If you are a Dorothy Dunnett fan and live in Los Angeles, I’m jealous of you. In my daily perusal of the Federal Register’s table of contents in my other life as a lawyer, I came across the U.S. State Department’s determination of cultural significance for importation of the Medieval Book of Beasts. I’m betting anything that Francis Crawford of Lymond saw this book. Certainly in Queen’s Play there should have been a copy of it lying around. Perhaps there was and I don’t remember, but you have to think that Archie read it. The Getty Museum makes it sound really cool:
A vast throng of animals tumble, soar, and race through the pages of the bestiary, a popular medieval book describing the beasts of the world. Abounding with vibrant and fascinating images, the bestiary brought creatures to life before the eyes of readers. The beasts also often escaped from its pages to inhabit a glittering array of other objects. With over 100 works on display, this major loan exhibition will transport visitors into the world of the medieval bestiary.
The State Department doesn’t reach that level of excitement. The Assistant Secretary, Educational and Cultural Affairs, Department of State, says only:
I hereby determine that the objects to be exhibited in the exhibition ‘‘The Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World,’’ imported from abroad for temporary exhibition within the United States, are of cultural significance. The objects are imported pursuant to loan agreements with the foreign owners or custodians. I also determine that the exhibition or display of the exhibit objects at The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center, Los Angeles, California, from on or about May 14, 2019, until on or about August 18, 2019, and at possible additional exhibitions or venues yet to be determined, is in the national interest.
One wonders how the State Department knows whether a work of art is culturally significant or not. How does it have the expertise to determine culture significance? Does the agency hire art history majors? I haven’t been following this question for more than two years, but I’ve never seen State turn anyone down.
I was planning only to pose these questions and then wander off, but doing so made me feel lazy. So I turned to 22 U.S.C. 2459, which is what State cites in its notice. I must say, that was illuminating, not at all what I expected. State making this determination seems to protect the art from judicial seizure:
no court of the United States, any State, the District of Columbia, or any territory or possession of the United States may issue or enforce any judicial process, or enter any judgment, decree, or order, for the purpose or having the effect of depriving such institution, or any carrier engaged in transporting such work or object within the United States, of custody or control of such object if before the importation of such object the President or his designee has determined that such object is of cultural significance and that the temporary exhibition or display thereof within the United States is in the national interest, and a notice to that effect has been published in the Federal Register.
Still, I wonder about the backstory. What went on with what piece of art that we don’t let the stuff into the country without a government federal finding of significancel? The law comes from 1965. Did someone steal something from abroad, purloin a national treasure, abscond with an artifact? We want to know.
On a separate note, if this were a regulatory agency, I’d say that State needed to provide a bit more of a rationale for its conclusion, maybe noting that imaginary beasts are cool, that they complement the gryphons and whatnot in Harry Potter, which has become part of the modern zeitgeist–not to mention the Harry Potter follow-ons with the menageries–thus proving that the source material for these creatures is indeed culturally significant, so there. I could do this, and I’m not even an art history major. I confess, however, I’m stumped by the requirement that its display be in the national interest. How would that work? We can’t just duplicate the cultural analysis. Congress clearly wants two separate findings since it used two different words. Maybe I shouldn’t have looked this up. I am just as lost as I was before, but in a different way.
On a completely different topic, my apologies for not posting for a bit. I couldn’t access my dashboard. I am, however, beginning to believe in the healing powers of the internet. Perhaps the small roadside shrines I established under the telephone wires, on which I nested old cables and Apple cords, helped the internet gods send this website some healing magic. You never know. I do know I didn’t fix it myself.
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