STATUES OF LADY JUSTICE IN HUNGARY: REPRESENTATION OF JUSTITIAIN TOWN HALLS, COURTHOUSES, AND OTHER PUBLIC SPACES

• Authors: Takács Peter
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The representation of the idea of justice through the ancient Roman goddess-figure, recently known as Lady Justice, has constituted an essential part of European culture for centuries. This paper outlines these statues in town halls, courthouses, and public spaces in Hungary, and examines some of them in detail. The aim of the study is to draw a general picture of such statues in Central and Eastern European country, namely in Hungary, to identify the characteristics of these sculptures, reflecting their social and political context, and in some cases to contrast them with that of those which were characteristic in Western Europe. The nature of this study is multi and interdisciplinary, so it applies several methods in exploring its theme; for example, art and cultural history were mixed with reference to social history and legal history. The paper focuses on the legal and political culture –conceived in the cultural context, institutional prerequisites and behavioural patterns as components of law and politics –and treats statues of Justice as a part of this culture. For the sculptures in question, this study may raise questions from three disciplines: jurisprudence and law, social and cultural history, and the theory of art. The study is interdisciplinary and focuses primarily on the first and second areas and, among other things, examines the cultural-historical functions of a law-related symbol. The study goes as far as to penetrate into the field of iconology at the level that E. Panofsky referred to as the pre-iconographic description, which is the first of the three possible steps in this field. At the second step, on the level of iconographic analysis, this study turns towards social and legal meanings, since it is interested in not so much about the aesthetic-iconological analysis of the artwork, but about the socio-legal and legal-cultural meanings of certain cultural phenomena.

Keywords

EN

LAW; LADY JUSTICE; COURTHOUSES; MONUMENT; SCULPTURES; HUNGARY

• Publisher: Slovak Academy of Sciences, Institute of Social Sciences
• Journal: Človek a spoločnosť. Internetový časopis pre pôvodné teoretické a výskumné štúdie z oblasti spoločenských vied
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 22
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 11 – 42

Contributors

author

Takács Peter

• Széchenyi István University, Faculty of Law, Győr, Hungary

Identifiers

DOI

http://www.doi.org/10.31577/cas.2019.03.557