Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed/archive1

Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed

Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

• Featured article candidates/Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed/archive1

Nominator(s):  ‑ Iridescent 15:49, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Depending on your point of view either one of the earliest works of art with an explicitly feminist theme, or an early antecedent of torture porn, Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed is a genuine oddity of art history, and not just for that ungainly title. It was intended to inspire in viewers a belief in women's rights, a rejection of the then-prevalent notion that it was the duty of women to obey their husbands in all things, and an understanding of the then-radical concept that women had a right to use violence to defend themselves against an abusive husband. Unfortunately none of the audience actually realised this, and it was almost universally considered an attempt to slip a piece of creepy and violent pornography into the mainstream. ‑ Iridescent 15:49, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Note: other than a couple of newspaper reviews, the sources for this are identical to those on the just-promoted The Dawn of Love, and the most recent image used dates from 1870.

Comments from JM

How interesting. Happy to take a read.

• To parrot Tim, who was responsible for converting me, false titles are sometimes considered non-standard in British English; I'll note them in my review and you are free to change them if you agree with me that it's better to do without them.
  • "by English artist William Etty"
  • "by horse dealer Robert Vernon"

• I've never agreed with Tim about false titles; while it may have been unacceptable in the 1920s when Fowler's was written, it's become the standard practice now on both sides of the Atlantic (as I write this, the first sentence on the BBC News website begins "Rower Katharine Granger makes history…"). It's not something I feel strongly about either way, if anyone wants to add "the"s, but I consider them redundant and archaic-looking. ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• "their bedroom" is ambiguous

• Agreed, reworded to "the couple's bedroom". ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• Would "chattel" be preferable to "chattels"? I'm not certain. chattels jars with me a little.

• I thought so as well until I actually came to check this; I always thought "chattel" was one of those words like "fish" or "sheep" which formed its own collective noun, but I think that's because I subconsciously confused it with "cattle". Every dictionary from the OED down to Wiktionary concurs that the plural is "chattels"—the OED even specifically says that "chattel" as a a collective noun is obsolete. The OED also notes that when used in the sense of A movable possession; any possession or piece of property other than real estate or a freehold (as is the case here), it's generally only used in the pluralised form. ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• "one of a number of paintings given by Vernon to the nation" Some may struggle to understand what is meant, here.

• Do you mean the "a number of" or "to the nation"? We do actually know the number (157), but I didn't want to overwhelm the lead with figures if possible given that this comes shortly after "45.1 by 55.9 cm (17.8 by 22.0 in)" and a bunch of dates. Basically, Vernon gave his art collection to the Crown to display wherever they saw fit, rather than to a particular gallery or institution. ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• "England, England" Could one of these perhaps be replaced by something like "the nation"?

• Removed the first altogether, as it's obvious from the context where is meant. ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• "in the nude" Would "in nudes" be better? "in the nude" would typically "naked".

• "The nude" is an artwork including a nude figure, "nudes" are the specific individual figures within a composition. From the context, there's no realistic possibility that readers will assume that what's meant is that he painted with his clothes off. ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• "he told him he agreed about her beauty" that he agreed?

• Added ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• "somewhat obscure subject" I think that is a compound adjective, meaning that it should be somewhat-obscure.

• Removed the "somewhat" altogether, as a superfluous word. ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• "Etty painted Nyssia directly from life" I defer to you, but surely he couldn't paint Nyssia directly from life, as he never saw the living Nyssia. the figure of Nyssia, perhaps?

• Changed to "painted Nyssia directly from a life model" (although I'd hope the reader already figured this out) ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• "The Literary Gazette condemned the work" This is not a universally-shared view, but I personally think of this as undue personification. How about "The work was condemned in The Literary Gazette"? Or else name the critic, if known, and attribute the view to her. (Also with La Belle Assemblée, and with The Art Journal in the lead and Vanity Fair in the legacy section.)

• This was the early 19th century; the concept of bylines didn't exist. Reviews in this period are invariably attributed to the publication, not to the reviewer, and once a publication had established that it liked/disliked something the other writers from that publication would adhere to that line. ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• Is Female Bathers Surprised by a Swan notable? Don't be scared of redlinks!

