Copypasteright control?

I'm now talking about a Finnish law but I guess it may be valid in other countries as well. At least inside EU.

According to law, it's not allowed to publish any pictures of other people's art without their permission. Unless it's part of scenery. For example, I could take a picture of the room in Louvre having Mona Lisa on the wall and some crowd (there's always crowd in that room), and publish it. However, if I took a picture of Mona Lisa, the world-famous painting by Leonardo DaVinci, alone, I couldn't publish the photo without permission by Louvre art museum. Or whomever it concerns.

This leads to my subject nicely. What about the painters themselves? They have painted churches, bridges and houses for centuries, and I'm pretty convinced that they haven't paid a nickel for architects and designers, hell, artists per se.

Alright, the Finnish law may be quite recent, but does it mean that from now on no-one can paint any building, or other work of art for that matter, and release it in the exhibition without getting thumbs up from the creators of the target? Or, as it's compared as equal way of publishing these days, uploading a picture of your painting that has that building under copyright control?

To me this is pure nonsense. It's almost impossible for anyone to watch all sites, inspect and report every suspicion. To judge and fine. To keep track of everything. It's like the Swedes should watch that snuff is not exported to Finland (or other EU countries). They really don't watch, and everyone knows that.