the influence of laocoön on the arts

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The influence of Laocoön on art and literature The discovery of the Laocoön in 1506 made a great impression on Italian artists and continued to influence Italian art well into the Baroque period. Michelangelo was particularly impressed by the massive scale of the work and its sensuous Hellenistic aesthetic, particularly its depiction of the male figures. The influence of the Laocoön is seen in many of Michelangelo's later sculptures, such as the ‘The Slaves’ (‘Rebellious Slave and the Dying Slave’) created for the tomb of Pope Julius II, marble, 2.09 m high, 1513-15, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Raphael used the face of Laocoön for his Homer in his fresco ‘The Parnassus’ - but expressed blindness rather than pain. The Parnassus,1509-10, Fresco, width at base 670 cm, Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican.

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An overview of the profound influence the Hellenic statue, Laocoön and sons, had on the arts.

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Page 1: The influence of Laocoön on the arts

The influence of Laocoön on art and literature

The discovery of the Laocoön in 1506 made a great impression on Italian artists and continued to influence Italian art well into the Baroque period. Michelangelo was particularly impressed by the massive scale of the work and its sensuous Hellenistic aesthetic, particularly its depiction of the male figures. The influence of the Laocoön is seen in many of Michelangelo's later sculptures, such as the ‘The Slaves’ (‘Rebellious Slave and the Dying Slave’) created for the tomb of Pope Julius II, marble, 2.09 m high, 1513-15, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Raphael used the face of Laocoön for his Homer in his fresco ‘The Parnassus’ - but expressed blindness rather than pain.

The Parnassus,1509-10, Fresco, width at base 670 cm, Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican.

Page 2: The influence of Laocoön on the arts

COPIES The Florentine sculptor, Baccio Bandinelli, was commissioned to make a copy by the Medici Pope Leo X. (Bandinelli's version, which was often copied and distributed in small bronzes, is in the Uffizi Gallery - the Pope having decided it was too good to send to François I of France as originally intended.) A bronze casting, made for Francis I of France from a mould taken from the original under the supervision of Primaticcio, is at the Musée du Louvre. There are many copies of the statue, including a well-known one in the Grand Palace of the Knights of St. John in Rhodes. The group was rapidly depicted in prints as well as small models, and became known all over Europe.

Titian appears to have had access to a good cast or reproduction from about 1520, and the influence is evident in Bacchus and Ariadne, 1523-24, oil on canvas now atop board, in the National Gallery in London).

 

Perhaps this influence is also evident in the figure of Saint Sebastian in his Averoldi Altarpiece of 1520-22 (oil on panel, Santi Nazaro e Celso, Brescia, Italy.)

Page 3: The influence of Laocoön on the arts

 

A woodcut, probably after a drawing by Titian, parodied the sculpture by portraying three apes instead of humans. It has often been interpreted as a satire on the clumsiness of Bandinelli's copy, but it has also been suggested that it was a commentary on debates of the time about similarities between human and ape anatomy.

Over 15 drawings of the group made by Rubens in Rome have survived, and the influence of the figures can be seen in many of his major works, including his ‘Descent from the Cross’ in Antwerp Cathedral. El Greco, Laocoön,1610, Oil on canvas, 142 x 193 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington

El Greco’s 17th century Laocoön shows a view of the city of Toledo (as Troy) in the background. El Greco would have known the sculptured group in Rome, uncovered at the beginning of the sixteenth century, but more significantly he would have known the original story, which he has interpreted in an entirely independent way. This is the only known painting of classical subject matter by El Greco, and he does seem to give it a special spiritual meaning. The horizontal format is uncharacteristic of his works in Spain, which become increasingly more elevated in composition and spirit. Despite this, the essential verticality of the composition is made clear by the high horizon and the upward movement of the flanking figures.

Page 4: The influence of Laocoön on the arts

Pliny's description of Laocoön as "a work to be preferred to all that the arts of painting and sculpture have produced" has led to the traditional debate that this sculpture is the greatest of all artworks. Johann Joachim Winkelmann (1717-1768) wrote about the paradox of admiring beauty while seeing a scene of death and failure. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing wrote “Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry”, examining the differences between visual and literary art by comparing the sculpture with Virgil's verse. He argues that the artists could not realistically depict the physical suffering of the victims, as this would be too painful. Instead, they had to express suffering while retaining beauty.

The most unusual intervention in the debate, William Blake's annotated print “Laocoön”, surrounds the image with graffiti-like commentary in several languages, written in multiple directions. Blake presents the sculpture as a mediocre copy of a lost Israelite original, describing it as "Jehovah & his two Sons Satan & Adam as they were copied from the Cherubim Of Solomons Temple by three Rhodians & applied to Natural Fact or History of Ilium". This reflects Blake's theory that the imitation of ancient Greek and Roman art was destructive to the creative imagination, and that Classical sculpture represented a banal naturalism in contrast to Judeo-Christian spiritual art.

Near the end of Charles Dickens' “A Christmas Carol”, Ebenezer Scrooge describes himself as "making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings" - which refers directly to the statue of Laocoön, since Scrooge is in such a rush to get dressed that he becomes entangled in his clothes. In 1910 the critic Irving Babbit used the title “The New Laokoon: An Essay on the Confusion of the Arts” for an essay on contemporary culture at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1940 Clement Greenberg adapted the concept for his own essay entitled “Towards a Newer Laocoön” in which he argued that abstract art now provided an ideal for artists to measure their work against. A 2007 exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute in turn copied this title, while exhibiting work by modern artists influenced by the sculpture.