(Art) historical data can be tricky—often fragmented, incomplete, and curated—making it challenging to study the impact of key figures. However, the remaining data in 2024 offers valuable insights into earlier societies. In this presentation, I will address the challenges of identifying historical figures, such as artists, whose identities are often obscured by incomplete records or inconsistent name spellings. Together, we will explore how Digital Humanities methods, including Linked Open Data (LOD), can assist in contextualizing these individuals (and how not).
We’ll step back into the 19th century to examine the surviving data on Belgium’s most important neoclassical painter, François-Joseph Navez (1787-1869). This research is part of the FWO-funded Navez Project, a collaboration between Ghent University and KBR.