RQ 77 update

[Mark Brader]

In 2012, Stephen Perry composed an RQ that included an ill-specified
question:

| the 'Mona Lisa' is the most famous painting of all time.
| what's the 2nd most famous one?

He had derived this from a list that supposedly showed the 10 more
famous in order:

"Mona Lisa" (Leonardo da Vinci)
"The Starry Night" (Van Gogh)
"The Last Supper" (Leonardo da Vinci)
The Sistine Chapel ceiling (Michelangelo)
"Guernica" (Picasso)
"Girl with a Pearl Earring" (Vermeer)
"The Scream" (Munch)
"Night Watch" (Rembrandt)
"Water Lilies" (Monet)
"The Birth of Venus" (Botticelli)

but invited protests based on evidence from conflicting sources.


At the time, I wrote:

| The obvious start was a Google phrase search on
|
| "second most famous painting"
|
| On the first 2 pages of 10 hits each, there were 7 that said it was
| "The Scream" (Munch), but that'll be exaggerated because it's been in
| the news recently...

| Of the other 13 hits, 8 did not answer the question because they
| were about qualified favorites (like "da Vinci's second most famous")
| or were debates or queries on the subject.
|
| And the 5 remaining hits named 5 different paintings as the second most
| famous:
|
| * The Sistine Chapel ceiling ...
| * "The Starry Night" ...
| * "The Last Supper" ...
| * "Girl with a Pearl Earring" ...
| * "The Persistence of Memory" ...

For contest purposes Stephen accepted my suggestion of a list of
multiple correct answers, so that was fine.


But now that the news story about "The Scream" is no longer current,
I thought it might be interesting to repeat that Google search.
This time I examined the first 30 results rather than the first 20,
to try to find more candidates or more votes for the same candidate.
(In some cases I looked at the Google cache rather than the page itself.)

And the results were indeed noticeably different:

* "The Last Supper" (Leonardo da Vinci) was the winner with 6 votes:

* http://artcocktail.mallforarts.com/2012/06/brief-description-of-the-ten-most-famous-paintings-in-the-world/
* http://www.easy-oil-painting-techniques.org/leonardo-da-vinci-paintings.html
* http://blog.radissonblu.com/da-vinci-road/
* http://en.calameo.com/books/004063831b8783d1ebd2f
* http://www.professionallyspeaking.org/DaVinciCode/Nov16.ppt
* http://www.sandalsand.net/whc-list-0093-santa-maria-delle-grazie-last-supper/

* "The Starry Night" (Van Gogh) had 2 votes:

* http://amarjeetsingh7.blogspot.ca/2014/02/top-10-most-famous-paintings.html
* http://www.sesdweb.net/Page/5186

* "The Scream" (Munch) had 2 votes:

* http://www.pinterest.com/pin/547539267167227078/
* http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2015/08/209_116283.html

* The Sistine Chapel ceiling (Michelangelo) had 2 votes:

* http://www.waldemar.tv/2012/07/apocalypse-now/
* http://www.graceview.ca/f/2014-08-31_A_Tale_of_Two_Paintings.pdf

* "The Persistence of Memory" (Dali) had 1 vote:

* http://prezi.com/nxbaykn-rzxu/copy-of-top-10-most-famous-paintings/

* "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (Vermeer) had 1 vote:

* http://richardtullochwriter.com/2012/05/31/dutch-street-art-raamstraat-den-haag/


And here are the Google hit estimates for each of the above titles,
including the ones in Stephen's original list, as a phrase together
with the word "painting" and the artist's name. In a few cases
alternative search terms were allowed as indicated below.

927,000 painting "Mona Lisa" Leonardo|"da Vinci"
521,000 painting "Sistine Chapel"|"Creation of Adam" Michelangelo
520,000 painting "The Last Supper" Leonardo|"da Vinci"
459,000 painting "Guernica" Picasso
404,000 painting "Water Lilies" Monet
340,000 painting "The Scream" Munch
316,000 painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring" Vermeer
280,000 painting "The Starry Night" "Van Gogh"
168,000 painting "The Birth of Venus" Botticelli
113,000 painting "Night Watch" Rembrandt

I present this purely for the interest of those interested.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Those who cannot Google the past are destined to
m...@vex.net | repost it." -- Huey Callison, after Santayana

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[swp]

um ... thank you?

swp