Laocoön

“ Thus if Laocoon sighs, the imagination can hear him shriek; but if he shrieks, it can neither rise above nor descend below this representation without seeing him in a condition which, as it will be more endurable, becomes less interesting. It either hears him merely moaning, or sees him already dead.
Of the frenzied Ajax of Timomachus we can form some judgment from the account of Philoctetes. Ajax does not appear raging among herds and slaughtering cattle instead of men; but the master exhibits him sitting wearied with these deeds of insanity, and that is really the raging Ajax. ”

“ The poet carefully leaves Laocoon’s arms free that he may have the full use of his hands.
Ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos. [39] In this point the artist must necessarily have followed him; for nothing contributes more to the expression of life and motion than the action of the hands. In representations of passion, especially, the most speaking countenance is ineffective without it. Arms fastened close to the body by the serpents’ coils would have made the whole group cold and dead. ”

“ It is not the creator only of the Laocoon in all his agonies, that is a great artist—the Apollo Belvedere, and the Venus de Medicis, and the Mourning Psyche, calm in most perfect repose, or depressed with grief, equally demonstrate the hand of a master. ”

“ For three days after they were dead.’ Even in the other world, he is represented with the same fierce, dauntless, unrelenting character, ‘gnawing the skull of his adversary, his fell repast.’ The subject of the Laocoon is scarcely equal to that described by Dante. The horror there is physical and momentary; in the other, the imagination fills up the long, obscure, dreary void of despair, and joins its unutterable pangs to the loud cries of nature. What is there in the picture to convey the ghastly horrors of the scene, or the mighty energy of soul with which they are borne? ”

“ The one half of his nature drew him towards the Classical and therefore to sculpture—we all know the effect produced upon him by the recently-discovered Laocoön. No man ever made a more honest effort than he did to find a way with the chisel into a buried world. ”

“ In the Laocoon consummate skill is shown in the mastery of execution; but if the object of the artist was to create pity or awe, he has drawn too much attention to his power of carving marble. The Laocoon was executed, according to Pliny, by Agesander, Polydorus and Athenodorus, natives of Rhodes. This group, now in the Vatican, was found in the baths of Titus. From the evidence of an antique gem, on which is engraved a representation of this group, we find the right arm of the Laocoon has been wrongly restored. ”

“ Even the Laocoon is not in the state of actual exertion: it is represented in that moment when the last effort has been made; when straining against an invincible power has given to the figure the aspect at last of momentary repose; and when despair has placed its settled mark on the expression of the countenance. ”

“ It is hard to believe that such great masters should have created nothing else, or that the rest of their works should have been, equally with the Laocoon, unknown to Pausanias. In Rome, on the contrary, the greatest masterpiece might have remained long concealed. If the Laocoon had been finished as early as the time of Augustus, there would be nothing surprising in Pliny’s being the first, and, indeed, the last, to mention it. For remember what he tells [178] of a Venus by Scopas, which stood in the temple of Mars at Rome:
... “quemcunque alium locum nobilitatura. ”

“ No greater insult could be paid to art. Suppose sculpture could imitate different textures as well as painting, would Laocoon necessarily have been draped? Should we lose nothing by drapery? Has a garment, the work of slavish hands, as much beauty as an organized body, the work of eternal wisdom? Does the imitation of the one require the same skill, involve the same merit, bring the same honor as the imitation of the other? Do our eyes require but to be deceived, and is it a matter of indifference to them with what they are deceived? ”

“ The more we see the more we must be able to imagine; and the more we imagine, the more we must think we see. But no moment in the whole course of an action is so disadvantageous in this respect as that of its culmination. There is nothing beyond, and to present the uttermost to the eye is to bind the wings of Fancy, and compel her, since she cannot soar beyond the impression made on the senses, to employ herself with feebler images, shunning as her limit the visible fulness already expressed. When, for instance, Laocoon sighs, imagination can hear him cry ”

