Property talk:P2634

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model
person who appears in an artwork or photograph, in the role of an artist's model, rather than subject

Represents	model (Q4610556)
Data type	Item
Domain	According to this template: artworks According to statements in the property: work of art (Q838948), animated character (Q15711870), fictional group of characters (Q24577840), comics character (Q1114461), mascot character (Q386208) or doll (Q168658) When possible, data should only be stored as statements
Allowed values	items representing people; possibly animals (note: this should be moved to the property statements)
Example	April Love (Q1523473) → Tryphena Foord (Q21970886) Ophelia (Q1065493) → Elizabeth Siddal (Q465000)
Tracking: usage	Category:Pages using Wikidata property P2634 (Q60182242)
See also	depicts (P180), filming location (P915), main subject (P921)
Lists	Items with the most statements of this property Count of items by number of statements (chart) Items with the most statements Items with the fewest statements Count of items by number of sitelinks (chart) Items with the most sitelinks Items with the most sitelinks, but no link to one Wikipedia (sample: Welsh Wikipedia, cywiki) Items with the fewest sitelinks Most linked wikis Items with the most identifier properties By value of property Most statements Fewest statements Most sitelinks Most linked wikis Total of sitelinks on items Most identifiers Fewest identifiers Items with no other statements Most recently created items Items with novalue claims Items with unknown value claims Usage history (total) Usage history (main statement) Chart by item creation date Database reports/Constraint violations/P2634 Map Random list
Proposal discussion	Proposal discussion
Current uses	Total 422 Main statement 363 86% of uses Qualifier 52 12.3% of uses Reference 7 1.7% of uses
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[create Create a translatable help page (preferably in English) for this property to be included here]

Type “work of art (Q838948), animated character (Q15711870), fictional group of characters (Q24577840), comics character (Q1114461), mascot character (Q386208), doll (Q168658)”: item must contain property “instance of (P31)” with classes “work of art (Q838948), animated character (Q15711870), fictional group of characters (Q24577840), comics character (Q1114461), mascot character (Q386208), doll (Q168658)” or their subclasses (defined using subclass of (P279)). (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P2634#Type Q838948, Q15711870, Q24577840, Q1114461, Q386208, Q168658, SPARQL

Value type “human (Q5)”: This property should use items as value that contain property “instance of (P31)”. On these, the value for instance of (P31) should be an item that uses subclass of (P279) with value human (Q5) (or a subclass thereof). (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P2634#Value type Q5, SPARQL

Perimeter

@Pigsonthewing, Милан Јелисавчић, Máté, Thryduulf, Micru: Hello! I've just integrated this property in Modèle:Infobox Art but I'm not sure this doesn't need some work whatever. What is the property supposed to do, precisely? In my opinion, it should be used to point to people who have served as models to the artist who created the artwork that is being considered, whether or not they are eventually depicted in that artwork, otherwise it would just be a subproperty of depicts (P180). For instance, Lydia Délrctorsckaya (Q4157047) has served as a model to Henri Matisse (Q5589) when he created La Blouse Roumaine (Q3651370) but she is not depicted per se – what's depicted is a generic woman. Most of the time, whatever, the sitter is also depicted per se, meaning that we could have both properties with the same values on most items. Do you all agree with this? Because if you do, the descriptions need to be changed. The English one should be turned the other way around and state sitter, whether or not that person appears in the final artwork. On the other hand, if things stay as they stand now, I don't get what this property is supposed to do that the other one does not already. Thierry Caro (talk) 17:53, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Or maybe should this really be just a subproperty of depicts (P180) ? We should then move all the people under that property to new statements under the newest one. I'm not against this either. But currently things are not clear and this is barely used. Thierry Caro (talk) 17:55, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

As there was no answer, I guess this means no opposition. I have changed the English label and description. Thierry Caro (talk) 14:01, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Purpose of this property

This week I first encountered this property. This property was proposed and started as "model" because possible confusing might arise in with usage of depicts (P180) for models. I don't see that problem. We can just add qualifier object has role (P3831) -> art model (Q1630100) to the depicts (P180) like on Ophelia (Q1065493). We have around 50.000 portrait paintings on Wikidata. These paintings use depicts (P180) and main subject (P921) as a generic way to describe the painting to describe what is in (example). For paintings alone main subject (P921) is used over 26.000 times and depicts (P180) close to 70.000 times. This property on the other hand, is used less than 200 times. Maybe better to just replace and delete it? @Thierry Caro: what do you think? Multichill (talk) 19:26, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Comment: For what it's worth, "sitter" is the standard, conventional term to explicitly identify the person depicted in a portrait. See for example National Portrait Gallery (US) and National Portrait Gallery (UK). "Depicts" and "main subject" have different connotations: depicts (P180) and main subject (P921) may or may not have the same value(s) as model (P2634), and as more general properties used in other creative works, may introduce some ambiguity. P2634 has the advantage of being an exact property with a finite number of values not subject to controversy or debates about relevance: it will always have one or more persons identified, whereas P180 and P921 are open-ended and may have as many values as somebody wants to argue for. Someone may decide a painting depicts "George Washington" and "man" and "horse" and "soldier" and "uniform" and "night" and "rifle" etc. ad nauseum, and has main subject "George Washington" and "American Revolutionary War" and "freedom" and "patriotism" and "1776" etc., many of which are open for debate. A single property for "sitter" would be simpler than modifying other properties with qualifiers. I don't have a strong opinion either way, as I don't have much experience with wikidata querying or art curation, but I'm interested in other opinions. -Animalparty (talk) 20:35, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

I suggest we disconnect the property from depiction and the values would be limited to people who served as a basis to the characters depicted, whether or not those characters are supposed to be the sitters themselves. Or we can follow Animalparty's path and use this property as a narrow one. But then shouldn't we just rename it to 'people depicted'? The sitting part would not matter then and this would be a perfect subproperty. I agree with either way but not with leaving it in an uncertain state. Thierry Caro (talk) 12:38, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

We currently have a nice way to model art that works across genres. To portrait paintings we add the sitter as the main subject, not "American Revolutionary War" and "freedom" and "patriotism" and "1776". That is incorrect and feels a bit like a straw man argument. I agree it shouldn't be a subproperty of depicts (P180). That would make the scope of this property so limited that I don't see a future for it. Multichill (talk) 12:24, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

The fact that you or I wouldn't add tangential items to main subject doesn't mean the field is unambiguous, and it's easy to foresee a well-intentioned but naive new user adding to it. I see no mentions of main subject (P921) whatsoever on Wikidata:WikiProject sum of all paintings, and nowhere that it must have a single value, so confusion regarding exactly what are conventional/acceptable/recommended values is understandable, if not inevitable. If we want clarity, we need explicit, solid guidelines, not arcane, unwritten rules. -Animalparty (talk) 22:52, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I can imagine we switch this property around and use it on the QID for the person depicted, rather than the work of art, to indicate explicitly the work of art that the person sat for. We have tons of copied portraits now that no one sat for. Similarly, I think lots of paintings featuring famous art models did not have these women as sitters unless it is documented as such. They probably "sat" once or twice and remained forever the favored model in a painter's paintings. Jane023 (talk) 14:00, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not against such a reversal either. Thierry Caro (talk) 17:03, 25 December 2019 (UTC)