Work of Art - Indian Laws - General

Work of Art According to Chambers Dictionary, Work of art means a panting, sculpture or other production in the fine arts, esp., one of high quality; anything constructed or composed with manifest skill. In the New Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 2, 15th edition, it is stated: What are the arts, and what is art in general? This is still a controversial question after centuries of debate. No particular definition commands universal assent. Several meanings are still frequently used, of which the oldest is the broad, technical sense. In this sense, the English term art and its equivalents in Greek and Latin covered not only what are now called fine arts or aesthetic arts but any kind of transmitted, useful skill, such as agriculture, medicine, and war.... In the 19th and 20th centuries, there has been a tendency to abandon the term art in speaking of the purely utilitarian skills and to call them instead industries, technics, branches of engineering, or applied sciences. Without the prefix fine, the word art alone is now commonly understood to mean the fine or aesthetic arts. To produce an experience of beauty or aesthetic satisfaction is said to be their distinguishing function or characteristic but not necessarily their only one. In this moderately broad, technical sense, some, but not all, architecture, furniture, and clothing can qualify as arts in spite of their useful purposes... The decorative arts are a species of visual art whose main function is to combine utility with beauty or aesthetic satisfaction. They tend to emphasize visual ornamentation and design along with fitness for some useful end or ends. Although Western painting and sculpture in the past traditionally tended to emphasize representation, the decorative arts used both abstract and representational design. Utility, design, and representation appear with varying degrees of emphasis in such arts as medieval book illumination, jewellery, Greek or Chinese vase painting, Persian rugs, and French rococo furniture. CIT VERSUS SB. ZAINAB NOORUL SAYEEDA AND OTHERS. - 2003 (3) TMI 79 - ANDHRA PRADESH HIGH COURT In Sampath Iyengar s The Three New Taxes , the expression and term works for art is as under : Works of art are those which are the result of human skill applied in various directions, such as, sculptures by Michael Angelo, paintings by Raphael, Ruben, Vandyke, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Rembrandt, etc., or portraits by Ravi Varma, etc. Leading examples of private art collections in India but to which public entry is permitted are : (1) the collections of Sir Salar Jang situate in Hyderabad (2) the Mullick Art collections at Calcutta ; (3) the Vizianagaram collections at Varanasi, and (4) the Singhania collections at The Retreat , Kanpur. MA CHIDAMBARAM VERSUS COMMISSIONER OF WEALTH TAX - 1997 (12) TMI 52 - MADRAS HIGH COURT