“ Had he, however, been misled by an appearance of imitation, he must have declared in favor of those who make Virgil the imitator. For he supposes the Laocoon to date from the period when Greek art was in its perfection: to be, therefore, of the time of Alexander the Great.
“Kind fortune,” he says, [170] “watching over the arts even in their extinction, has preserved for the admiration of the world a work of this period of art, which proves the truth of what history tells concerning the glory of the many lost masterpieces. ”

“ Every detail of the picture which in the others awakens loathing and terror, evokes in him a joy that is outside the ken of other men. While they weep and waver, the artist rejoices in the expression of agony on the countenance of Laocoon, rejoices that the father is unable to bring aid to his children, that the serpents are compressing their bodies with irresistible force. The next moment, perchance, the man will have conquered the artist. ”

“ Quintus Calaber indeed, like Virgil, makes Laocoon express suspicion of the wooden horse; but the wrath of Minerva, which he thereby incurs, is very differently manifested. As the Trojan utters 35his warning, the earth trembles beneath him, pain and terror fall upon him; a burning pain rages in his eyes; his brain gives way; he raves; he becomes blind. After his blindness, since he still continues to advise the burning of the wooden horse, Minerva sends two terrible dragons, which, however, attack only Laocoon’s children. In vain they stretch out their hands to their father. ”

“ It is good to see how his gigantic intellect reaches after repose, and truthfully finds it, in the falling hand of the near figure, and in the deathful decline of that whose hands are held up even in their venom coldness to the cross; and though irrelevant to our present purpose, it is well also to note how the grandeur of this treatment results, not merely from choice, but from a greater knowledge and more faithful rendering of truth. For whatever knowledge of the human frame there may be in the Laocoon, there is certainly none of the habits of serpents. ”

“ Why should we not in like manner cease to admire the artist who should do no more than translate the words of the poet into form and color?
The reason I suppose to be this. In art the difficulty appears to lie more in the execution than in the invention, while with poetry the contrary is the case. There the execution seems easy in comparison with the invention. Had Virgil copied the twining of the serpents about Laocoon and his sons from the marble, then his description would lose its chief merit ”

“ Identity of name is a slight argument, and by no means authorizes us to do violence to the natural interpretation of an uncorrupted passage.
If it be proved beyond a doubt that Craterus and Pythodorus, Polydectes and Hermolaus, with the rest, lived at the time of the emperors whose palaces they adorned with their admirable works, then I think we can assign no other date to those artists, the sculptors of the Laocoon, whose names Pliny connects with these by the word similiter. ”

“ The Laocoon with his two sons, the work of Agesander, Apollodorus, [171] and Athenodorus, of Rhodes, dates in all probability from this period, although we cannot determine the exact time, nor give, as some have done, the Olympiad in which these artists flourished.”
In a note he adds: “Pliny says not a word with 170regard to the time when Agesander and his assistants lived. But Maffei, in his explanation of the ancient statues, professes to know that these artists flourished in the eighty-eighth Olympiad; and others, like Richardson, have maintained the same on his authority. ”

“ Again, if a man of firmness and endurance cry, he does not do so unceasingly, and only this apparent continuity in art makes the cry degenerate into womanish weakness or childish impatience. This, at least, the sculptor of the Laocoon had to guard against, even had a cry not been an offence against beauty, and were suffering without beauty a legitimate subject of art.
Among the old painters Timomachus seems to have been the one most fond of choosing extremes for his subject. His raving Ajax and infanticide Medea were famous. ”

“ It gave opportunity to surpass all existing productions in its display of artistic technical superiority. When the body of the Laocoon is compared with the type of Heracles, it cannot be doubted that the canon of Lysippos was followed; but the forms, which with him were developed from the living model, in this, as in the Marsyas of Pergamon, are taken from anatomical studies, and are wanting in fulness of life: the overdetailed muscles are too studied, distinct, and separated; they are marble, and not flesh. The composition would, in real life, be impracticable ”

