Talk:Man: Difference between revisions

:A skilled artist can capture and highlight the "essence" of a subject better than a photograph can. We have a few medical articles that are have artwork as the lead image instead of a photo – I remember [[Lathyrism]], [[Gout]] and [[Parkinson's disease]]. There may be more. [[:Image:The_gout_james_gillray.jpg]] shows in one throw the swelling of the toe joint, the redness of the inflamed area and the pain suffered by afflicted individuals. It's emblematic. You could recognize gout in an individual from that. The photograph [[:Image:Gicht_am_Grosszehgelenk.jpg]] is weaker - you wouldn't know that the condition is painful from that picture. Also, the classic illustration [[:Image:Sir_William_Richard_Gowers_Parkinson_Disease_sketch_1886.jpg]] shows clearly the posture and gait of a Parkinson's sufferer. To do this with photographs would be difficult. Now Michelangelo's ''David'' is classical image of youthful male beauty in Western art. It tells what a young man is supposed to look like The [[Gloeden]] photo is, well, weak, in poor taste, not exemlpary of anything (and that youth dressed up as Hercules just looks plain dumb). [[User:Dr Zak|Dr Zak]] 23:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

::''David'' is emblematic of ''Western'' men - very few people from, say, China would look at that statue and say "Ah, that best represents the men I know". The fact is that Wikipedia has a systematic bias towards Western things, and holding a famous piece of Western art as representing ''all men'' merely reinforces that. Why not go for a picture of a couple of men standing together, or a person who has a number of ethnic features? --[[User:Haemo|Haemo]] 23:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)