Culture and cultural differences

That ‘Europe’ is plagued by cultural differences is something a European is confronted with daily. The differences may show themselves in a great many ways: budgetary responsibility, the role of the state, individual responsibility, individual liberty, and so on. In my view they often show themselves as either a north/south divide or an east/west divide, although differences also exist within a few miles of one another (think of the (cultural) difference in the Netherlands between someone from Friesland and someone from Limburg).

This is about another north/south cultural difference that has struck me more than once. Recently I learned that the Italian state and the Galleria dell’Accademia have been suing the German toy and puzzle maker Ravensburger over Ravensburger’s use of Da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man for one of its puzzles (the case stems from 2022). The Venice court ordered Ravensburger to cease the commercial use of Da Vinci’s drawing.

In October 2022 the news was that the Uffizi museum in Florence was suing Jean Paul Gaultier over the unauthorised reproduction of Botticelli’s Venus on fashion garments. The basis for both the Uffizi’s and the Galleria’s claim is the Italian Cultural Heritage Code. The Italian state wishes to protect its cultural heritage, either to prevent certain uses of cultural treasures, or to make some money from them.

The French (from my point of view also to the south) take a similar approach to their cultural heritage. I recall the advertising campaign for Kronenbourg’s 1664 beer with images of the Eiffel Tower and the Château de Chambord.

You might think of freedom of panorama, but no: the French state wants a commercial company to pay for the image of a centuries-old castle in an advertisement. Because Kronenbourg won its case at the time before both the court of first instance and the appeal court, the French government introduced a law on the freedom of creation, architecture and heritage. You can no longer use, without permission, a building the government has designated a ‘domaine national’. And yes, permission may be subject to payment.

I live in the Netherlands. We have a rich cultural heritage, not like the Italians (we still lived in sod huts when they were taking hot baths) nor like the French, but we do have Rembrandt.

We clearly think differently, though, about how to deal with our heritage. From the Rijksmuseum you can obtain, free of charge, high-resolution JPEGs of almost all the art in the museum (over 125,000 objects!) to create whatever you wish to create. You get a 4500x4500 pixel JPEG for nothing. And if you want to use any of the art commercially, you can obtain, FOR FREE, a high-resolution TIFF file. All the Rijksmuseum asks for is a copy for its library and, if possible, a credit. It even gives examples of what you could do with the art: design a scooter, paint your Volkswagen Up, create a t-shirt or a dress (all images from Van shirt tot scooter … tips en voorbeelden - Rijksmuseum).

Picture of the Ravensburger puzzle taken from puzzlelink.net; model with Gaultier garment: taken from www.highsnobiety.com, photo © Ssense; photo Kronenbourg 1664 from the website www.franceblue.fr; other pictures from the website of the Rijksmuseum