Effect and Technique in Legal Aesthetics
2 Critical Analysis of Law 496 (2015)
24 Pages Posted: 11 Jun 2015 Last revised: 1 Nov 2017
Date Written: June 10, 2015
Abstract
Discussions of legal aesthetics often proceed as if it were sufficient, in exploring law’s aesthetic dimensions, to refer to effects such as symmetry, balance, and proportionality. Those effects, however, might be produced by any number of techniques, and aesthetic technique tells us more about the meaning and context of legal ideas than effects do. After discussing various kinds of inquiries into legal aesthetics, this essay turns to Blackstone’s Commentaries as a source for the techniques that inform modern legal writing and analysis.
Keywords: law, aesthetics, Blackstone
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