What is Art in the Public Domain?
Architecture and the Public Domain
  Email page to a friend

What is Art in the Public Domain?

To complicate the issue, the art world is known for its complexities, there are works of art which are considered in the public domain. This phrase, "in the public domain," simply means that the image is so well known that it is within the scope of most people's general knowledge base. 

For instance, the image of the Mona Lisa is known to most people and sometimes considered "in the public domain." The phrase can be tricky however as people believe that they can use an image as they please just because everyone recognizes that image. Most people know what the image looks like and often times, the image is used without issue. 

The painting of Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci is owned by the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. Mona Lisa's image is on everything from t-shirts to jars of tomato sauce. Many Italian Renaissance works are highly recognizable such as Leonardo's Vitruvian Man, Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Titian's Venus of Urbino as are Impressionist masterpieces like Van Gogh's Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear, Monet's Haystacks, and Manet's Bar at the Follies Bergere, but are not in the public domain. 

Like the Mona Lisa, other famous images are highly recognizable and often used with permission. Grant Wood's famous painting of an Iowa farming couple (actually an image of the artist's sister and dentist) holding a pitchfork called American Gothic is an image that has been used in many advertisements. The American Regionalist painting is typical of the style of the group which included John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton among others. 

Architecture and the Public Domain

When we think about art, we usually think about paintings. Right? We rarely consider that the umbrella of art can cover prints, rare books, furniture, design and decorative objects like tea sets or lamps. It is even more rare to recall that architecture such as New York's skyscrapers or Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie school houses are works of art, too.

What does architecture have to do with our discussion about the public domain? Well, architecture or buildings and images of buildings --famous structures such as the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, or the Guggenheim Museum-- are in the public domain. A recent ruling publicized by the American Association of Museums indicates that images of public buildings are in the pubic domain and are within the scope of fair use in certain circumstances. 

This Art Advice column was offered in response to an inquiry that I received about utilizing album cover art without permission. If you want to use an image, you must identify the owner and secure reproduction rights (that means paying for the rights to use an image). I appreciate your questions and please remember to contact me with any questions.

Dr. Lori
Director, Masterpiece Technologies Inc.