The Art of Law
International Conference

Recent years have witnessed a clear rise in scholarship on law and the visual, mostly originating in the wider field of law and the humanities. The conference ‘The Art of Law: Artistic Representations and Iconography of Law & Justice in Context from the Middle Ages to the First World’ War wishes to contribute to this research by focusing on imagery in its legal and art historical contexts. The program brings together original and interdisciplinary scholarship that questions the role of art in the practice of law, jurisprudence and justice administration from the Late Middle Ages through the Nineteenth Century.

The conference will be held in the Groeningemuseum, Bruges on Monday 16, Tuesday 17 and Wednesday 18 January, 2017, during the exhibition ‘De Kunst van het Recht. Drie Eeuwen Gerechtigheid in Beeld’ (‘The Art of Law. Three Centuries of Justice Depicted’) (28 October, 2016 - 5 February, 2017). This art exhibition, curated by Vanessa Paumen and Tine Van Poucke, features about 130 artworks from over 30 national and international museums and libraries and will focus on themes related to justice as expressed in artworks of various media from about 1450 through 1750.

The Art of Law is the closing conference of the IAP Justice and Populations's WP4: Long-term (Self-) Representations of Justice (LongTermJust).

See conference website (taolconference.wordpress.com) for registration and practical details.

Early bird registration until 16 December 2016
Later registration until 13 January 2017

Vanessa.Paumen[at]Brugge.be
and
Stefan.Huygebaert[at]UGent.be


Full program:
Bruges (Belgium), Groeningemuseum: Vriendenzaal

MONDAY 16 JANUARY 2017:
MEDIEVAL LEGAL ICONOGRAPHY

9:00-9:20
Registration & Morning Coffee

9:20-9:30
Word of Welcome by Till-Holger Borchert (director Musea Brugge)

9:30- 9:40
Introduction by the organizers

9:40-11:10
Session I: The Last Judgment (XIV-XVI century)
Chair: Carolin Behrmann (KHI Florence)

9:40
Clare Sandford-Couch (Northumbria University): Changes in Late-Medieval Artistic Representations of Hell in Central and Northern Italy: a Visual Trick?

10:00
Mia Korpiola (University of Turku): The Role of Church Paintings of the Last Judgement as Images of Justice in a Lay-dominated Legal System, Sweden 1350-1600

10:20
Edina Eszenvi (Rome Art Program): The Psychostasis in Medieval Hungary

10:40
Discussion

11:10-11:40
Coffee break

11:40-12:10
Introduction to the Exhibition by Curator Vanessa Paumen

12:10-13:30
Lunch break

13:30-15:30
Session II: Legal Imagery in the City (XIV-XV century)
Chair: Vanessa Paumen (Exhibition Curator/Groeningemuseum)

13:30
Caroline O. Fowler (Yale University): Group Portraiture in Early Netherlandish Justice Paintings

13:50
Nadine Mai (University of Hamburg): Healing the City with Blood – Jerusalem as a juridical Metaphor in 15th century Bruges

14:10
Tamara Golan (Johns Hopkins University): “ut experiri et scire posset”: Hans Fries and the Forensic Gaze in the Kleiner Johannes Altar

14:30
Bertrand Cosnet (Université de Tours/CESR): The Personifications of Justice in Italian City-states: from Equity to Good Government

14:50-15:30
Discussion

15:30-16:00
Coffee break

16:00-17:30
Session III: Legal Iconography in Illuminated Manuscripts (XIII-XVI century)
Chair: Clare Sandford-Couch (Northumbria University)

16:00
Marina Vidas (Royal Library Copenhagen): Images of Justice in Venetian Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Illuminated Documents and Books

16:20
Egbert Koops (Leiden University): The Penis mightier than the Sword. Phallic Imagery in a Bolognese Legal Manuscript

16:40
Andrew Murray (independent scholar): The Montpellier Parchment and the Sovereignty of Justice in the Later Valois Burgundy State

15:10
Discussion

(12:30-18:00 Groeningemuseum & The Art of Law exhibition accessible for participants)

18:30-19:30
Welcoming reception at the Bruges Town Hall hosted by the City of Bruges and Mayor Renaat Landuyt


TUESDAY 17 JANUARY 2017:
EARLY MODERN LEGAL ICONOGRAPHY

9:30-10:30
Session IV: Justitia’s Early Modern Complexity
Chair: Georges Martyn (Ghent University)

9:30
Valérie Hayaert (IHEJ Paris): Justice’s blindfold: Fascia or Fascis? Or Both?

