Wikipedia:Peer review/Leonardo da Vinci/archive3

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A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for August 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I feel there are some serious style issues here:

Although there is a lot of factual content here, it's often obscured by superfluous information about other events of the Renaissance, which I could find out about by following links instead.
There are several problems with peacock terms and weasel words
There are also several problematic statements like
According to Vasari, Leonardo collaborated with Verrocchio on his Baptism of Christ, painting the young angel holding Jesus’ robe in a manner that was so far superior to his master's that Verrocchio put down his brush and never painted again.hello earthlings.[9] This is probably an exaggeration.
"This is probably an exaggeration"... says who? If references can show that Vasari was probably exaggerating, then it means that undue weight is being put on a statement which is regarded as being inaccurate. If the claim of exaggeration is someone's original research then it must be removed.
I also have concerns about the use of Vasari as a reference (not an issue about his validity as a source - just the way he is presented) due to every reference being in the form "according to Vasari, <insert exaggerated claim>". This simply makes him seem unbelievable. If it's still regarded as fact today, condense it to the factual parts and remove the exaggeration, citing Vasari. If not, then it's only useful as an illustration of the folklore about Leonardo's legendary status.

Any assistance in reducing the redundancy and making the text sharper and more concise would be appreciated.

I don't agree about the use of Vasari. If you look at scholarly works on Renaissance painters, it is very typical that they quote Vasari, say he is probably overstating, or possibly just wrong, & leave it in the air like that. They have to; he is usually much the best source we have, accepted as prejudiced (pro-Florence etc) but essentially honest and conscientious. Nobody knows, or will ever know, the truth about thousands of statements in Vasari, but almost all art historians quote him with some kind of health warning where appropriate. He was 8 when Leonardo died, & is mainly collecting what people said & making his best judgement as to whether it is likely to be true.

From an FAC perspective, by far the biggest problem is that there are next to no page citations, which I think are required. Plus, looking at the last FAC, it is clear that much of the text was written long ago by a person or persons unknown with some problems with precise accuracy. So you can never quite be sure what mistakes may turn up.

The sourcing should be strengthened for an FAC, with more heavy-weight art historians. Probably this will not change anything much that is already there, but I think it would be expected, especially for a high-profile article. However the art history/criticism aspect of the article could be expanded (almost indefinitely of course ...) & I think more of that would help (perhaps showing my own prejudices).

I don't really agree there is too much background. Most biography articles here have too little. A different style could be used, but I don't think this one would count against it at FAC, rather the reverse. Some statements would need further referencing.

To my mind, a push to FAC would involve reading one or two heavyweight monographs of top quality - eg Martin Kemp (art historian), not yet used I think - & re-doing the refs with page numbers from them, changing the text when necessary, and adding further art-historical analysis. No doubt a load of minor MoS technical points also need doing. Johnbod (talk) 04:01, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]