Talk:Fritz von Uhde

Gallery

The division of the gallery into sections labeled "Early works", "Religious paintings", and "Everyday life" was not serving well. The third category included Road to Bethlehem and a Winter Landscape featuring a figure with halo, which in is not something one sees every day. As Uhde habitually depicted religious themes using scenes of everyday life, the categorization seemed arbitrary. It also resulted in an arrangement—several consecutive contre-jour interiors, followed by several consecutive scenes depicting isolated figures in a bare landscape with a receding road—that emphasized the sameness of the compositions. A simple chronological placement overcomes this problem. I also added one of his 20th-century works, because the final 40% of his career was entirely unrepresented, which is quite an omission. Ewulp (talk) 09:33, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

• I don't agree with your changes. You removed a lot of paintings from the gallery too, that are important.- . Fritz von Uhde frequently depicted Jesus Christ as visiting common people, poor people and working class or proletarian families in settings of his country. One of his well-known paintings was Come, Lord Jesus, be our Guest (Komm, Herr Jesus, sei unser Gast), where Christ appears among the peasant family assembled for their meal in a modern German farmhouse. - Yeah, that one was removed, right.

All this is an important part of Fritz von Uhde's work - the themes- "Christ among the common people here and now" and it is a most significant part of his art. Do NOT remove it again. And just how many women depicted from the back do we have to have on a row - just because it happens to be cronology ? It is a most awkward way to arrange galleries, most of the times. No painter ever painted any paintings so they should look well in a gallery in cronological order. Hafspajen (talk) 05:52, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

The gallery as it now stands is in chronological order, with only a single exception, and works just fine that way. It usually does, and serves the purpose of an encyclopedia better than a decorative arrangement. Now do NOT add more ... but shouted commands are poor form, don't you agree? Ewulp (talk) 06:44, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Probably, sorry. But I wanted to nominate this one File:1885 Uhde Das Tischgebet anagoria.JPG as a Featured picture and here I come back and it is gone. Hafspajen (talk) 06:53, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Chosen paintings

Hi there wikibrothers, dear users Hafspajen and Ewulp (I think we three have modified this article more oftenly in the previous months).

As I look at the gallery, I feel as if there are parts which look rather dim and kind of ashen. I want to suggest some things:

1. Not to use discolored files like these:

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Don't you think these are preferable?... or is just me?

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(Ewulp: you have reverted my edits where I attempted to substitute them... why do you like more the first files?)

comment: The second file for Organ Grinder in Zandvoort shows the ground, the sky, and the women's blouses all the same yellowish gray, and the color of the dog matching the color of the leaves on the trees at the right. In the first file, these colors are varied. The reds are more vivid in the second file, but the blues and purples are destroyed. I am not sitting in the Alte Nationalgalerie to make a direct comparison, but I think the first file, whatever its defects, is much better than the second, which reduces the painting to a near monochrome. My reaction to the two jpgs of Heideprinzeßchen is similar; the one I prefer is less sharp and a bit pale, but the second file looks implausibly bright and Fauvist. You uploaded that one; it is modified using Photoshop, correct? Of the versions seen here, the 2006 and 2011 files seem best. Ewulp (talk) 07:58, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

(response): Yes, I uploaded both of the second files with the purpose of a change for the better. I suggest them because I think they are better in quality. The second one, the Princess, is indeed retouched, but I considered it as necessary because I feel that first file has an extremely bad quality; is extremely opaque and it seems like a bad photo with a bad cloud, rather than the painting of the original princess. I don't know whether it seems fauvist to you, but what refrains you to accept that Uhde painting a Princess with so vivid colors would be inpossible? Why do you assume that the original painting was "opaquist" instead? To me, the first file looks implausibly ashen and dull, and the green color is destroyed with withered grass.

I also uploaded the second version Organ Grider, but this one was directly taken from an old biographical book that compiles Uhde's work: Uhde: des Meisters Gemälde (1908). As I see it, you assume, wrongly, that the original painting had an omniscient blue hue, mixed with grey and purple. To me, the first file utterly destroys the red and the orange colors with such a tone. In the first file, the white is not white, but light blue (this I call implausible). Summing up, it seemed to me obvious that this was due to a bad quality of the first electronic file. I can prove it. See it for yourself: if you look at the original painting as found in the book I tell you about, you can see that there is no such blue and purple as you thought. --Goose friend (talk) 06:25, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

This confirms what I suspected: the jpg is taken from a reproduction in an old book. It looks that way. The jpg does not resemble an actual painting. Pintings when seen in person are often less monochromatic and bright than reproductions in old books. Ewulp (talk) 07:02, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

