Talk:Danaë

Danae paintings

We've gone through a number of different Danae paintings illustrating this scene from significant artists . Perhaps something needs to be mentioned of the popularity of this scene in painting, and have links to the various interpretations. - Ravenous 15:10, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Every Ovid's story was popular, in a sense. So was every major event described in the Bible. Should we repeat it every time in articles about Adoration of the Magi, Assumption, Crucifiction, etc, etc? I don't see why we should enlarge on this particular subject, now that two by far the most important interpretations are here. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

You make a good point. I personally DO think the impact in the art world would be worth a mention on all these topics, as the way we think about these scenes are profoundly impacted by the the major artistic representations. Think about it - more people have seen a crucifixion image than have read the story. Of course, there's bound to be thousands of significant crucifiction scenes, so where do you draw the line? That I couldn't tell you, but I do think the art impact does need more mention then a couple paintings illustrating the text.

Now about Danae, one might argue that Gustav Klimt's Danae is as important as these, if not more so. Jan Gossaert might be lesser known than Titian or Rembrant, but his Danae is considered by many to be his most important work. If we had a brief paragraph on the art impact, it also might prevent others from reverting to these paintings or others. - Ravenous 17:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Now about Danae, one might argue that Gustav Klimt's Danae is as important as these, if not more so.

I would like to hear this argument :) --Ghirla ^-трёп- 20:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

In terms of popularity, it's not exactly scientific, but Klimt is coming up about as often as Titian in various "Danae" image searches. Rembrandt, Gossart, and others significantly less often. I'm certainly not arguing that Titian or Rembrandt are less historically significant artists, but that particular work is probably Klimt's 2nd most famous, next to the Kiss. I would guess the current fame of the Rembrandt one is partly due to it's destruction a few years back.

Anyway, the point I was really trying to make is that the art impact of this particular scene is worthy of some kind of mention here. Probably due to the scene having thematic parallels to christian annunciation/conception scenes (though clearly more erotic). What do you say to this? - Ravenous 22:03, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Images should be chosen which highlight major events in the story of Danaë. Thus, I would argue against having two images of her impregnation by Zeus represented, when there exist depictions of other central events (even if depictions of the former are a more common subject in artistic interpretations of the myth). I had selected Waterhouse's Danaë as a secondary image as it shows Danaë and her son Perseus being loaded into the wooden casket. Which interpretation of the earlier event — Titian's, Rembrant's, Klimt's, or Gossaert's — is most "representative?" You decide. In any case, the {{Commonscat}} tag leads to a gallery at WikiCommons featuring many more visual representations of Danaë. A paragraph on the impact of art would also be a very good addition to the current article. -Severa (!!!) 19:56, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Images should be chosen which highlight major events in the story of Danaë.

Nonsense. This is not a biography. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 20:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Your suggestion for narrowing the possibilities, then? -Severa (!!!) 20:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Gallery?

After coming back to more of these stories (especially ones in Ovid) and finding so many important works of art influenced by them, I'm starting to think of what could be done to reference them. Obviously we shouldn't be stuffing several large images on the page, especially if they are depicting the exact same scene. But is a Commons tag really sufficient? From a personal perspective, I hardly ever even notice those. How about a compromise, like a "gallery", such as:

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• File:Joachem Wtewael - Danae.jpg

It'd be under a section that explains the impact of the story on the art world, including reasons for popularity (such as in Danae's case, the parallels with Mary's immaculate conception). And the paintings would have the artist name linked under them. Having 12 might be overkill, but perhaps a handful of the most well known. Has this type of thing come up on wikipedia before, any prior discusions/decisions? - Ravenous 22:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The gallery will be deleted per WP:NOT. --Ghirla^-трёп- 06:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

From WP:NOT: "Mere collections of photographs or media files with no text to go with the articles. If you are interested in presenting a picture, please provide an encyclopedic context, or consider adding it to Wikimedia Commons."

