Talk:Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Saramadison7.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:32, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

name[edit]

I moved her to her present name as that reflects her signature :) Prince LouisPhilippeCharles (talk) 16:51, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Every museum that displays her work gives her as Elisabeth Louise not Louise Elisabeth.
For example, an upcoming exhibit:
I have photos of labels at the Clark, Legion of Honor, and Toledo Museum of Art that all read Elisabeth Louise not Louise Elisabeth.
Use of the accent and hyphen vary but sequence does not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1010:B048:695:E0CE:FFE6:4D38:34B5 (talk) 16:27, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Before I saw this entry, I changed her name to EL as I've not seen another reference to LE. The page name should really be changed as well - that will create a redirect for the alternate name. The s-p jpg has the names in the right order, but with a z in Elisabeth - too much hassle to correct, though. Andthepharaohs (talk) 15:45, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've now moved the page and updated the defaultsort argument to reflect the corrected name. Andthepharaohs (talk) 15:52, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Andthepharaohs: She is historically known as LE, many old book titles here: [1] and over 4,000 search results here: [2]. The opposite EL has over 3,000 results. So LE has the majority. But it may be she is more recently known as EL. At the least it would make sense to document her name variations (including dashes) in the lead section or a footnote.
The recent move from Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun to Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun avoids the problem altogether, but is, in my opinion, wrong. She seems to be regularly referred to by her full name:

I'm inclined to agree with Michael - the long version does seem to be more common, as far as I can see. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:55, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fame[edit]

Is she really "recognized as the most famous female painter of the 18th century"? No references are given for this. What's more, much of her fame came from work in the 19th century. I think it's just puffery. What about Angelica Kauffman? Sjwells53 (talk) 14:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I added a couple citation needed tags for now. Maybe we can scare up something useful in support of that statement. If not, it can be toned down to something more realistic or even scratched entirely. – JBarta (talk) 18:18, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Too many images[edit]

This relatively short article contains a whopping 18 images. A little much. The self-portrait in the infobox, fine. A few examples of her work, fine. The rest can be culled. Template:Commons is normally used to point readers to additional images. A review of WP:IG would be useful. – JBarta (talk) 19:13, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree; I'm a huge fan of her work, but this isn't the place to display every picture she produced. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:53, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if the number of images was ever reduced. I am happy to see the number that are there. Nevertheless I noticed that the caption for the portrait of Mohammed/Muhammad/Mahomet Dervish Khan is broken in an awkward spot because it is crowded. Consequently it reads "Muham mad Dervish Khan". (The spelling used is consistent with the article about the painting, but not necessarily consistent with the French original.) Could someone with more experience than me please fix it. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 05:39, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Further regarding "too many pictures", take a look at the article about Thomas Gainsborough. I am pleased to have plenty of images as long as they are thumbnail size. In this article, I think they just need to be rearranged. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 23:37, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

editing[edit]

I'm a student at Muhlenberg College and I intend on making some of the following edits on this page.

Biography

This particular section could benefit from better organization and much of the information placed within it could instead be shared within other respective headings. It appears to have been made to incorporate both a “Biography” and an “Early Life” together, as opposed to separating the two, thus allowing for greater detail. As opposed to giving a familial background in this section, it may be moved to a section entitled “Early Life” as to be more expansive. This also goes for her early career within the Academy and her tour of Flanders and the Netherlands with her husband, in which her career had the opportunity to develop.

Early Life

This section could be beneficial to the page, as it would allow for more background detail in Madame Le Brun’s life: her family background, how she got started, who she worked with/copied/sought advice from, her success within Salon’s and the connections it allowed her, her marriage (and it’s effect on her career), the particular styles she worked in and what she painted (aside from portraits), etc. It could detail her time at the Academy and her relationship with her husband, as well as her father and those whose paintings she admired upon getting started in her career.

Career Highlights

This section (though could be titled differently) could be added in order to give a brief background specifically to Le Brun as an artist. The way that she depicts herself as an artist and a woman/mother was an important factor of her work, which is not quite noted on her current page.

Marie Antoinette

This portion is fairly detailed though leaves out minor things. As their relationship was based off of Le Brun’s ability to reshape and re-humanize Antoinette’s image to her people, the section could specifically reference the painting that worked to restore Antoinette’s image (of she and her children, the empty cradle) and could talk about how it affected and improved her societal standing. In particular, the attacks of Madame Le Brun’s private life, due to her association with Marie Antoinette, could be mentioned, as well as Antoniette’s involvement in Madame Le Brun’s acceptance into the Academy.

