Talk:Les Demoiselles d'Avignon/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 19:42, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'll review this interesting and well-written article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:42, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

General comments

It isn't entirely clear why some books are cited in the Notes, and others in the References. I'd suggest that if the article is going to use a mixture of long and short refs, you should automate the short refs using the "ref=harv" mechanism (you have to match the surnames of the authors in each case to make this work).

The books in References are cited in at least three different ways, namely like

Bloggs 1923, p. 123
Bloggs 1923, 123
Bloggs, 123

The article should use just one of these styles, consistently.

Some of the books have ISBNs, others not. Again, these need to be consistent.

Some of the books are also lacking date and publisher, e.g. 29 Johnson, 20 Richardson.

There are some references in the lead section. I'd say they aren't needed except for the actual quotation, and should be removed - if they aren't already in the text then they need to be moved there with whatever they're supporting. For example, why is the first published photograph of the work so important that it is mentioned in the lead? The sentence should be moved to the article body. Similarly, why is "At the time of its first exhibition in 1916, the painting was deemed immoral.[8]" in the lead but not mentioned in the body? This too must move to the body; if it's important, it can be summarized in the lead. The lead will need at least partial rewriting as it ought to summarize the whole article, not discuss particular people's reactions or introduce new concepts not found in the body.

Relationship to mathematics

There is no mention of the relationship of this painting to mathematics, in particular to perspective (graphical) and projection; there are cited sources on this in the article "mathematics and art". Felipe Cucker writes, for example

the vantage point from which the nose is observed does not coincide with the vantage point from which the rest of the face is. Picasso creates an image of an object on which some parts of the object are seen from a vantage point and some others from a different once. He is thus giving up the most basic assumption of perspective (and, by the way, of parallel projection as well): the existence of a unique, well-defined, viewpoint.
Fry (1966:14) does not hesitate to give precedence to this feature:
'The treatment of space is [...] by far the most significant aspect of Les Demoiselles [...]. The challenge facing Picasso was the creation of a new system of indicating three-dimensional relationships that would no longer be dependent on the convention of illusionistic, one [view]point perspective'.
This significance was noted shortly after the creation of Les Demoiselles by George Braque, who 'followed Picasso's lead in combining several points of view into a single image' (Fry, 1966:17).

The Cucker ref is in the WP article mentioned; pages 316-317.
The Fry ref is Fry, E. F. (1966) Cubism. London: Thames and Hudson.

Specific comments

Please choose a simpler word than "edulcoration", or else link and gloss the term.

You explain "bordel" on the second usage: please move the gloss to the first usage; I suggest you also explain "Las chicas" as not everyone will know even that much Spanish.

Ref 12 on Allan Stein is a dead link; please see if you can replace it, perhaps with an Archive.org link to the same page.

References 21, 22, and 23 seem to be citing the same work in three different ways. Which is it to be?

Legacy: Why is it of note that the Newsweek article was two pages? And why is this the only sentence in the Legacy section? The Seligman and MoMA paragraphs immediately above actually seem to be Legacy as well; and a little searching will certainly reveal more. Why does La Revolution Surrealiste not get a mention? The centenary is discussed in The Guardian; The New York Times has written about it many times; there is much more "Legacy" out there.

Painting materials: "Picasso used partly old pigments ... and partly modern pigments" could be clearer. Perhaps "Some of the pigments used are traditional ... , while others are modern".

Outcome

As there has been no response, I shall have to fail this promising GA candidate. If anyone would like to take it up, simply renominate it, resolve the issues listed above, and feel free to ping me for the review. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:44, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]