Art and Cultural Heritage Loss: A Worthy Priority for International Prevention and Enforcement
| Pages | 149-152 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb025695 |
| Date | 01 March 1995 |
| Published date | 01 March 1995 |
| Author | Richard H. Blum |
Journal
of
Financial Crime
—
Vol.
3 No. 2 — Art
Theft
ART THEFT
Art
and
Cultural Heritage Loss:
A
Worthy Priority
for International Prevention
and
Enforcement
Richard
H.
Blum
Offered here
is a
brief introduction
to art and
cultural heritage loss.
The
focus
is on
'crime'
so
that 'loss'
in
fact means someone's gain. Never-
theless
as is
common
in
characterising inter-
national enterpreneurial activity, there
may be
little
common ground
on
definitions
of art and of
crime,
or
willingness
to be
signatory
to
existing
international treaties. Consider,
for
example,
the
failure of Japan
and
Western European nations,
as
archaeological treasure consuming-displaying
nations
to
sign
the
UNESCO Convention
intended
to
protect cultural heritages. Currently
American readers learn that Turkey
is
acting under
US civil
law to
recover
its
treasures from
US
col-
lections.
One, the
Lydian Hoard,
has
just been
returned
by the NY
Metropolitan Museum.
But
many legal battles
lie
ahead
for
Turkey,
and, the
list here
is but
illustrative,
for
Greece, Czechoslo-
vakia, Russia, Hungary, Germany,
the USA and
UK,
as
nations fight over what came from where
and belongs
to
whom. Also contested, what
is the
public versus private interest
to be
protected?
We
may
bypass this difficulty
by
assuming
the
'natural
law'.
Just
as
there
is
demonstrated
by
responsive facial expressions,
law and
surveys
a
widespread human repugnance
at
rape
or
murder,
one
may
posit
an
intrinsically moral
and
civilising
'natural' human disapproval
of
harm done
to, or
indeed lack
of
respect
for,
beauty
and its
related
national/ethnic heritage. Emerging from that
'natural
law of
appreciation'
one
would expect gen-
eral agreement
on
measures
to
facilitate art's crea-
tion, preservation
and
public
as
well
as
private
enjoyment.
In the USA the
first
of
these
is
also
a
constitutionally protected right
of
free expression.
Tyrants abhor such freedom,
and
indeed
the
natural
law,
following from Plato, Aristotle, Sen-
eca, found
in
Cicero's 'right reason'
in
Plutarch's
virtue,
was
early invoked
as
argument
for
tyranni-
cide
and for the
ethical bonds
of
community.
The premise that
we may
understand
one
another across boundaries about art/heritage
'crime'
by
presuming
an
ethical, human
and
com-
munal ground
for
that, provides
an
unlawyerlike
(for
it
need
not be in
codes
nor
approved
by the
rights
and
lineage
of
kings)
but
sympathetic posi-
tion itself anathematising
the
theft, misrepresenta-
tion, forging, destruction
of,
damage
to,
unlawful
transport
of,
failure
to
disclose
the
discovery
and/
or concealing
the
existence
of
objects aesthetically
powerful
and
culturally rare. Such objects
of
inter-
est
are
simultaneously profound, enriching, mean-
ingful
to
viewers
or
users. They bespeak
the
processes
of
civilisation. These products
are
pri-
marily
the
creative expressions
of
individuals,
or
alternatively,
of
dedicated skilled small workshop
groups
(eg the
Wiener Werkstatt, Leonardo's
or
Phidias's workshops). Whether
or not
individual
excellence
is
acknowledged,
as in
classical
or
post-
medieval times,
or
submerged
(as yet in
most
iconography)
is a
function
of
views about individ-
uality, membership
and
duties.
Art and its
attribu-
tion
is
thus integrated
in the
core values
of a
culture,
as
well
as to the
learning
and
biopsychol-
ogy
of
aesthetics.
Art
crimes thereby invoke
powerful meanings.
As with crime
itself, so for art,
thus
for art
crimes cultural variations
in
judgments
can be
expected,
but
with
a
strong cross-cultural
set of
agreements
on
that which
is
(morally, thus linked
to
the
natural
law)
wrong
in itself.
Definitions
for
each, including 'heritage' must
be
right
if
priorities
are
to be
given
to
what
is
best legislated
and
pro-
tected. That clarity also restrains rhetorical-
ideological
or
personal emotional overextension.
Difficulties arise because there
is
much current
today
by way of
relativistic cultural chaos, which
dilutes focus
on art
crime priorities
by
allowing
almost anything, however badly
and
widely pro-
duced
to be
called
'art' or
'heritage'.
A
kind
of
Page
149
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