• I could possibly write a very short stub on it, but it's unlikely that one could ever write anything that will be of any use to anyone; I don't really want to create a sea of redlinks (Etty was famously prolific, and well over 800 works survive), so I've only been linking specific works as and when I write the articles. ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• "behave in front of picture's" {{sic}}? (Great quote, by the way!)

• No,my sloppiness, fixed ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• Have you taken a look at doi:10.1163/156852911X567824? Perhaps something useful there.

• That's about his Penitent Magdalen paintings, and doesn't relate to this piece. (I mention his relationship with the Catholic Church briefly in William Etty, but don't want to give it undue weight; out of over a thousand works painted, only five were Magdalens, and all those are more an illustration of Etty's habit of adding elements to his nude studies to allow him to sell them as history paintings, than of any great religious conviction; while in these cases he stuck a crucifix in their hands and called them Magdalens, he was just as likely to add some chains and call her Andromeda or overpaint some clothes and a bunch of grapes and call her a bacchante.) ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• Why do you not provide a full citation for Herodotus? The wording will differ depending on translation.

• To my astonishment, Wikipedia actually has a standardised format for citing Herodotus, so I just followed that. (The citation to Herodotus is only in case someone thinks I'm misrepresenting the original Candaules legend, so it doesn't really matter which translation it uses as the story itself doesn't change.) ‑ Iridescent 16:23, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I really enjoyed reading this article, and I've no doubt I'll be supporting in the future. Did you know, by the way, that Gyges has considerable fame in the world of philosophy due to Plato's story about him? Josh Milburn (talk) 00:29, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Support, as long as nothing else arises; happy with the replies. I note that the confusion I mentioned was about "to the nation"; I certainly got the gist of it, but I suspect others might not. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:47, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Images are appropriately licensed. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:13, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Support, with my usual caveat that I am anything but expert in the visual arts. So glad JM's prod above alerted me to this review. From my layman's point of view the article covers everything I should like to see, including analysis, views pro and con, influences on and of, and history from origin to present day. Thoroughly and widely referenced, and of course beautifully illustrated. More meo I have a few stylistic niggles, but nothing to affect my support.

• False titles – we can agree to differ and I certainly don't press the point, but the current British style guides on my shelves etc still dismiss the f.t. as tabloidese. Mind you, the guides so dismissing the construction include those of The Guardian and the BBC, which, as in the case of the latter you rightly point out, are widely ignored by contributors and undetected by the subeditors – if such there be – of the online sites. As a sexagenarian Englishman I am probably in the last wave of resistance to this, or many another, Americanism. I just find it naff, but nobody could call it inaccurate or incomprehensible, and as you disagree with me I leave it at that.
• "was bought by horse dealer Robert Vernon, who had made a fortune supplying horses to the military" – too many horses? This would work as well and more concisely if you omitted "horse dealer".

  Agreed, since if he's selling horses he's obviously a horse dealer. Removed. ‑ Iridescent 16:04, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

• "a painting so controversial becoming government property was a source of some embarrassment" – to whom? (There is also a grammatical point about gerunds here, but life is too short and the point can lie undisturbed as far as I'm concerned.)

  Basically, the National Gallery didn't want to put it on public display as they thought putting something this tacky alongside Turner, Constable and co demeaned the English School, but didn't want to upset Vernon by insulting his taste and shoving it in a drawer. ‑ Iridescent 16:04, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

• "the ... Tate Gallery, where it remains" – perhaps (WP:DATED) an "as at 2016" or similar might be prudent here?

  Done, although realistically it will stay there forever except for occasional loans—as a national collection, the Tate never disposes of works. ‑ Iridescent 16:04, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

• "supposed lack of creativity, tastelessness and indecency" – I'd consider changing the order to make it unambiguous that of the last three nouns only one is supposedly lacking: "supposed tastelessness, indecency and lack of creativity"

  Done; I try to shuffle that bit about as some variant of it appears on most of these articles, but I agree this particular permutation is misleading. ‑ Iridescent 16:04, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

• "1870's The Knight Errant" – I needed a couple of goes at this. If you'd consider "The Knight Errant (1870)" instead, I think it would be clearer that you refer to a year rather than a decade.

