Publication Date

6-2020

Journal

Law, Culture and the Humanities

Abstract

In Danse Macabre: Temporalities of Law in the Visual Arts, Desmond Manderson delves the visual arts for insights into jurisprudence and legal practice. The book is a tour de force. Observing that just as art always fails to capture the image of justice, justice also always escapes positive law, Manderson claims, "We cannot paint the present; nor can we write the present law. . . . painting and lawmaking are always behind the times, late for their rendezvous with a world that has turned without them. . . . they strive to shape a future that they will never live to see" (13). Developing this claim, he notes, "Art and law share the same obsession with time, the same paradox, the same predicament" (13). Thus, law's tempi lead us in a literal, not metaphoric, dance of death (2).

Volume

16

Issue

2

First Page

339

Last Page

342

Publisher

Sage

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1177/1743872120909589

Disciplines

Courts | Law | Law and Society | Rule of Law

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