French Revolution

Detailed information is provided within this section. It could, however, incorporate more on her “Career Highlights” and how well received she was after being exiled from France. Having traveled through Italy, Rome, Naples, Florence, Venice and multiple other places, she gained even more experience in portraiture. It is during this time that she begins painting several self-portraits which depict how she wants to be seen as an artist (and as a mother). In Rome her work was well-received, granting her admission into the Accademia di S Luca. After her acceptance she travelled to Vienna, Prague, and various other places receiving commission from noble families. Another section could be added on when Madame Le Brun regained citizenship in France in 1800, though moved to London shortly after and returned to France for the final time in 1805. This could include her divorce (prior to regaining citizenship), her popularity within salons, and other important portraits she painted during this time. Juliabeatley (talk) 17:08, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The edits you intend to make sound good. Here are a few nit-picky things I think might help make the article even better
  • The second paragraph of the intro section is confusing. I just don't get it.
  • The biography section also gets confusing it would benefit from being cleaned up and organized better.
  • In the Marie Antoinette section it seems that there are at least 2-3 different names that are used to identify the artist. This is very confusing, I would pick on name/nickname and stick with it for the entire article.
  • By the end of the French Revolution section it is no longer about the French Revolution some other heading needs to be put here to separate the information.
  • While the pictures in the gallery section are great I would delete some of them. Having 5 pictures that really display the range of her style is more effective that 10 pictures that are all similar.

SarahBatya (talk) 16:39, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think the article is good and pretty expansive. I also agree with Sarah's suggestions. As for the second paragraph of the intro, it is a bit confusing. However, it seems to be mostly about her style so it might be best to create and expand a separate style section to keep the intro from being to long. If this section is moved, more will have to be added to the intro though. I suggest moving the sentences " Vigée Le Brun left a legacy of 660 portraits and 200 landscapes. In addition to private collections, her works may be found at major museums, such as Hermitage Museum, London's National Gallery, in Europe and the United States." up to the intro because it seems to fit more there than in the French Revolution section.
I would either remove one of the pictures in the biography section or rearrange them. They make the section feel a bit too crowded, and as they are both self-portraits it feels a bit redundant. While pictures are nice to have I feel like they are crowded into this article, two paintings per section for this amount of writing can seem like a lot. There is one sentence in the Marie Antoinette section about Labille-Guiard being admitted to the Academy on the same day. I don't find this particularly necessary since it seems out of place in the article and there is nothing else about Labille-Guiard. However, if you would like to keep this, I would suggest adding some information about the media's portrayal of Vigée-Lebrun including the supposed rivalry with Labille-Guiard to add a bit of context. M.stoss17 (talk) 19:30, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't the Wolfsbuttel portrait illustrating the article a variant of this 1783 portrait?

I Alaina Xiang (username) can draw very well, a rare talent for art, and more accurately and I am more modest, even though I do not practice, not ever on a regular basis like some who are artists. I can draw more different things vs. some people who say they draw solely the same subject, practicing the sole same thing (i.e. shoes, cats or foliage) for 30 hrs/week for 2 years or more, most of them do fine arts on a regular basis whether they are bad or not at drawing.

Watercolour is a great medium but is much harder and more challenging compared to oil painting which is easier. Oil painting and acrylic paints allows you to blend more, oil takes 1-3 days to dry which is a long time to dry, versus Watercolour which dries within 2 or 3 minutes and dries much more quickly and watercolour require great ability in a sense.

Out of 10% of people who can paint,96% have taken lots of art lessons, taken 300 times more art lessons than me, not any lessons.

During the 17 th and 18th century, cameras already existed and during the 5 th century BC, the Chinese philosopher, Mo invented and created the first camera, the concept, idea or technology etc. Various men or women who use a camera (that do not know how to draw) but take photographs with a camera and call it an oil painting, but it is not an oil painting. Otherwise, those art college students/photographers say that they can only draw stick figures.

Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun is talented and did not work at another job, is lucky to have time, spends 500 to 1600 hours per painting of Marie Antoinette and other court people, which takes a very very long time/painting. Also, since the age of 3, her father who was a full-time artist and other tutors hired gave Le Brun lessons to practice more and learn special techniques.

