The documentary rhetoric of courtroom art

Abstract

ABSTRACT Courtroom art, as in comics, self-insertion and self-portraiture invite a metatextual discussion of the relationship between the artist and the reality they seek to depict. Courtroom art is an under-theorised medium discussed, almost exclusively, in the history and practices of law. The tools of comics studies, I seek to show, can provide a language to discuss the sociological and formal aspects of the work of courtroom artists. As such, in this paper I argue that, despite the apparent unsuitability of drawing as a documentary method, courtroom art is an effective vehicle for truth claims. Courtroom artists not only mitigate but leverage the lack of objectivity of their medium to offer a different kind of documentary from technological reportage; they record not only an impression of what occurred but how an event was experienced. In the sections below I offer an overview of the history and practices of courtroom art and theories of documentary comics, a discussion of the relationship between courtroom and comics art, and a series of close readings of examples of courtroom art which effectively leverage the form’s interpretive capacity.