A visual self-image of legal authority: 'The temple of law'

The focus of this article is on the legal profession's visual self-image of legal authority. It takes a departure from the themes of visual legal communication and discusses the relationship between text and pictures in the legal domain. The discussion concludes with a reflection on the consequences of the modern pictorial evolution. Bearing this discussion in mind, will the development of the ICT society (information and communication technology) impose new demands on the legal system, or will the law resist the sensuality of the pictorial turn? By describing and analysing 254 photographs produced by The Swedish National Court Administration (Domstolsverket), the analysis will indicate that the internal visual self-image conveyed by the photographs supports and maintains the law's stability and consistency