Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2025 July 5

July 5

File:Take On Me 1985 cover.png

The JPEG version (File:Take On Me cover.jpg) was deleted per FFD discussion. As I see, the PNG version was uploaded, but I'm unconvinced that it is needed and proven compliant with NFCC, especially #8 and #3a. I can stand corrected, nonetheless. George Ho (talk) 09:53, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:Cover-tv-live-big.jpg

Exceeds number of allowed non-free items and/or lacks contextual significance. George Ho (talk) 10:08, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:Max Ernst making Lissajous Figures 1942.jpg

This image is used to illustrate a single sentence in Mathematics and art about Max Ernst making Lissajous curves. Lissajous curves can easily be explained with free media, and the fact that Max Ernst made them is readily understood without the use of non-free media. hinnk (talk) 04:00, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible to find scattered illustrations relevant to mathematics and art from freely licensed sources (that is, artworks whose copyright was released by the artist under a free license), but I think it's more or less impossible to accurately depict the past century of the history of the topic (which is quite frankly most of the directly relevant art that has ever been made, including many whole genres of artworks) using only free images. The use of low-resolution non-free images seems very obviously to qualify as fair use under US copyright law. Whether they qualify for use in this particular article under Wikipedia policy is a matter somewhat unrelated to copyright law though; personally I hope they can be kept, because I don't think they are reasonably replaceable for this article, except by other non-free images.

As regards this specific image, no, some other image of a Lissajous curve is not an adequate replacement, and does not successfully illustrate the point being made in the article. Yes, this image is substantially helpful for readers. I don't think the artist (either Ernst or the unknown photographer) is going to suffer any harm whatsoever from having their work used in low resolution as part of a scholarly survey 80+ years later. YMMV.

(Aside: even other images which are currently tagged as freely licensed are not necessarily free from copyright, e.g. File:Bathsheba Grossman geometric art.jpg claims to be CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 and the file description page indicates that the photographer has released copyright of the photograph per se for its use on Wikipedia. But there is no evidence that the sculptor was ever consulted, and she retains copyright of the sculpture which also affects derivative works such as this photograph. The image should probably be removed from Commons and uploaded to Wikipedia at low resolution and tagged as fair use in a few specific articles.)

(Aside #2: the same problem affects other art articles. As an example Abstract expressionism is exclusively illustrated by fair use images of paintings and supposedly "freely licensed" images of copyrighted sculptures which should probably also be tagged as fair use. We might be able to find a few actually free images of the topic, but I don't think it's possible to neutrally and meaningfully illustrate an article about a topic like abstract expressionism without relying predominantly on fair use images. This is probably a discussion that should be had somewhere other than an obscure page like Files for discussion. If you want to apply this kind of standard consistently, I recommend you make an RFC at the village pump asking to remove fair use images from all high-level survey articles about art topics, or the like.)

–jacobolus (t) 04:43, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's more or less impossible to accurately depict the past century of the history of the topic…using only free images. You say this repeatedly, but you're rebutting a point nobody made. The standard I cited is WP:NFCC#8. If readers can't make it through (literally) one sentence about Ernst without an image showing it, then something's gone wrong.

You also seem to be getting off topic a lot. You're more than welcome to open discussions on the copyright status of File:Bathsheba Grossman geometric art.jpg, image use in the Abstract expressionism article, or your proposed RFC at an appropriate venue, but please avoid derailing the conversation and stay on topic here. hinnk (talk) 05:41, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You're missing my point, which is that this nomination doesn't seem consistent with prevailing use of fair use images in practice across the entire set of high-level art articles (as compared to articles about specific works or artists); in such articles images should usually sit alongside relatively brief specific discussion, as detailed analysis or criticism of each specific image would violate WP:WEIGHT and derail the article's narrative flow. I don't quite understand why you are singling out this particular article / these particular images, but if you want to change those widespread practices I don't think this is a good venue for such a conversation, since not very many Wikipedians are likely to participate here. I think you should instead open up a discussion somewhere such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Visual arts or even the village pump. If you don't want to change those widespread practices, then maybe you can explain what you think is special about the Mathematics and art article, different from other high-level art articles, as a reason to disallow the use of fair use images. –jacobolus (t) 08:53, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: the use of the file in Mathematics and art is fully compliant with the Non-Free usage criteria, and the image is important in showing the close connection of mathematics and the practice of modern art, through the work of a major 20th century artist, Max Ernst.

The claim by nom that "Lissajous curves can easily be explained" with other media is disingenuous, as such media would not make the article's point that Ernst treated the figures as his art, created the figures mechanically, and went so far as to have that creation photographed, in this very image. Those points could in no way be made with other media, and would be far weaker if made solely in text, because an image – whether photograph or painting – has a power and immediacy that text, no matter how finely crafted, wholly lacks. In short, the image is itself important in the history of mathematics and art. I have extended the article, which already references the image in text and caption with reliable sources, to demonstrate the importance of the image and the technique. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:30, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Chiswick Chap. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:55, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, voorts (talk/contributions) 19:55, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the key point here is that the image is clearly necessary to Mathematics and art, the only place it is used. It is the only image in the 'Analysis of art history' section, and the only image to depict an artist at work using a mathematical technique. The image is discussed in detail in that section, and reliably cited; a whole paragraph (with nine sources) covers Max Ernst's work as depicted in the image. The article would, in a word, be seriously damaged by the removal of this historic photograph, which cannot be replaced by any other kind of image. The objection that other art history articles do not (or fail to) use such illustrations has nothing to do with the fair use criteria, which rightly focus on whether the image is used fairly and appropriately, with sufficient justification. This image certainly complies. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:38, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:René Magritte The Human Condition.jpg

