The Laws of Landscape Painting
We have many arms
We have many legs
We are the Landscape Painters!
We are the Landscape Painters!
- Legislative chorus
The laws of landscape painting are many and varied.
Pick up any instructional book about landscape painting and you will discover pages and pages of rules: the horizon line must be somewhere above or below the midpoint of the painting; objects get smaller as they recede from the viewer; and there must be horizontal, vertical, and diagonal design elements to create a picture that is, overall, an accurate representation of the natural world.
Judges and legislators, like the painter, also create elaborate pictures of reality through their pronouncements and declarations. They paint intricate legal landscapes, which the general public must traverse in order to navigate social interactions: a driver of a vehicle must not drive at a speed that exceeds the speed-limit applying to the driver for the length of road where the driver is driving by less than 35 kilometers per hour; a company must keep written financial records that correctly record its transactions and financial position and performance; and so on.
Taking the form of an expanded sculptural lecture, The Laws of Landscape Painting reveals the shared histories of law and landscape painting, where legislative demigods sing songs about their many limbs; the painter’s scalp sprouts foliage, and exclusion clauses are rendered in luscious oil paint.