Picasso is not a bad man but Picasso, Spanish painter is weird for intentionally cutting off one of his ears, then doing a self portrait. As Picasso draws distorted images, he become a famous painter until a long long time afterwards for his impressionist art. Picasso draws distorted art (Blue Period, Cubism, triangles and squares ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.0.50.4 (talk) 04:30, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Camera Obscura was used, Vermeer paintings are not paintings, uncovering the truth behind the oil paintings,[edit]

During the 17th and 18th century, Vermeer and Le Brun and various other European artists used a camera obscura which is not the same as painting because Vermeer and other European artists were tracing. If supporters of Vermeer just try to be more honest and acknowledge the camera was used, and stop trying to cover up, they would come to an agreement that Joseph Pennell etc. have already proven that Vermeer and other neoclassical artists used a camera. Phillip Steadman is correct when saying that the camera obscura projected the images etc. and Vermeer traced them over with paint. He said that using a camera with an incredibly clear image (produced by the camera obscura) did occur in Vermeer's case. Tracing is cheating. Those oil paintings are not actually paintings, not drawings done on Vermeer's own. Allan Mills is wrong that it did not necessitate a camera because Vermeer's paintings are impossible without a camera. Vermeer is not that great and only a superhuman would do that. Refer to link: ,https://www.google.ca/searchq=18th+century+cameras&biw=1280&bih=866&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjgs9WX2pnNAhUCmx4KHXdLC8wQ7AkIOA&dpr=1 The paintings of Vermeer and Elisabeth Le Brun cannot be perceived with the naked eye and were not paintings by them, Vermeer did not do the painting on their own. The art galleries, if exhibiting these 17th or 18th century paintings should not mislead people and should at least tell visitors that the oil paintings were

I, May Xiang Lin have a rare talent for art because as a child, teenager and adult because I pursue a different field and I do not practice whereas some people who are artists, good or bad, all practice a lot more and they hire teachers or instructors for art.

Chinese painters are really good with doing more honourable paintings in watercolour which is more difficult and dries faster and leaves less room for error vs. other mediums such as oil and acrylic that take longer to dry and oil can be painted over more easily.

I May Xiang Lin, username can draw and paint 30 times better and nicer and faster (had I gone into art full-time or part-time in university or college) than her (Le Brun and Vermeer)

90% of the population cannot draw, do the most simple stick figure cartoons or stick figures and are not artistic. The other 10%, some may be able to draw or paint but at different abilities, are not the same level. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.0.50.4 (talk) 03:45, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Assessment comment[edit]

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun/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.

Comment(s)Press [show] to view →
To get informations about the french paintor Elisabeth Louise Vigee Lebrun, the article is enough satisfying. I'm very pleased with all the information I got from it.

Altough I consider it could have a little more pictures of her painting works, and maybe some refferences to more information about her, more books or internet sites, or even more adressess of museums with her works, the article has a very good rate in my opinion. At least, I've read everything I need to know in it. Still, I think there are some details that could be studied. For example, the friendship of Vigee Lebrun with Marie Antoinette. The french queen, after her arrival in France, searched desperately for a paintor that could "catch her image". She was only extremely pleased with Vigee Lebrun, that became her favorite paintor. In all the paintings that Vigee Lebrun did that represented the royal family, or at least the French Queen, the pleasing of Marie Antoinette grew higher and higher. I think that topic could be more studied; it is quite interesting. The relationship of the on who paints, and the one who is painted, specially if it's a woman paintor and the Queen of France, is an interesting subject.

I'm sorry about eventual spelling mistakes, English is not my native language. :-)