Removal from Mathematics and art was contested, use in The Human Condition (Magritte) isn't disputed. This image is used to illustrate a two-sentence passage in the Mathematics and art article which briefly describes La condition humaine but doesn't go into the type of analysis or commentary that would meet WP:NFCC#8. hinnk (talk) 04:10, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. I think that including some illustrative examples of 20th century art very clearly meets the burden of "its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding". We could replace this specific image by a different one, but the plausible candidates are also non-free images. I don't think this article can be adequately illustrated if we limit ourselves to freely licensed images. This is a little abstract though. hinnk, if you could go locate a number of relevant freely licensed images it would be possible to have a more useful concrete discussion about whether a version of the article with fewer fair-use images and more freely licensed images successfully made the same point as the current version. –jacobolus (t) 04:54, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be getting off-topic again. Discussion of replaceability isn't relevant (that's WP:NFCC#1). Fortunately, the article already has over 60 free images already, including 20th- and 21st-century works.

I don't think this article can be adequately illustrated if we limit ourselves to freely licensed images. Again, you're rebutting a point nobody has made. Only two images covered briefly in the text have been nominated. A passing mention without analysis or commentary doesn't meet WP:NFCC#8. hinnk (talk) 05:58, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You only nominated 2 images, presumably as a first nibble, but essentially the same criticism also applies to File:Bathsheba Grossman geometric art.jpg, File:Hartmut Skerbisch.jpg, File:Objet mathematique by Man Ray.jpg, File:Print Gallery by M. C. Escher.jpg, and probably File:Icosahedron-spinoza.jpg (though it's not clear who the sculptor is). (And as I mentioned in your other nomination, the same criticism also applies to essentially every image currently used in the article Abstract expressionism, as well as a wide range of similar high-level overview articles about art from the past century.)

I think this article is already quite non-neutral insofar as it doesn't talk more about important copyrighted 20th century works; presumably that is at least somewhat influenced by the desire to showcase freely available images instead (in my opinion there are an over-abundance older out-of-copyright images some of which are a bit redundant and don't sufficiently justify their presence, and also an over-emphasis on relatively unimportant examples by unknown recent artists that happen to be freely licensed). I think it would be harmful to readers to remove the existing non-free images insofar as it would further skew the article away from neutral presentation of the topic. –jacobolus (t) 07:55, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The work by Magritte is specifically and substantially discussed in the text of Mathematics and art, and reliably cited there. It forms an essential part of the discussion of the use of a semiotic joke in Magritte's modern art. The discussion would be obscure in the extreme without the presence of the image of the artwork itself, as the semiotic joke is visual not textual, and we cannot assume that readers will arrive knowing what a visual semiotic joke is: the matter only becomes clear (and visually entertaining) with the image. Any attempt to explain such a thing without the use of an image is going to be weak and confusing to many readers; I pride myself on the clarity and quality of my text, but words are simply not a sufficient medium to convey the impact of art – if they were, artists could write rather than paint, as the paint would be wholly redundant. I note the discussion above in this thread; while it may be that other artworks could illustrate other points, this discussion of Magritte's pioneering work on logical paradoxes in art certainly could not. The assertion that the discussion in this article is "a passing mention" is both absurd and disingenuous, as the coverage is substantial and vital to the topic of the section. I have taken the opportunity to extend the discussion, with cited comparisons to earlier art and theory, as well as a brief quotation to indicate the work's significance in Illustrating mathematics. Scholars are in no doubt whatsoever about this famous painting's importance in the domain. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:31, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Chiswick Chap, who has done much work within the topic. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:51, 13 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, voorts (talk/contributions) 19:55, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:The Congregation of Notre Dame convent from rue Saint-Jean-Baptiste, 1684-1768..png

File:The Congregation of Notre Dame convent from rue Saint-Jean-Baptiste, 1684-1768..png (delete | talk | history | links | logs)

This file was marked as fair use with URAA restored copyright. But because this image was published in 1929 and URAA copyright expired, that means that it’s now in US PD and can be moved to Commons. Michalg95 (talk) 07:38, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Move to Commons per nom ApexParagon (talk) 15:59, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't seem right. The author died in 1946. This drawing was still copyrighted in Canada in 1996; it didn't lose its copyright protection until ~~1947~~ 1997 (the rule is the year of the creator's death + 50, not just 50 years). {{PD-URAA}} requires it to be PD by 1996. The current licensing appears to be correct. ✗plicit 00:37, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"1947" or 1997? George Ho (talk) 00:45, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Whoops, that's what I get for rewriting my comment several times. Fixed, thanks! ✗plicit 00:49, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In file there is date of publication 1929, which means copyright expired. 2A00:F41:2C25:2FD9:F4D7:D975:F618:470F (talk) 15:11, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, voorts (talk/contributions) 19:57, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:Google books screenshot.png

The text is PD, descriptions are ineligible, and the icons are simple. Not sure this is above TOO Jay Cubby 23:08, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where does the quote by Patrick Stewart come from? ✗plicit 00:37, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is it still a derivative work if the text is so small you can't actually read the quote? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:08, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, voorts (talk/contributions) 19:57, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:David M. Heyman.jpg

see c:Commons:Deletion requests/File:David M. Heyman.jpg Magog the Ogre (t • c) 02:08, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Pending Commons discussion.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 14:19, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Assuming c:Commons:Deletion requests/File:David M. Heyman.jpg is kept. Buffs (talk) 16:24, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: pending DR at Commons.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, voorts (talk/contributions) 19:58, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

File:BBC Earth logo.png

Unused logo. Superceded. Cloudbound (talk) 22:04, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]