What is Art? - Southwestern Law School

WHAT IS ART? 119property rights laws, the Senate exercised its inherent jurisdictionalpowers over trade to allow Raimondi to continue producing and merchandisingDürer’s images; with the proviso that he could not in thefuture include on them Dürer’s unique ‘AD’ signature or brand. 29Not only is this one of the earliest recorded cases in the developmentof copyright laws, it also illustrates the Senate’s difficulty in understandingthe true nature of Dürer’s art (and his legal claim). TheSenate seemingly focused on the innovative and highly technicalskill and labour Raimondi employed in making engraved copies; noton the art. Dürer’s original images were the art; not his original woodcutsor his prints thereof, and not Raimondi’s engraved renditions ofDürer’s original images or his prints thereof. In granting Dürer a remedyin relation to Raimondi’s future use of his “logo”—his brandidentity—the Senate also heralded the development of what becametrademark and other intellectual property laws.1573 Italy: Inquiry of the Venetian Inquisition v. Veronese 30In 1572, at the height of his career, Veronese 31 was commissionedby the monastery of San Giovanni e Paolo in Venice to make a largepainting of The Last Supper to adorn the refectory, to replace an earlierwork by Titian 32 that had been destroyed by fire the previousyear. In 1573 Veronese delivered a very large canvas, 39 feet wideby 17 feet high, on which he had updated the ancient Biblicalscene by placing it in a contemporary Italian palazzo. 33 He had expandedthe traditional gathering of Jesus and his twelve disciplesby adding a large number of curious-looking people, including “buffoons,drunken Germans, dwarfs and other such scurrilities ...ajesterwith a parrot on his wrist . . . a servant who has a nose-bleed from someaccident...armedmendressedinthefashionofGermany,withhalberdsin their hands” 3429.30. For an English translation of the trial transcript, See FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD,SALVE VENETIA: GLEANINGS FROM VENETIAN HISTORY. VOLUME: 1 (1905); Elizabeth C.Childs, Suspended License: Censorship and the Visual Arts (1997).31. Paolo Cagliari (1528–1588), popularly known as Veronese from the city of hisbirth, Verona was an eminent fresco and oil painter in the Mannerist style of the ItalianLate or High Renaissance, especially in Venice alongside Titian and Tintoretto.32. Tiziano Vecellio (1488–1576), popularly known as Titian, was the pre-eminentmember of the so-called Venetian School, with Veronese and Tintoretto.33. Such “modernisation” was commonly practised by artists during theRenaissance.34. Crawford, supra note 30; Childs, supra note 30.