9:50
Guy Delmarcel (Department of Art History, KULeuven): Justitia. Examples and Allegories of Justice and Tribunals in Flemish Tapestry. 1450-1550

10:10
Discussion

10:30-11:00
Coffee break

11:00-12:30
Session V: Representations and Power
Chair: Valérie Hayaert (IHEJ, Paris)

11:00
Paul De Win (independent scholar): Art et Droit Pénal

11:20
Beatrijs Wolters van der Weij (Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Brussels): Happy Are Those who Observe Justice, who Do Righteousness at all Times.’ Civic Bodies and their Identification with Justice and Law in Early Modern Flemish Portraiture

11:40
Frederik Dhondt (VUB/UA/UGent/FWO): Diplomacy, Law and the Representation of Power. The Iconography of Peace from Louis XIV to Louis XV

12:00
Discussion

12:30-13:30
Lunch break

13:30-15:00
Session VI: Early Modern Court Room Decorations
Chair: Samuel Mareel (Museum Hof van Busleyden/KMSKA/Ghent University)

13:30
Christian-Nils Robert (University of Geneva): Setting the Stage for Justice. An Enduring Anachronism

13:50
Ann-Kathrin Hubrich (University of Hamburg): The Scenography of Early Modern Court Rooms – Lüneburg for example

14:10
Raf Verstegen (KU Leuven): The Judgement of Cambyses. The multiple sources of a rich iconographical topic

14:30
Discussion

15:00-15:30
Coffee break

15:30-17:00
Session VII: Commenting Law in Early Modern Print
Chair: Pedro Barbas-Homen (Universidade de Lisboa)

15:30
Gustav Kalm (Columbia University): The Rhetoric of Letterform in an Ordinary 16th Century German Formulary

15:50
Alain Wijffels (Leiden/Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve/CNRS): Lawyers and Litigants: Corruption of Justice in H. Goltzius’s Litis Abusus

16:10
Felix Jäger (KHI Florence): Legal Iconology of the Grotesque in the 16th Century

16:30
Discussion

18:00-19:00
Key Note Lecture (Town Archives, Burg Square)
Carolin Behrmann (KHI Florence): Law’s Manifestations. From Signs to Images – on Early Modern Legal Iconology

19:30-21:00
Conference Dinner (Walking Dinner)


WEDNESDAY 18 JANUARY 2017:
LEGAL ICONOGRAPHY IN THE LONG XIXTH CENTURY

9:30-11:30
Session VIII: XIXth-century Legal Architecture and Topography
Chair: Eric Bousmar (USL)

9:30
Xavier Rousseaux (UCL) & Jérôme De Brouwer (ULB): A Ghostly Corpse in the City? Spatial Configurations and Iconographic Representations of Capital Punishment in the ‘Belgian’ Space (XVI-XX Century)

9:50
Jozefien Feyaerts (Ghent University): The ‘Architecture Parlante’ of 19th-Century Prison Gate Houses

10:10
Gaëlle Dubois (UCL) & Amandine De Burchgraeve (UCL): Experiencing Justice in the Cour d‘Assises (of Brabant): A Place of Education, Representation and Entertainment

10:30
Rahela Khorakiwala (Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi): Images of Justice in the Colonial Courts of British India: A Focus on the Judicial Iconography of the Bombay High Court Built in 1878

10:50
Discussion

11:30-12:00
Coffee break

12:00-13:00
Session IX: Judges and Imagery in XIXth-century England and France
Chair: Xavier Rousseaux (UCL)

12:00
Leslie J. Moran (Birkbeck): Carte de Visit and the Judicial Image

12:20
Ruth Herz (University of London): The Judge’s Perspective: Drawings from the Bench

12:40
Discussion

13:00-14:00
Lunch break

14:00-15:30
Session X: Revolutionary, Napoleonic and Modern Legal Iconography
Chair: Nathalie Tousignant (USL)

14:00
Brecht Deseure (Passau University/Free University Brussels): Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité ou la Mort. The Iconography of Injustice in the Work of Pierre Goetsbloets

14:20
Paul Hahnenkamp (University of Vienna): Depicting Human Rights: A Mirror of Constitutional and Legal Changes within Europe

14:40
Stefan Huygebaert (Ghent University/FWO): The Iconology of Belgian Criminal Law

15:00
Discussion

15:30-16:00
Coffee break

16:00
End of the conference The Art of Law

16:00-18:00
IAP General Meeting Assembly and Book Launch

Scientific committee: Marc Boone (Ghent University); Eric Bousmar (USL); Bruno De Wever (Ghent University); Stefan Huygebaert (Ghent University/FWO); Samuel Mareel (Museum Hof van Busleyden/Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp/Ghent University); Georges Martyn (Ghent University); Vanessa Paumen (Flemish Research Centre for the Arts in the Burgundian Netherlands/Groeningemuseum); Xavier Rousseaux (UCL); Nathalie Tousignant (USL)

The conference is supported by:
Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS
Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)
Flemish Research Centre for the Arts of the Burgundian Netherlands
IAP Justice and Populations: The Belgian Experience in International Perspective