Allegories of Justice and Other Virtues: Glimpses at European Painting

The aim of this paper is to reflect on the relationship between art and law as elements of culture. Several works of European painting dedicated to central concepts of law, such as justice, truth or prudence will be discussed, especially as they are sometimes depicted together. Representations of injustice re also precent, especially in the context of the good and bad government, as in Lorenzetti’s fresco on the walls of the Town Hall in Siena. Although painters preferred to deal with themes related to beauty, harmony, love, vanity rather than justice, some symbols related to law have become permanently embedded in our iconosphere, such as a figure of a woman with sword and scales. The choice of works described is to a large extent determined by the fact, that in the present times values related to law are more often conveyed in written texts than in paintings.