Objects: Aboutness

Table of Contents

Up: Objects

Introduction

The features described in this section are information about the object, and are mostly interpretive rather than absolute. For example, any number of accurate descriptions of an object could be provided without invalidating the others, compared to that only a single set of dimension measurements can be correct at a given time.

Description

The main description of the object is provided in the description property on the object itself. It should also be given as a descriptive text in the same manner as other such texts, as the value of a LinguisticObject resource. The classification for descriptions is (aat:300080091). The description can include any content that describes the object, and is useful primarily for display to a human user.

{
  "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/context/1/full.jsonld", 
  "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/21", 
  "type": "ManMadeObject", 
  "label": "Example Painting", 
  "description": "The Example Painting is a great example of exampleness.", 
  "classified_as": ["aat:300033618","aat:300133025"], 
  "referred_to_by": [
    {
      "id": "https://linked.art/example/text/4", 
      "type": "LinguisticObject", 
      "value": "The Example Painting is a great example of exampleness.", 
      "classified_as": ["aat:300080091"]
    }
  ]
}

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A list of related objects is often known for any given object, however the reason for the relation is not recorded. In this circumstance, the best that can be done is to record that there is some relationship using the related property. If there are more details known about the relationship then more specific patterns should be used instead.

{
  "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/context/1/full.jsonld", 
  "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/22", 
  "type": "ManMadeObject", 
  "label": "Another Example Painting", 
  "classified_as": ["aat:300033618","aat:300133025"], 
  "related": [
    {
      "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/23", 
      "type": "ManMadeObject", 
      "label": "Yet Another Example Painting", 
      "classified_as": ["aat:300033618","aat:300133025"]
    }
  ]
}

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Depiction

Many sorts of artwork depict things that can be pointed out in the artwork. These could be identifiable entities, such as a known Person or Object with a name or identifier, or unidentifiable (perhaps fictional) instances of a class of entity, such as a depiction of a battle but not any particular battle. For example a portrait depicts the person sitting for it, or a sketch of a generic landscape depicts a place even if it's not a particular, known location. The depicts property captures what is depicted in the artwork. 

{
  "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/context/1/full.jsonld", 
  "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/24", 
  "type": "ManMadeObject", 
  "label": "Self Portrait", 
  "classified_as": ["aat:300033618","aat:300133025"], 
  "depicts": [
    {
      "id": "https://linked.art/example/actor/2", 
      "type": "Actor", 
      "label": "Artist"
    }
  ], 
  "produced_by": {
    "id": "https://linked.art/example/activity/16", 
    "type": "Production", 
    "carried_out_by": ["https://linked.art/example/actor/2"]
  }
}

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Subject

Subjects are the concepts or things that the artwork evokes, as opposed to an object (real or imaginary) that is depicted by the artwork. For example, a portrait of a military commander in full regalia on a battlefield depicts the person and the place, but could be interpreted to have a subject of "war". An painting with an allusion to a piece of literature does not depict the literature, but instead evokes it. We use the property subject to reference the subject matter in an appropriate vocabulary. The subject property could be thought of as why the content in the artwork is present, or what the artwork is about rather than what can be seen.

{
  "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/context/1/full.jsonld", 
  "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/25", 
  "type": "ManMadeObject", 
  "label": "Portrait of Lord Nelson", 
  "classified_as": ["aat:300033618","aat:300133025"], 
  "subject": [{"id": "aat:300055314","type": "Type","label": "War"}]
}

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Model uses predicate from outside of CIDOC-CRM

The notion of subjects in CIDOC-CRM is a little more complex than above, as the physical object is not about the subject. Instead the conceptual work that the object is a representation of is about the subject. In order to capture this distinction, the full model requires the object to carry an InformationObject or VisualItem representing the work, which is in turn about the concept. In order to be consistent with Depiction above, and Style/Genre below, we instead use a shortcut property of dcterms:subject.

Style

Styles are a categorization of the aesthetic qualities of the work being described, and can come from important features, techniques, locations, times or artistic movements. Styles might include "geometric", "abstract", and "limited palette". It is considered that all styles are aesthetic rather than cultural, but the aesthetic style may be related to a particular culture. The style is associated with the object using the style property, and must be a reference to an appropriate vocabulary. The style property could be thought of as how the content is presented. 

{
  "@context": "https://linked.art/ns/context/1/full.jsonld", 
  "id": "https://linked.art/example/object/26", 
  "type": "ManMadeObject", 
  "label": "Example Impressionist Painting", 
  "classified_as": ["aat:300033618","aat:300133025"], 
  "style": ["aat:300021503"]
}

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Model uses predicate from outside of CIDOC-CRM

The notion of style in CIDOC-CRM is typically tied to time and place of creation, not the actual style of the work, and thus style is modeled as a Period (as discussed in the scope notes of E4 Period). There is also an option to use E55 Type as the style, but no defined relationship to map from the object to its style. For example, a painting done using materials from Japan, in Japan, by a Japanese artist, in a French style would be considered to have a style of Japanese by CIDOC-CRM due to the time/space period. As such, we import the genre relationship from outside our core ontology so that we can use Types. If a new predicate is created for CIDOC-CRM that more closely maps to the usage, we will switch to use it in a future revision. The distinction that all styles are aesthetic is also somewhat controversial, but simplifies the model significantly at very little cost. The example which was seen as clear was that a perfect imitation of a Navajo dream-catcher made by a factory in China cannot be said to be culturally Navajo, but can be said to have an aesthetic that is related to the Navajo culture.

Classifications

Other classifications can also be assigned to the object based on its content. If it is possible to say that "This object is an X" (or "The artistic content of this object is an X") , then X can be included in the set of classifications using the classified_as property. This could include classifications such as "Landscape", "Allusion", or "Impressionist".