Substituted at 21:50, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 26 September 2020[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 19:26, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun → Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun – The accent on the first E is not usual in WP:RS in English. See for example usage by: ULAN, National Gallery, London (slightly inconsistent), Metropolitan Museum, Library of Congress, RKD. I'm entirely open to going to "Elisabeth Louise" (not I think hyphenated), which slightly more of these sources have than don't have. Johnbod (talk) 02:59, 26 September 2020 (UTC)—Relisting. Jerm (talk) 03:52, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. Élisabeth is standard spelling using French diacritics. Diacritics were often omitted on initial capitals from the beginning of computers due to the difficulty of typing them, even with a French-display keyboard (on a typing machine, after typing a letter you would type a back space followed by an apostrophe). However this is considered to be a spelling mistake. In English, it should be either all diacritics or none; Elisabeth Vigée... is a half-baked situation. Her common name does not use Louise. Place Clichy (talk) 08:02, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sigh! I have assembled a group of standard RS above. You appear to be saying that the National Gallery, London, Metropolitan Museum, Getty ULAN, RKD, & Library of Congress have all got it wrong. Do you have any native English-speaking sources of equal obviousness that support you? ULAN is normally considered pretty definitive for spellings. The fact of the matter is that É is just one of those French diacritics that has gone AWOL in English usage. Johnbod (talk) 13:38, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Johnbod why sigh? I think it is other editors who should be sighing. You have not assembled a group of WP:RS above, you have assembled a bag of unreliable resources. Please see WP:RS a source is only reliable for what is being proved by the source. These bag of html sources do not stand against WP:FRMOS. All French Élisabeth, and all other French bios with É- capital, such as Édouards and Émiles etc., are all spelled correctly on en.wp, over 1,000s of article titles and article bodies throughout the article corpus. We're not going to mispell a bio simply because of unreliable for purpose sources. These applie to below as well. These sources are not "convincing" at all because they are html by western web designers, and therefore we follow what WP:RS and WP:FRMOS say. @Marcocapelle: also @BD2412:.
PS Johnbod:And you admit ("Slightly inconsistent") the UK web designers at National Gallery do have the correct spelling the text body clearly says Image: Detail from Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Self Portrait in a Straw Hat, after 1782 .... Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, the daughter of a minor painter, Louis Vigée,. Johnbod, what you've seen is the surtitle font which crushes the accent off the E, as some large cap web fonts do. The National Gallery has in fact spelled the name correctly. I haven't checked your US websites to see if the same is true of those websites, because per WP:RS I don't consider them worth checking. Who knows who they employ and what fonts they use. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:37, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, English language does not necessarily copy original languages' diacritics. The sources cited by nominator are pretty convincing. Marcocapelle (talk) 09:20, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per sources identified by Johnbod. BD2412 T 21:46, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. My understanding is similar to that of Place Clichy - this is a typesetting issue, not a diacritics issue. Historically, the diacritic would not fit over the capital letter, so it was omitted, even in French texts. We do not have that limitation at WP. For what it's worth, it looks like every other foreign-language sister project using the Roman alphabet includes the accent over the "E", including the French article. And there are plenty of reliable English-language sources that use the accent over the "E" as well: Brittanica, National Gallery of Art (U.S.), Getty, British Museum, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Dohn joe (talk) 14:18, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. There seems to be a mix in reliable sources, with some using the diacritic and some without. I would err on the side of caution by not making a change. I think it's very likely that this is a type-setting/difficulty-of-typing issue, as has been commented on. Good Ol’factory (talk) 23:28, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Its her French name and should be kept this way.Mistico Dois (talk) 00:18, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I almost forgot to add a clear and strong oppose. I was so gob-smacked by this RM. We settled all this in the diacritics debacle a decade ago. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:42, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wiki Education assignment: Eighteenth-Century Literature in the Digital Age[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2022 and 6 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Skhanley (article contribs).

What?[edit]

Her personal habitus was characterized by a high sensitivity to sound, sight and smell.

This may have some technical art-historical meaning, perhaps, but I doubt it conveys much to most general readers. I can’t fathom it, and I have a dictionary. 2A00:23C4:4641:2801:9859:C6F7:A10B:53A8 (talk) 07:09, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you should get a better dictionary? First web definition of habitus I found:
1.
a person's general constitution, especially physical build.
"the patient's vital signs and body habitus should be noted"
2.
the way a person of a particular background perceives and reacts to the world.
"depending on their position in a given social field they develop a certain habitus typical of their position"
The second of these is the one applicable to the sentence in question
Sbishop (talk) 08:18, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In sociology, habitus is a concept developed by Pierre Bourdieuand refers to the norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors of a particular social group (or social class) .[3] BoonDock (talk) 00:37, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So not really an appropriate word to use in this context? It's certainly nothing to do with any "technical art-historical meaning". Like all the big women artists, this bio is overrun with students, with the inevitable prose issues. Johnbod (talk) 02:04, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And could we perhaps lose the word ‘relatable’, which smells to high heaven of social media blather? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.186.91.101 (talk) 07:13, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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