Category talk:Jean-Étienne Liotard

He was not "from Switzerland"

I have suppressed the false indication that Liotard was « From Switzerland ». He was born and died in the independent Republic of Geneva (1541-1798 and 1813-1815). I have sometimes been explained that an established usage classified such personalities as « Swiss » , for commodity reasons. If there were every time a clear indication that the classification is made only for such reasons and is not really correct, I could possibly accept it. But not so: as it is stated, it is misleading and anachronic. The categories could possibly indicate that he was "From Geneva", and his nationality should be indicated as « Genevan » , but I don’t know how to do it.Sapphorain (talk) 13:46, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Switzerland is not the only European country with a long and complicated history of unification. Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, even France, were at some point divided into numerous states. Today, however, this is largely ignored by art historians. For example, Michelangelo is known as an Italian artist, rather than a Tuscan artist, while Rubens is known as a Southern Netherlandish or Flemish artist, rather than a Brabant one. So, even though your observation is correct regarding Liotard, I would recommend to put him and other Genevan painters in Category:Painters from Switzerland, just for convenience sake. But his nationality can be stated as being Genevan in the creator template through Template:Nationality/doc#Region_names_and_historical_nationalities. Regards, Vincent Steenberg (talk) 20:26, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Just added "genevan" to Template:Nationality/fr. Hope I got it right. Vincent Steenberg (talk) 20:42, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

There is a big difference between « Italy » and « Switzerland ». The Italian peninsula appears to have been called « Italia » very early, for instance Tacitus calls it so two thousand years ago. So it is natural to call Italians people from « Italia », even if « Italia » encompasses a number of nationalities. But there is no such preestablished region or territory called « Switzerland », and before Geneva joined Switzerland there was no such similar reason to call « Swiss » a Genevan. In fact Geneva was then entirely surrounded by Savoy, France, or both.

The Republic of Geneva lasted nearly 300 years, in fact quite longer than Geneva has been part of Switzerland. So I think it would be more proper to put the Genevan painters who lived in 1541-1815 in a new "Category:Painters from the Genevan Republic". Sapphorain (talk) 07:09, 6 May 2018 (UTC)