Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Battle of Kennesaw Mountain

Battle of Kennesaw Mountain[edit]

Reason: Alfred Waud was a war correspondent for the New York Illustrated News during the American Civil War. This is digitized from an original sketch of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain during the Atlanta Campaign. A conservative restoration of File:Kennesaw bombardment.jpg mainly removed dirt specks and corrected for irregular paper fade. Also removed a librarian's note and supporting capital punishment for sloppy librarians.
Articles this image appears in: Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Alfred Waud
Creator: Alfred Waud

Support as nominator --Durova³²⁵ 16:29, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose (for now, open to persuasion). Interesting one. Artistically, I'd say that this holds absolutely no merit. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's not really adding to the article on the battle. Of course, the guy's a famous artist, so what I think of his artwork counts for nothing. However, judging from the Commons gallery, this does not seem to be a stunning example of his work. For instance, what are the pencil marks in the sky meant to represent? J Milburn (talk) 22:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. What are the lines in the sky representing? I'd like to support this (I think it has EV in both articles, artistic merit), but these don't make sense to me. Mostlyharmless (talk) 02:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- You know as much as I do; the bibliographic notes don't explain those lines. He was a war correspondent who sketched while battles were ongoing, so it's conceivable he may have begun from a different location and withdrawn for safety reasons after making a few lines, then completed this sketch from a different part of the battle. This was a piece of graphic journalism intended for duplication and reproduction, rather than a static artwork created for independent display. Durova³²⁵ 02:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment If I had to guess, I would say those are framing lines. They are usually temporary guides so that the artist can keep a momentary image (say a cloud of cannon smoke) in the proper place after the moment has passed. I use them and then erase them, but they leave marks in the paper and show up in scans. These appear not to have even been erased. Nezzadar ☎ 18:58, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Thanks Durova, that's what I thought, but I don't like to make assumptions. This has encyclopedic value as a representation of Waud's artistic style, and reasonably good EV for representing the battle, particularly as an "on the spot" representation in the era before battle-lines war photography. I've seen civil war era cannons in action, and on that basis it isn't hard at all to imagine a scene like this, with clouds of smoke obscuring and creating the "fog of war". Mostlyharmless (talk) 04:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm a fan of these pre-photojournalism sketches and this is a nice one, with very good EV for a notable artist. --mikaul^talk 21:49, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. High EV for Alfred Waud. Spikebrennan (talk) 16:13, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. For the Vaud article certainly. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 13:46, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:Kennesaw bombardment2.jpg -- Nezzadar ☎ 19:01, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]