings qualify. So it is a very subjective list and one could argue that other existing paintings could equally qualify to be a National Treasure. In fact the number of National Treasures is slowly increasing while the number of old paintings is not. Also, different periods were characterised by very different genres of paintings. How do you compare a painting of the "Eleven-faced Goddess of Mercy" with a landscape in ink by Shūbun for instance? As an observation one can note that the number of national treasures in a period roughly scales with the length of that period.
    Unfortunately this leaves the uneven period distribution of National Treasures unexplain (ie: the two peaks in the Heian and Kamakura periods). It's so infuriating when you know what you want a source to say but no one's written it down yet so it can't go into the article because of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Since there's nothing that can realistically be done about it, I've struck this issue. Nev1 (talk) 22:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed the peaks are not completely explained by the long times (400 years for Heian and 150 years for Kamakura period). I think there are several factors that could explain this distribution: (i) a preference for old items, which means Nara, Heian and Kamakura period; (ii) Nara period: limited number of genres (only religious, Chinese style) and not many surviving paintings, therefore low number of National Treasures in Nara period (iii) emerging new styles in Heian and Kamakura period and National Treasures designating early examples of new styles. As I said, these are my personal opinions and non-quotable. Maybe I should write a book on the topic to reference it!? ;-)
  • On a similar note, the break down of the subjects would be interesting. Do sources comment on whether there is a high number of religious paintings?
    Same problem as in the previous item. I am not aware of any sources, and don't think it is reasonable to discuss a subjective list too much. Any discussion of the numbers (number of items of a certain type, a certain age, a certain location,...) would mean discussing the selection process of the committee (which is not public).
    Struck per above. Nev1 (talk) 22:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Who were these paintings commissioned by, what section of society did they belong to? Are these objects of the elite, or do the National Treasures include objects by lesser artists say?
    It is somewhat different for different periods, but there is quite some info on that in the lead: "artists are unknown", "Zen monasteries", "were commissioned to adorn the castles and palaces of the military rulers", "artists from the Kanō school", "Rimpa school", "The Kanō school, patronized by the ruling class, was the most influential school of the period and, with 300 years of dominance, endured for the longest period in the history of Japanese painting", "Yuan Dynasty scholar-amateur painters", "Nanga", not to mention the many artists mentioned specifically by name. Do you really think, that more information on the artists and the commissioners is necessary?
    I phrased the original point poorly. It's not about who painted the pictures, but about who they were for. Were paintings exclusively owned by the social elite, or did lower classes have paintings? Were they status symbols or did they have other meaning? A general book on Japanese art might provide something. However, if you think that this is too involved for a list (the lead is already well developed), I'm prepared to strike the issue. Nev1 (talk) 22:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    From my understanding, all these paintings were for either temples or the social elite (warriors). Lower classes had ukiyo-e at some point but those are not National Treasures. Not sure what you mean by "other meaning". Some of the religious paintings and mandalas probably had (and still have) a religious meaning. Also most of the paintings are quite pretty, so I can well imagine a daimyo enjoying the view of a painting. Since the castles and palaces are already mentioned in the intro, I could make more clear that paintings were also produced at and for temples. Time to go to sleep for me, so I'd do it tomorrow if you think that it's necessary.
    I think it would be useful to add that they were also produced for temples, but I'll leave it to your discretion. Nev1 (talk) 23:36, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Added: "As with most of the early Japanese paintings, these works were created for Buddhist temples."
  • Does being a National Treasure afford the painting any special protection? For example, are there restrictions on sale?
    There is some info in the National Treasures of Japan article, but I'll add a little to the intro.
    I'll do it first thing tomorrow morning.
    I added: "As such, they are restricted in transfer and may not be exported. Owners are required to announce any changes to the National Treasures such as damage or loss and need to obtain a permit for changes in location, transfer of ownership or intended repairs." There are more things that could be added: National Treasures need to be displayed in public for a certain period of time. Owners can receive financial compensation, tax reductions and advise/guidance. However for the purpose of the lead, I think these two sentences suffice. All the details are in National_Treasures_of_Japan#Preservation_and_utilization_measures.
    Agreed. Nev1 (talk) 13:52, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The first entry in the main table of paintings gives "Heian period" as a date; this needs the century or a date range with it. This happens a handful of times, but they need to be sorted.
    If there is no date, it means that no date (not even a century) is known. The sorting is arranged (with hidden sortkeys) as mentioned in the "Usage" section by the start year of the period. So sorting works fine even if there is no date visible. I could add the whole year ranges (for instance "794 to 1185" for the Heian period) if you think it is necessary.
    Thinking about this more, I don't think it's so important. You give a fair reason, and the reader can quickly follow a link if they want dates (although bear in mind that the reader might not come back...) Nev1 (talk) 22:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good list, but more information needs to be provided before I can support it. Of course, in some cases it may not be available, but it is worth investigating. I'm impressed by what I see, and a lot of effort has been put in; the alt text must have been particularly time consuming. I hope that with a bit more, I will be able to support. Nev1 (talk) 04:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your feedback. I agree with some of your points raised and expressed my view on the others. I'd appreciate if you could respond to the latter (the points I don't really agree with), before I start modifying most of the list. bamse (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I addressed the one and a half outstanding issues.bamse (talk) 13:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Switching to support, nicely done. Nev1 (talk) 13:52, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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