“ Few will contradict Winkelmann in his conclusion that the Athanodorus of this inscription can be no other than the Athenodorus whom Pliny mentions as among the sculptors of the Laocoon. Athanodorus and Athenodorus are entirely synonymous; for the Rhodians used the Doric dialect. But the other conclusions which he draws from the inscription require further comment.
The first, that Athenodorus was a son of Agesander, may pass. It is highly probable, though by no means certain. Some of the old artists, we know, called themselves after their teachers instead of taking their fathers’ names. ”

“ Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis. These details satisfy the imagination, it is true; but not if we dwell upon them and try to bring them distinctly before us. We must look now at the serpents, and now at Laocoon. The moment we try to combine them into one picture, the grouping 47begins to displease, and appear in the highest degree unpicturesque.
But these deviations from his supposed model, even if not unfortunate, were entirely arbitrary. Imitation is intended to produce likeness, but how can likeness result from needless changes? ”

“ The slight mention which some old grammarians have made of it affords us no ground for concluding how the poet had handled his subject; but of this I feel certain, that Laocoön would not have been drawn more stoically than Philoctetes and Hercules. All stoicism is undramatical; and our sympathy is always proportioned to the suffering exprest by the object which interests us. It is true if we see him bear his misery with a great soul, this grandeur of soul excites our admiration ”

“ The Laocoon group cannot be reduced to a knick-knack; great size is necessary to it. But more seldom still does anything that is naturally small bear enlargement; for which reason biographers succeed far oftener in representing a great man as small than a small one as great. ”

“ The treacherous Sinon replied, “That is an offering to Minerva and made so huge to prevent its being carried into the city, for Calchas, the prophet, told us that if the Trojans took possession [297] of it they would surely triumph over the Greeks.” Hearing this, the people were overjoyed, and, in spite of Laocoön’s pleading, began to plan how they might drag the horse into the city. Suddenly a shudder went through the crowd. Out from the surf tumbling along the beach, appeared two immense serpents ”

“ A sacrifice to appease Minerva’s wrath.”
—Marlowe.
Laocoon also struck his spear into the side of the monster. His words and acts so offended Minerva that she sent two serpents out of the sea to destroy him and his sons. They were speedily enveloped in the creatures’ slimy folds and died in great agony.
INTERPRETATION.
Max Muller says that the meaning or root of the name Laocoon is symbolic of Sin the Throttler. The strange fate of Laocoon was readily believed to be a punishment for the violence he had done the sacred horse.
ART.
“Laocoon! ”

“ Invention required less of the artist than of the poet, 72 et seq. Junius, Francis, an unsafe authority, 188. Juno, how represented in ancient art, 57. Kleist, Von, his own judgment of his poem “Spring,” 108. Klotzius, on the effects of different forms of the disagreeable in art, 158. Laocoon, of Virgil, 20 et seq.; compared with the statue, 36 et seq.; contains traits unavailable for the artist, 42; the group of, possibly suggested by Virgil’s description, 43 et seq.; the, probable date of, 170 et seq. Longinus, his remarks in regard to eloquence and poetry, 188. ”

“ If the Laotian did not return he might continue to have the pleasant company of his thoughts provided he held reign over their restive movements and they were directed mostly toward some external aim instead of a constant churning of old redundant ideas and ghosts of memory haunting him with their illusionary palpability as though that which had been could be grasped still. Alone here in Laos, a foreign land, there was plenty that was novel to explore and by being a sole traveler, his will, his uncompromised agenda, would be exactly as he wished it to be. ”

“ If he were to lie down it would fan away the sweat that was collecting at his brow, there would be beauty in the sordid, and there, without compunction he would plunge into dreams thumping as the voices of frogs at a distance.
"Come here," he told the Laotian. Boi came over to him. "So young," he said as he touched a wisp of hair that stuck out over the boy's ear and was salient in his sense of beauty. "You remind me of someone I once knew. It's like the world recycles the same stuff. What do you want from life? I mean not what is real and before you but what you really want." ”