Reworded to "The Knight Errant, painted by John Everett Millais in 1870", as that way it avoids the brackets. I want to keep the date in, as it indicates that Millais was still influenced by Etty decades after Etty's death. ‑ Iridescent 16:04, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

• Footnote B: the MoS bids us discreetly rationalise punctuation within quotations to match WP practice, and so I'd turn the unspaced en-dashes into spaced en-dashes or unspaced em-dashes.

  Em-dash-ified. ‑ Iridescent 16:04, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

That's my small gleaning. Nothing to prevent my adding support, which I'm glad to do. – Tim riley talk 11:21, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks ‑ Iridescent 16:04, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Comment from Sagaciousphil

• Support but an extremely minor nit pick: the first four sentences in the "Subject" section all start with the same word, Canduales; maybe worth considering shuffling the wording just a little bit? The article is well-written, based on reliable sources and the formatting looks consistent (to me anyway). SagaciousPhil - Chat 15:31, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

  I've got rid of one "Candaules", to break the repetition. The first two instances are probably necessary, as they're the introduction of the painting and the king to the narrative, respectively. ‑ Iridescent 22:54, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

  Thanks, once it had caught my eye it kept jumping out at me. SagaciousPhil - Chat 06:47, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Johnbod

• Support One of the more interesting of the series, and up to the usual standard. Some nit-picks:
• I'd split para 2, or both the lead paras. Maybe that's my 300 px default setting, which gives me the lead pic at a splendid size.

  While the MOS is generally something I honour more in the breach than the observance, people invariably complain when you deviate from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Length without good reason. At 11,000 characters of readable prose, "one or two paragraphs" is the prescribed number. The alternative, of reducing the size of the lead image down to 300px, I'm a little reluctant to do as even at this size it's quite hard to make out Gyges's face. (Yes, I know the official answer is "readers should click on the image and use MediaViewer to see it at large size", but most of our readers have no idea they can do this.) ‑ Iridescent 23:43, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

What they very often complain about is having over 4 paras, and sometimes about having fewer than 4 (especially if it's me). I've never seen anyone complain about going outside the extremely soft suggestions in that table. Are you going to tell me "There's no demand for those, Sir", in classic shop assistant style? Johnbod (talk) 18:28, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I can not only give you examples of people complaining about articles not following that table, I can give you an example from this very series; see Crisco 1492's comments at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Sirens and Ulysses/archive1. (And Crisco is hardly a "MOS is inviolate and must be obeyed" hardliner, either.) If there's a demonstrable reason to disregard the MOS, I'll disregard it without blinking, as the 400px lead image to make the faces more visible to readers bears witness, but when there's no good reason not to follow the MOS I generally try to at least pay lip service to it. ‑ Iridescent 18:36, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

• On my screen (1368*800), this looks fine. The paragraphs read and parse fine as well. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:33, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

The 2nd one is 8 lines long on my screen (wide - no idea what size). In my book that's too long. What it would look like on an older screen I hate to think. Some of the other paras are in other sections also are too long for my taste. If I had noticed your intervention at the other nom I would certainly have protested at that. Long paras put readers off, & are likely to prevent them ever finding out if "the paragraphs read and parse fine". Johnbod (talk) 01:22, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

• Gyges reign was apparently, maybe, 716–678 BC, according to Wikipedia. Work that in somewhere.

  I intentionally omitted the historical Gyges and Candaules (although I did link them), as this is an illustration of Herodotus's version who is to all practical purposes a fictional character. Etty wasn't a Pre-Raphaelite; there's no indication that he was trying to create a realistic image of Ancient Greece, in which case it would be appropriate to give the historic context rather than just the myth. ‑ Iridescent 23:43, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

• How much I agree with my fellow old fogeys re the false title!

Johnbod (talk) 17:24, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 00:54, 10 September 2016 (UTC)