Talk:Gold ground

A fact from Gold ground appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 30 April 2021 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the use of a gold background (example pictured) has been prevalent for some types of art from Europe to Japan?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2021/April. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Gold ground.

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To use?

https://mymodernmet.com/gold-leaf-art/2/
https://artuk.org/discover/stories/colour-in-art-a-brief-history-of-gold
Himalayan Buddhist Art 101: The Four Ground Colors of Himalayan Art
text of Getty "Gold-Ground Panel Painting"]
Byzantine Art and Renaissance Europe, 2013, ISBN: 9781409420385, 1409420388
Byzantine Art and Italian Panel Painting: The Virgin and Child Hodegetria and the Art of Chrysography, Jaroslav Folda, Lucy J. Wrapson · 2015, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9781107010239, 1107010233

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by MeegsC (talk) 09:45, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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14th-century Madonna and Child

... that the use of a gold background has been prevalent for some types of art from Europe to Japan? Source:"During the Byzantine Empire and the early centuries of Christianity, gold was frequently used to symbolise transcendent, divine light embodying the invisible, spiritual world. Gold could be found in the background of icons, mosaics, triptych panels and architectural settings. (and so on). And "Byzantine artists continued to use the medium in religious depictions, including their well-known gold-ground paintings. In these works, gold leaf sheets were used to compose the background, making the figures appear to float against a heavenly sky. During the Middle Ages, the gold-ground style was also used in panel paintings and altarpieces featuring the Madonna and Child.... In the 16th and 17th centuries, Japanese artists incorporated gold leaf into the paintings found on folding screens. Similarly, they began to paint directly onto gold leaf paper to produce their own gold-ground depictions."

Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Vaccine ingredients

Created by Johnbod (talk). Self-nominated at 12:34, 5 April 2021 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Minor sourcing issues require action. QPQ required. Also slightly puzzled by the gallery of images at the end of the "Asian art" section which contain a mix of Asian and non-Asian art; I would potentially add these to a gallery section ahead of notes/references. Sims2aholic8 (talk) 09:07, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - the article is still expanding. Johnbod (talk) 13:57, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sims2aholic8, Sorry for the pause. QPQ done, refs now covered. Gallery header added. Expansion will probably continue, but I'll cover refs as I go. Johnbod (talk) 00:08, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. All good to go now! Sims2aholic8 (talk) 06:55, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Section headings

Hi - per WP:BRD, coming here to discuss. I'm opposed to the section headings "History" and "In Asian art" remaining as they currently are. This is a pervasive issue on Wikipedia - treating European/Western instances of something as mainstream ("History") and uses in Asia/Africa/New World as a special case ("In Asian art"). If we are going to keep a section called "History", it should cover the history of this technique as a whole, including subsections on different geographies. Otherwise, I think we should rename the sections as I had done, to "In European art" and "In Asian art". Let me know what you think. Ganesha811 (talk) 18:31, 30 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Johnbod, others, any thoughts? Ganesha811 (talk) 21:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For one thing, Byzantine art as a whole is not usually thought of as "European". For another, there has been a lot more gold ground in European than Asian art. Johnbod (talk) 23:13, 30 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Johnbod, sure, that's all fair. But calling one section "History" and one "In Asian art" leaves all the Asian history out of the "History" section, implying that the Western portion is the only real history. What would you propose as new section headings? We could also move some subsections around to organize it so that we don't have to have as strong a division. Ganesha811 (talk) 23:16, 30 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I still don't really see the need. The "technique" section is still "integrated", as far as the manuscripts go. But on the history, I suspect the use in Persian then Mughal miniatures ultimately derives from the Byzantine tradition, though I've never seen a source that says so, but the Japanese use came from Japanese lacquer & other local decorative arts. So the history of Asian usage does not really form a whole with the Byzantine/Western one. This is an important feature of Western art history, but much less so in the Asian traditions. I could add a line at "history" saying something like "for Asia see below", or put Asia under the "history" header, if you think that helps - I'm not sure it does myself. Johnbod (talk) 14:57, 1 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Johnbod, thanks for making the changes you did. I think it is an improvement. I think the next step is to distribute the "Asian art" subsection sentences into the rest of the History subsections ('Paintings', 'Mosaics', and 'Manuscripts'). These various Asian art traditions are disparate and don't really need to be grouped together - I'm going to make these changes now. Let me know what you think. I take your word for it that this was less important in various Asian traditions than in the Western one - I think the article will continue to reflect that, as it does now, in the amount of space given to these geographies. Ganesha811 (talk) 15:46, 1 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE: Above is settled; the stuff below is not:

Hey Johnbod - my thinking is that it makes sense to have the two subheadings under 'Painting', as there are two sections - one for European art and one for Japanese art. Using both subheadings is clearer for the reader. I also do think it's important that we not treat European art as the default and other art as a special case. The Mosaics and Manuscripts sections are now both nicely integrated - while I'm perfectly happy if we keep separate sections for European and Japanese paintings with gold ground, since they're different traditions, I don't think we should 'favor' one over the other by leaving off a subheading. Ganesha811 (talk) 22:28, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is not needed - we don't want a forest of subheaders, a common fault of WP articles. The fact is that on paintings, the Western tradition is the main story here - there's no getting round that. Johnbod (talk) 03:02, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Johnbod, I don't think going from 14 to 15 items in the ToC is putting us in "forest" territory just yet. I take your word for it that this was a more important technique in the West than in Japan - but that's not really a reason to avoid having a subheading for "European painting". It adds clarity and helps the reader for no cost. The reader can discern for themselves that this was more important in the West by reading the text and content - no need to subtly signal this to them by excluding a helpful subheading. Ganesha811 (talk) 04:48, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Johnbod - any further discussion? Otherwise, I'm going to re-add the subheading in the next couple days. Ganesha811 (talk) 14:41, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and re-added the subheading, since it's been a few days. Happy to continue the discussion if desired, though. Ganesha811 (talk) 14:39, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And I've removed it again. I don't think it's needed or looks right. To me, already having 14 items in the ToC is a strong reason not to a 15th unless it is really needed. Johnbod (talk) 15:31, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Johnbod, well, seems we're at an impasse. What do you think - should we take it to WP:3O? Or is there another way to resolve this? Ganesha811 (talk) 16:37, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've added it to the list at WP:3O - hopefully someone will come along shortly and help us reach consensus. Ganesha811 (talk) 17:51, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not usually a way to get informed comments - I've added a section at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Visual arts too. Johnbod (talk) 17:58, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Johnbod, sure, sounds good, the more eyes/opinions the better. Ganesha811 (talk) 18:09, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How common is the use of a gold ground in Japanese painting? Roughly how many examples exist? Ewulp (talk) 23:35, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Heaven knows! There won't be too many survivals from the first period, I think. It was introduced at a period later seen as a high point, so there is later use in a revivalist spirit. Not nearly as many as Western paintings, for sure. Johnbod (talk) 00:39, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Johnbod, well, it got removed from the list at WP:3O as stale. What else can we do to resolve this and reach consensus? Ewulp, having read the discussion, any thoughts? Ganesha811 (talk) 14:17, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On the one hand, the Paintings section discusses only European art after the first sentence, which would make the "European painting" heading seem to fit; on the other hand the style of painting in question has remained common in Eastern Orthodox icons, which may need more emphasis in the text. I have no expertise in these icons and do not know where the centers of production are, but artists such as Yuhanna al-Armani are not European. Ewulp (talk) 00:53, 25 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ewulp, thanks for your thoughts. Johnbod, what do you think? Ganesha811 (talk) 21:44, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The lead covers Eastern Orthodox use, which continues to the present day, but points could be repeated in the section. Much of the production is and has been outside Europe. Johnbod (talk) 00:47, 6 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Johnbod, per MOS:INTRO anything notable that's in the lead should also be in the body. In general, I still feel the headings should be changed, but as it's ultimately not a big deal and there's obviously room for reasonable disagreement, I defer to your preference. Thanks for the good faith discussion. Ganesha811 (talk) 14:23, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]