[Data-modeling] Visual Art Form - an enumerated type?

[Jeff Prucher]

The current "visual art medium" type is intended to be used for anything
that's been used to create a piece of visual art, and not just paints. You
can see the current list of topics with this type here (note the presence of
such non-paint media as "human hair", "string", and "postcard"): 
http://www.freebase.com/view/visual_art/visual_art_medium

I don't really see a problem with having both art forms and art media as
properties. If you're doing research on Renaissance paintings, it's a lot
easier to search for artworks of the form "painting" than for artworks made
with every possible type of paint that was used in that period.

Jeff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com 
> [mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson
> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 4:25 PM
> To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
> Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Visual Art Form - an enumerated type?
> 
> Faye Li wrote:
> > I agree. :) It's such a great idea it was implemented a 
> long time ago: 
> > "visual art medium", instances of which includes "oil 
> paint", "acrylic 
> > paint", "watercolor paint", etc.
> 
> hmm, i was thinking of something more general than "what kind 
> of paint", which is why i mentioned "marble" as a possible 
> medium.  not to mention "cigarette butts", "human hair", etc. 
>  this avoids the question of how many layers of resin you 
> have to put on top of a photograph before it's a "sculpture" 
> instead of a "painting", and doesn't suggest that "cigarette 
> butt" should be co-typed as "visual art medium".
> 
>      nick
> 
> 
> > 
> > -- Faye
> > 
> > 
> > Nick Thompson wrote:
> >> it seems like a "media" property for works of art (e.g. 
> "oil paints", 
> >> "silver gelatin print", and/or "marble") is probably more 
> expressive 
> >> than trying to build types for paintings, sculptures, etc 
> and arrange them
> >> in some sort of type hierarchy.   there's a lot of mixed-media work
> >> out there.
> >>
> >>      nick
> >>
> >> Jeff Prucher wrote:
> >>   
> >>> That's a good question. It seems like the art form type is pretty 
> >>> broad; i.e., it includes not only sculpture but also relief and 
> >>> bas-relief. I thought at first that this type was only 
> used for the 
> >>> very high-level artform (e.g., sculpture, painting, photogrpahy, 
> >>> etc.), in which case an enumeration would make more sense 
> -- there 
> >>> are probably only a couple dozen or so such options.  But 
> since the 
> >>> type really does seem to include varying levels of 
> specificity, I'd 
> >>> be inclined to say that it shouldn't be an enumeration, either.
> >>>
> >>> This also raises the question of whether this type needs 
> a phylogeny 
> >>> pattern. I.e., a pair of parent/child or superclass/subclass 
> >>> properties.  So we could say that "bas-relief" is a variety of 
> >>> "relief" which is itself a variety of "sculpture".
> >>>
> >>> Jeff Prucher
> >>>
> >>>     
> >>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>> From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com
> >>>> [mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of Bobby 
> >>>> Rullo
> >>>> Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 6:22 PM
> >>>> To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
> >>>> Subject: [Data-modeling] Visual Art Form - an enumerated type?
> >>>>
> >>>> Should Visual Art Form be an enumeration? The client 
> doesn't allow 
> >>>> you to add types which are enumerations when you click "Add a 
> >>>> Type", and this seems like something that changes relatively 
> >>>> frequently.
> >>>>
> >>>> Bobby
> >>>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>>
> >>>>       
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> >>   
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