Observations with using hCitation for Art (was Re: [uf-discuss] Visual Art Titles Microformat Proposal)

[Jeremy Boggs]

On Oct 21, 2006, at 8:46 PM, Bruce D'Arcus wrote:

> Well, actually, title is not going to be included, because of the  
> no-namespace problem. E.g. it would conflict with hCard title,  
> which is different. But fn is essentially used to achieve the same  
> thing (if really awkwardly).

Thanks for the correction, Bruce! So, if I'm thinking about this  
correctly, and using ideas from measures-brainstorming[1], hCard, and  
citation formats, the markup for a painting [2] would be:

<div class="hcite">
	<div class="creator vcard">
		<span class="fn">Gilbert Stuart</span>
		<abbr class="country-name" title="United States">American</abbr>,  
<abbr class="bday" title="17551203">1755</abbr> - <abbr  
title="18280709" class="dateofdeath">1828</abbr>
	</div>
	<div class="painting">
		<span class="fn">John Adams</span>, <abbr title="Circa">c.</abbr>  
<abbr class="dtpublished" title="1800P15Y">1800/1815</abbr>
	</div>
	<div class="format">oil on canvas</div>
	<div>
		<div class="measure"><span class="height">73.7</span> x <span  
class="width">61</span> <abbr class="unit" title="Centimeter">cm</ 
abbr></div>
		<div class="measure">(<span class="height">29</span> x <span  
class="width">24</span> <abbr title="Inch" class="unit">in</abbr>.)</ 
div>
	</div>
	<div>Gift of Mrs. Robert Homans</div>
	<div class="identifier">1954.7.1</div>
</div>

One issue that comes up: When citing art, the life span of the  
creator is given. I notice that vCard/hCard does not have a way to  
mark up date of death, but does have date of birth. Are there  
thoughts on how to account for this? I've used DATEOFDEATH to show  
everyone where the date of death is relative to the rest of the  
markup, but I know this isn't standard.

Second issue: In this example, the date of painting is uncertain,  
hence the "circa" 1800/1815 (between 1800 and 1815.) To compensate, I  
use DURATION as suggested in a different thread by Brian Suda, to  
define a period of time of 15 years.[3] As Brian mentions in that  
thread, DURATION is not widely supported by parsers, but I believe it  
has potential for a lot of uses, including this case. Any thoughts on/ 
concerns with my use of DURATION in this particular instance?

Third issue, for the measures folks: I gave the painting two  
measures: one for centimeters, one for inches. I put each of these in  
its own div to make sure that 73.7 refers to HEIGHT in inches (and 29  
refers to HEIGHT in centimeters), but this may be incorrect/ 
unnecessary. Thoughts on this?

Best,
Jeremy

[1] http://microformats.org/wiki/measure-brainstorming
[2] http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg60a/gg60a-42660.0.html
[3] http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2006- 
June/004488.html