We're stuck to our views. I would like to have a third opinion.--Goose friend (talk) 08:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

2. Which criteria are we using to choose or to decide which pictures are to appear in the gallery and which aren't? User Hafspajen rightly asked: "how many women from the back do we have to have on a row - just because it happens to be cronology ?". I just see kind of the same topic here (females in a room):

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3. Do not misunderstand me. I like those pictures, I know Uhde painted plenty of them, but that's not the only things he painted. So, I ask: What's the point of having a gallery like that if there's no much variety? I think Uhde's work has more variety; there are other interesting paintings in his work, which I'd like to suggest because, to my view, they either address another topics or show other types of artistic techniques:

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Don't you think the article should offer the reader a chance to look into the different topics and paintings Uhde addressed? What do you say? Do you agree or disagree... and why? --Goose friend (talk) 05:33, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

There are now 26 images in this article, which is a large number for a rather short article. We can't include everything. There are technical reasons to avoid bloated galleries whenever possible, and a gallery should not be a substitute for text. VAMOS says this: "Galleries are often necessary within the body of a VA article. These galleries should relate clearly to the text, be proportionate to it and provide adequate information in the captions ... A Wikipedia article gallery should not just replicate a Commons gallery for the sake of it, but needs to use the images with editorial judgement, as with the text, with the validity of inclusion of each image considered." The text of our article is about 45 sentences long. Opinions may differ on what is "proportionate", but 26 images in a biography of 45 sentences is more than you normally expect to see in an encyclopedia.

The current gallery is Hafspajen's edit; my edit of October 5 had trimmed two of the "Religious paintings where Christ appears among common people". I recommend removing one or two of them and substituting Road to Emmaus, which provides a nice contrast by moving the action outdoors. If there are too many women in interiors, why add Old People's Home, which also appears to be an off-color reproduction? I would leave out Portrait of Therese Karl. As for the rest, In the Garden is useful as an example of his paintings of his daughters, and is neither a back view nor a woman in a room. Seated Angel on the Stairs is important as the only example in the article of the late angel paintings. Holy Night seems to me not one of his better paintings. Ewulp (talk) 07:58, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

I really don't think they are too many pictures in the article. Articles about artist's need a good selection of their paintins to be able to present the artis's work, ESPECIALLY - unknown artists - but any artis, actually. Have you ever seen the article on Rembrand? Hafspajen (talk) 12:24, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

About this measuring around - I am not fond of it. One has to use some common sense too. But there might be two solutions just to satisfy it = expand artickle more. Or pack gallery. Hafspajen (talk) 12:26, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

I am for using topics, but one has to compose a gallery with sensitivity and care, keeping in mind forms, colors, expressions - like they do it in the museums. They display the artworks that they should lok good too, not like many times on Wiki just smash them in and hope for the best, often without reflecting much about the final result. Hafspajen (talk) 12:29, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Inside the van Gogh Museum

On October 8 we had a discussion on Talk:Jean-Baptiste Greuze where you posted the following list of visual arts featured articles as examples of appropriate image use: Early Netherlandish painting, Holy Thorn Reliquary, The Magdalen Reading, Royal Gold Cup, Madonna in the Church, Stanford Memorial Church, Portrait Diptych of Dürer's Parents, The Entombment (Bouts), Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych, Las Meninas, Dresden Triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Magdalen Reading. Let's look at these. In all cases, the majority of the jpgs are embedded in the part of the text that explains them. There is enough text to support the images by explaining them thoroughly. Galleries? Early Netherlandish painting has 4 images in a gallery. Holy Thorn Reliquary has 5 images in a gallery. The Magdalen Reading as 6. Royal Gold Cup has 6. Madonna in the Church has no gallery at all. And so on. This (short) article has 21 jpgs in two galleries.

Inspect the featured article artists' biographies: Felice Beato, Matthew Brettingham, El Greco, El Lissitzky, Caspar David Friedrich, Adolfo Farsari, Hilda Rix Nicholas, Constance Stokes. Note the size of gallery (if there is a gallery) relative to the size of article. As featured articles, these are good models to follow. Simply giving the reader a load of images with no related text is not encyclopedic. Articles should not be 50% text and 50% gallery.