However, in this situation there would be text and an encyclopedic context. Some of these could be used to illustrate a section on the Danae story's influence in the art world. Is that not something notable and worth adding? If worse came to worse, we could just have text links to the paintings worth mentioning (i.e. Danaë (Rembrandt painting), Danaë (Klimt painting)). But since we're talking about art, wouldn't a picture link be more appropriate? -Ravenous 07:31, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The assortment of images is very nice, but I would still leave it where it is, lest the gallery will be deleted, as they usually are. Really, mainspace is not intended for such devices. You won't find a featured article with an image gallery implanted in the text. Why should stubs have them? --Ghirla^-трёп- 08:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not really true though, take this featured article for instance: Adolfo Farsari. They've found their way onto plenty of popular artist pages. If they are appropriate there, why not on popular art subject pages as well. -Ravenous 14:45, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The {{commonscat}} template featured in this article leads to a gallery of Danaë-related images at Commons. As all of these images are only a click away, I don't think it's necessary to include a gallery within the article itself, although I do think it would be a good idea to expand the article to the point where a few more images could be included. -Severa (!!!) 01:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem with the commons tag is that someone coming here wouldn't know that there are masterpieces by some of the biggest names in art history hiding behind that link. Plus, unless you're a regular user you're not going to know what that link really is. Like I mentioned above, I am a regular user and I hardly ever notice it. Also, even if we expanded the page to fit a bunch more regular sized images, the only ones we have to choose from all depict the exact same scene. Would we really want that? What I'm suggesting is a section on the art impact with a small gallery of say 4-8 of the most well known paintings, each with a short summary, much like the featured article Adolfo Farsari I mentioned above. If this kind of discussion hasn't come up before, perhaps we should bring it a larger forum, as it's relevant for a lot more than this Danae article. There are several articles I think this type of thing would be appropriate for. But I don't want to put in the work if someone is going to follow me and delete it all out of personal bias. -Ravenous 03:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The issue has been discussed on WP:VPP more than once, but you may try to bring it up again. Even if the initial gallery is nice and the images are thoughtfully assorted, I predict that it will quickly degenerate into mess, as stray editors will be adding more and more images ad infinitum. --Ghirla^-трёп- 07:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

That seems to be part of the larger problem of dealing with pages that have a lot of famous art associated with it, people are already adding more and more images. But they end up being large images, and the page layout gets messed up because there is not enough text. Here's another example: Andromeda (mythology). I've found that any attempt to trim down the number of images is ultimately futile, people will just add them back. At least with an art section and a gallery, there's an appropriate place for the images, and if it does get abused, the abuse is limited to only one portion of the page. I don't know if it's the right answer or not, but it's got to be better than edit wars of which image to choose, and too many images breaking the page. I'll give it a try on a page or two, and if it seems like a problem, we can go to the village pump about it. - Ravenous 18:00, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Someone has fell in platonic love with Danaë, I assume :) --Brand спойт 20:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I think a solution might be to expand the article, add a few select images, and then police it regularily to make sure it doesn't get out of hand. Create a logical system for inclusion and then just revert any addition that falls outside of it. I've done this with "External links" sections at articles before. As most, but not all (see Waterhouse's Danaë), artistic renditions of Danaë depict her visitation by Zeus, a suggestion for picking the images for this article would be to choose ones that "represent" each artistic movement, which would give readers an idea of how Danaë has been envisioned by artists throughout the ages. -Severa (!!!) 11:53, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Other version (expand)

How common is this other version? Why is it secondary? etc. - 131.202.146.246 (talk) 19:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Another version

"Another version states that, angry that his grandfather tried to kill him and his mother, Perseus returned home and challenged Acrisius in his court. He took out Medusa's head from a sack and turned Acrisius and his court to stone."

Who wrote this alternate version? Is there a source for the above?

ICE77 (talk) 04:33, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

The only version I know only has Perseus showing the head to Polydectes and his court, not Acrisius'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.216.23.136 (talk) 20:49, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Request for external link to Correggio's Danae

I'm seeking consensus from this community to re-include a link to this page: http://beckydaroff.com/stories/details.php?recordID=159. This is an entry in 'Stories in Art,' my searchable database of paintings that tell stories: this entry is Correggio's depiction of Danae and the Shower of Gold. The user can visually compare this with other paintings that depict the theme of Danae, and other related themes such as Leda and the Swan (both stories about Zeus' lovers). 'Stories in Art' is a not-for-profit project. I do not benefit in any way from additional visits to my site, other than the gratification that a stranger might appreciate how different artists handle the same theme because of my project. Please ask any questions you may have, and thank you for your consideration. Bdaroff (talk) 01:27, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Much of this article is not really about Danae

A good 60% of this article seems to be about Perseus, Acrisias, and others. Only a handful of sentences are actually about Danae herself. Logically, it seems like the Perseus stuff should be in an article about Perseus, as it really has very little to do with Danae herself. Chillowack (talk) 17:07, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree, it needs a lot of work. I'd be in favour of chopping back to start again unless any objections. Ceoil 19:39, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

It also contains style of writing that is matched to specific people, for example; it includes this: BC, instead of BCE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.237.70.36 (talk) 09:15, 7 November 2011 (UTC)