„Piękno nie służy sztuce” – o nieprzydatności kryterium estetycznego dla prawnej oceny dzieł sztuki

• Authors: Mateusz Maria Bieczyński

Abstracts

EN

The main purpose of this article is to develop a dogmatic reflection about the significance of the aesthetic criteria in juridical decision-making. Main focus concentrates on the case-law, in which the aesthetic evaluation was revoked as an argument in the courtroom. Research is directed on establishing of a dogmatic frame for the future investigation of that topic. It offers a non systematic typology of cases. To realize this objective, at least on a basic level, consideration the following aspects is required. Firstly, it seems necessary to show examples of situations in which non- -legal, aesthetic arguments have been ‚smuggled’ into the court discourse by the lawyers themselves – including judges. Secondly, it seems necessary to build a general frame for the philosophical, art-critical and social conditions of the close relationship of law and aesthetics. The tendency for lawyers to ‚serve’ the aesthetic theories in argumentative situations of uncertainty appears to be historically conditioned – it finds its roots in the common law and the philosophical foundations of art, in the tradition of European culture. Thirdly, it seems reasonable to identify those cases that were ‘noble exceptions’ to the rule of lack of lawyers’ consciousness of problems connected to art history and aesthetics. Although the concern of this article is not a reconstruction of the historical evolution of the relationship between law and aesthetics, but the analysis of the modern aspects of their relation, the reference to the cases from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in which the issue was under consideration, appears to be useful for demonstrating continuity of the problem described. Fourthly, this article attempts to assess the socio-cultural conditions of the ‘legal escape’ into aesthetic argumentation in situations of uncertainty about the meaning of art. It appears that the formula of aesthetic reasoning adopted as the basis for the legal assessment of artworks is not without culturally conditioned meanings – it is no a procedure, which is neutral and free of politics. Fifthly, it is impossible to ignore questions about possible alternatives to the theory of aesthetic as a criterion for assessing the value of the artworks in science and law. The rejection of aesthetics and the related thesis proclaiming that art always serves beauty, requires the submission of proposals for the adoption of another operative alternative solutions, which would fill ‚argumentative void’ and also save the object (art) from having no point of argumentative reference in the legal argumentation

Keywords

EN

art and law; art on trial; aesthetic criteria; art justification

PL

prawo i sztuka; sztuka przed sądem; kryterium estetyczne; kontratyp sztuki

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek
• Journal: Themis Polska Nova
• Year: 2016
• Issue: 2(11)
• Pages: 5-32

Dates

published

2016

Contributors

author

Mateusz Maria Bieczyński

• Uniwersytet Artystyczny w Poznaniu

Identifiers

DOI

10.15804/tpn2016.2.01

Biblioteka Nauki

2204967