If the goal is "to compose a gallery with sensitivity and care, keeping in mind forms, colors, expressions - like they do it in the museums", a packed gallery is completely unsuitable—would a museum install a packed row of paintings with frames touching? Usually the installation is more like the one seen at right. A chronological arrangement is usually best, with minimal adjustments where a seriously distracting imbalance or unfortunate juxtaposition requires it. The images are primarily to serve the educational purpose of the encyclopedia, not to decorate the page. Ewulp (talk) 14:16, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

• We have very different ideas about how an article should look like. Yours is the intellectual approach, you want mostly text and not so many images. I more on the sensuous side - and I do think - and also I am not alone with this idea on the English Wikipedia- that images do add to articles - and they most definitely add to art articles. Also this mostly text and no images is the old, more conservative approach. A packed gallery is many time a good compromise to show a bigger production of an artist- they can also be made with care and sensitivity - I discovered that lately. So I went from being against them - as I didn't really liked them in the beggining - to use them occasionally.- Hafspajen (talk) 19:32, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

(ec) I agree that images add to articles, and are especially important in art articles. So my approach is not "mostly text and no images", but rather a proportionate use of images supported by text, consistent with our MOS. I see no evidence that this is an "old, conservative" approach; the newest articles approved for featured article status do not have huge galleries; they usually have no galleries at all: see Barn owl, American paddlefish, Ontario Highway 403, Charlie Chaplin, George Formby, and recently promoted visual art articles Nativity (Christus), Three Beauties of the Present Day, Four Freedoms (Norman Rockwell), Freedom from Want (painting), Union Films, or any others. As evidence of the proper use of galleries in visual arts articles, I've already cited the very same articles that you recommended as models of appropriate use of images. Ewulp (talk) 06:57, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I totally agree with Hadspajen. Galleries are important, to "amplify the meaning of the article and to demonstrate meaning and nuance, which cannot be made by words". (Come on, we're talking about a painter). This is why I disagree with Ewulp's approach. I'm sorry but I don't understand why the text is "45 sentences long". I just ask, long what? Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, I think we do have to take into consideration the principles of policies, but we must "not follow an overly strict interpretation of the letter of policy".

Just look at the galleries at Western painting, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet. They don't seem to be in accordance to the conservative approach. VAMOS is not an absolute law, is it?. I read in the Manual of Style that sometimes "more than one style is acceptable."; that guidelines are principles that many editors agree, but Wikipedia tells you also that You Can't Follow All The Rules, All The Time and that "they must be evaluated for each particular situation to assess if they apply," to see if they indeed make it better or not. There is an WP:Ignore all rules policy too. don't obsess over them

(comment)If you look at Talk:Claude Monet you will see that the number of images on that page was the subject of a discussion, in which I expressed approval of a large number of images. Monet, like Rembrandt mentioned above, is one of the most important painters in history. And he worked in series, which necessitate showing multiple images. Uhde is "unknown", to use Hafspajen's term. I want to make him better known, which is why I started the article in 2007. I am not trying to suppress his work; I am trying to build an encyclopedia article according to normal Wikipedia standards. We operate by consensus; WP is not anarchy. As discussed above, there seem to be no visual arts featured articles that abuse galleries in this way. Ewulp (talk) 06:57, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

1. That he is widely "unknown" nowadays, does not diminish the fame he had at his epoch.

2. Nobody is proposing any "anarchy." We are just trying to make changes for the better, and want you to understand that there is no need to be so restrictive on the matters we are discussing.

3.What do you mean by "abusing" galleries "in this way"? --Goose friend (talk) 08:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

(comment) "Abuse" means to use galleries in a way that is contrary to best practices as defined in WP:IG: "Images in a gallery should be carefully selected, avoiding similar or repetitive images, unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made ... Wikipedia is not an image repository." When I say "there seem to be no visual arts featured articles that abuse galleries in this way", it means I know of no visual arts featured articles that do what this article does—present "similar or repetitive images, without any point of contrast or comparison being made". If you look at the visual arts featured articles I've linked, or any others of your choice, you will see that they either have no gallery, or have very selective galleries of a mere handful of images. Ewulp (talk) 13:10, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

In this case, I believe the changes Hafspajen and I are proposing are seeking changes for the better. The idea of "not putting too many pictures" makes a sad article for me. This article is not in danger of being "too long", I actually think it's kind of short. Neither there is any danger of making a Wikicommons gallery. 4 rows of 4 paintings each, are not a substitute for a wikicommons gallery that has 20 rows of 7 each. Show consideration for our point of view. I just had idea of a "not-so-small" gallery because it would permit the reader to take a wider look at different works by Uhde. There are things that cannot be told by words, you know, and Uhde's work is very valuable and not always the same.

In my view, I recommend letting there the five different paintings in the Religious paintings gallery, since they all seem to me interesting enough and particular on their own (besides, as far as I have seen, each of the 4 is famous in art galleries about Uhde), so I decline their removal. I would rather to remove 6 of the 7 females in the room. The angel is ok. But, we could get into an agreement of which pictures can be substitute them. I like von Uhde - Am Morgen (1889).jpg In the morning, because it's a different theme, i.e. farmers working in the field. Old People's Home seems to me very different because of the intense red color and the combination with the yellow sunlight, and I value the quality of the file; though it's a woman, this makes it very different. A children's procession in the rain and von Uhde - Der Leierkastenmann kommt (1883).jpg this one are also very different in topic, and all these I feel attain to the ideal of showing more variety.

P.S.: Ewulp, I have written above my responde about your preference of the decolorized ashen files as "better" than the vivid ones.--Goose friend (talk) 06:25, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I like the idea of showing more variety, and Ilike most of your choices. I do not think we need all 5 of the Christ pictures, and I suggested some cuts before. A Children's Procession and Der Leierkastenmann kommt are very good choices; Old People's Home looks like another bad reproduction from a book and does not improve the article if our goal is to show what Uhde's paintings look like. Ewulp (talk) 07:18, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

At least we have agreed on A Children's Procession and Der Leierkastenmann kommt but I simply can't understand why you don't accept one more picture of Christ while mantaining the other four that are already there. I don't know whether it's a matter of browsers, but in the browser I use, they are in the same row. So, why not? --Goose friend (talk) 08:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

We usually go with 4 in a row to avoid browser issues. I think 4 JC pictures demonstrate the subject. Ewulp (talk) 08:36, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I just want to stick in one remark - (I was so totally busy with the Signpost's so had no time for this we delayed with four editions - ) - that the interesting thing with this artist is the way he depicted Jesus among everyday people like as he would still walk among us even today. As an artist, it is this that makes him to stand out. It is a very important feature of his art - indeed if not the most important one. This is actually the very feature what makes him special. A variety is good but keep in mind this. This is why I wanted to have two categories - religious - and everyday topics like portraits and landscapes and stuff. About - bad scans - we should try to find better scans, somehow. Hafspajen (talk) 23:45, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

The division into two categories in the current edit is fine; I didn't like the way the galleries were divided into three categories in an earlier edit in September but it's fixed now. My remarks to Goose friend were intended to encourage him to make one or two substitutions rather than adding whole rows of images. Some of his choices, like Hagar's expulsion, are low quality scans that should not be used. I thought Der Leierkastenmann kommt was a good choice but a closer look shows the jpg has a prominent watermark. Ewulp (talk) 08:40, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes. I was really looking for alternatives - better scans, but nothing so far. Hafspajen (talk) 21:17, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Requested source

Bettina Brand (Oxford Art Online) says: "From the late 1890s he produced fresh, glowing paintings of his daughters in the garden, which became his refuge when he withdrew from the art world after 1900: In the Garden (1901; Frankfurt am Main, Städel. Kstinst. & Städt. Gal.) and In the Garden (1906; Mannheim, Städt. Ksthalle)." Ewulp (talk) 08:16, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

A

Found a good file Google art file.

The Mealtime Prayer or Grace before the Meal (1885) by Fritz von Uhde

This can let me nominate this picture, as this guy really deserves it, soon. This file comes directly fro the museum, a google file and is big enough and good enough to be nominated as Featured picture. I moved it out from the gallery because often people frown upon gallery placements. Hafspajen (talk) 21:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Fritz von Uhde/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

This has text from two sources. It needs a portrait, though it has an example of his work. It needs an infobox. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 14:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Last edited at 14:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 15:39, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Possibly obsolete holdings

The following gallery locations are verbatim in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, or else sourced from the 1905 NIE, and there's no guarantee thy are still at the same place. I maybe should have boldly deleted the locations, or made a notation in the text, but decided that would be too pedantic, and I don't have access to Brand. It would be good to have contemporary confirmation of their location. I may have missed some here:

• Komm, Herr Jesus, sei unser Gast, Berlin National Gallery
• Suffer Little Children to come unto Me, Leipzig Museum
• The Journey to Bethlehem, Munich Pinakothek
• Saving Grace, Musée d'Orsay
• Christ at Emmaus & Road to Emmaus (Gang nach Emmaus), Staedel Institute, Frankfort [sic]
• The Farewell of Tobias, Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna
• Noli me tangere, New Pinakothek, Munich
• The Wise Men from the East, Magdeburg Museum
• Woman, Why Weepest Thou?, Vienna Museum

Also, is The Sermon on the Mount still in a private collection? David Brooks (talk) 15:56, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

I should have mentioned that the above comments refer to this version. Ewulp has already addressed two of them. David Brooks (talk) 15:08, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm glad you posted because the article has some errors there. I'll be cleaning up the rest as time permits. Ewulp (talk) 23:57, 29 June 2022 (UTC)