Laocoon sculpture and his children: characteristics, analysis and meaning.

The sculpture Laocoon and his sons It is one of the most relevant works of the Classical Antiquity tradition and belongs stylistically to the Hellenistic period. Attributed to Agesandro (or Hagesandro), Arenorodo and Polidoro de Rodas, it was probably sculpted between 170 and 150 BC. C.

As doubts persist about its dating, it is also not known for sure if the work in question is the original piece or if it was It is a marble copy of a bronze original, since the practice of marble copies was deeply rooted in ancient times. Rome.

Regardless of this factor, Laocoon and his sons It is considered one of the great pieces of Classical Antiquity together with the Venus de Milo, the Victory of Samothrace, the Myron's discobolus and the Farnese Bull. Let us know the reasons for her universal fame.

Analysis

The sculptural group Laocoon and his sons It has aroused the interest of the world since its discovery in the 16th century. It expresses the change in artistic sensibility that characterized the Hellenistic period, since it leaves behind the balance, austerity and serenity of the classical period.

The scene

The scene is inspired by Greco-Latin mythology, and is narrated in the Aeneid of Virgilio, as well as in other literary sources.

The myth tells that, during the siege of Troy, the Achaeans had offered the Trojans a huge wooden horse as a sign of goodwill. Sinon, in cahoots with his cousin Odysseus, tried to persuade Priam to receive him. Laocoon, priest of the temple, immediately perceived the falsehood of his words, and exhorted the Trojans to reject the offering.

To dissuade Priam, the priest proposed sacrificing a bull to the gods, in the hope that the horse would be burned. However, the gods yearned for the destruction of Troy and sent two great sea serpents that ended the life of Laocoon and his children.

The Trojans interpreted the event as a sign that the horse was sacred. Confident in what seemed like a favorable design from the gods, they opened the gates of the city, only to discover later than Laocoon had been right, for in the belly of that gigantic horse the army was hiding Achaean.

Characteristics

Laocoon and his sons It is a sculpture carved in white marble and reaches a height of 2.42 meters. It is a sculptural group with three human figures (a larger, bearded and muscular adult man, together with two small children or young people) and two huge snakes. The figures in the group are arranged in a visual pyramidal.

This piece represents the exact moment when the sea serpents coiled around the body of the Trojan priest and his two sons. Following the characteristic features of Hellenistic art, the work shows great dynamism and virtuosity.

Far from the usual postures of the classical period, in which bodies at rest predominate, this sculptural group expresses the tension dynamics typical of bodies in battle: the contortion of the muscles, the veins that sprout, the afflicted faces, the instant of despair.

Naturalism introduced into art by the Greeks, that is, the principle of imitation of nature, has taken a step Beyond that, he has reached a fever pitch as he fixes on an ephemeral instant to eternalize it as if it were a snapshot of stone.

The expressiveness of the faces stands out, leaving behind the serenity of the past to account for human suffering. In this regard, the art historian Ernst Gombrich notes that:

The way in which the muscles of the trunk and arms show the effort and suffering of the desperate struggle, the expression of pain on the priest's face, the the helpless squirming of the two boys and the way of paralyzing this instant of agitation and movement in a permanent group, have since admiration.

The two snakes also fulfill a function from the plastic point of view. They, through the rings with which they surround the characters, give unity to the sculptural group in a great baroque mass.

Laocoon is no longer a priest. Stripped of his garments (which lie under his body), he is a man, a father who, with the same fate as his children, sees them die unjustly. If Laocoon does not deserve the punishment that the gods give him for telling the truth, even less do his children deserve it.

In the representation, the psychological work on the characters is not neglected. Laocoon expresses the terrible pain of having to face both the death of his children, who turn their gaze towards him as if asking for help, and his own death.

Each character faces a different moment of the attack: while Laocoon and one of the young men seem mortally trapped, one of the children seems to have a chance of escaping martyrdom. The scene is not finished, it remains open. Perhaps, he is a wink to one of the versions of the myth, according to which a brother manages to survive. Maybe not.

All this is nothing other than the confirmation of the abandonment of the gods. Laocoon's gaze, uselessly, seeks a sign from heaven; his mouth is parted, but not like someone who is screaming, but rather like someone who surrenders to inexorable luck with all the dignity of which he is capable. Horror does not deprive him of his humanity.

The conjunction of these elements makes up a fundamental principle of the art of the Hellenistic period: pathos, that is, the expression of emotion, suffering and feeling.

Meaning

The work looks motley, contorted, tense, in motion. A baroque spirit dominates the sculpture. The work does not close, it does not end, we are deprived of the outcome. Laocoon and his sons they writhe in eternal martyrdom, reminding us of the painful cost of antagonizing the powerful with the denunciation of the Truth; also reminding us of the inexorable nature of death.

As this is one of the most dramatic and cruel scenes in Greek myology, the researcher Ernst gombrich he wondered in his book History of art (written towards the middle of the 20th century), if the motivation for doing this work would be in the denunciation of how the brave man who, like a prophet, proclaims the truth unjustly succumbs; or if the motivation would be, rather, in the opportunity to make a display of virtuosity.

Gombrich ends up answering himself: most likely the moral character of the subject would have mattered very little conception of it, since, by that moment in history, art had lost its connection with magic and religion.

Perhaps the interest would then be in the artistic exploration itself, in the valuation of art as an autonomous object, to which the content lends you an excuse to find beauty amid horror.

See also The Victory of Samothrace: analysis and meaning.

Discovery and impact

Eager for the knowledge of Classical Antiquity, the learned men of the Renaissance had read with great interest the stories of the Roman writer Pliny the Elder. From him, and thanks to his book Naturalis history, they had heard of the existence of a great sculptural group that Pliny had seen in the palace of the Emperor Titus, around AD 70. C.

They knew that this piece represented the scene of Laocoon and his children and, through many exercises, they imagined how that magnificent work could have been, for which Pliny expressed unparalleled admiration. What they never imagined is that the sculpture would be found by them, and that they would be able to see with their own eyes the appearance of that masterpiece of Hellenistic art.

The play Laocoon and his sons was discovered on January 14, 1506 in a Roman vineyard owned by Felice de Fredis by a peasant. It was his own Michelangelo Buonarroti, one of the first witnesses to appear in the excavation, who confirmed the correspondence between the story of Pliny the Elder and the piece found.

By order of Pope Julius II, very soon the sculptural group was transferred to the Octagonal Courtyard of the Belvedere in the Vatican. and, with the passage of time, it was located in the Pío-Clementino Museum, although it was in the power of Napoleon Bonaparte between 1799 and 1816.

This discovery caused a great impact on that generation that, until then, had been inspired by the Apollonian models of classical art. The admiration that this work aroused was felt in Renaissance art, which would soon move towards Mannerism and Baroque.

Laocoon... it was added to the list of art treasures housed in the papal city, to which it attracted countless visits from the very moment it was exhibited for the first time in the 16th century.

The work was studied and used as a model by artists such as Miguel Ángel Buonarroti, Rafael, Juan de Bolonia, Tiziano, Baccio Bandinelli, Francesco Primaticcio, and more. Later, other generations would also succumb to its charms: Rubens and El Greco in the seventeenth century, William Blake in the early nineteenth century, and even Max Ernst in the nineteenth century. XX. Since its reappearance, there have been no shortage of hypothetical engravings, copies, versions, parodies and reconstructions.

And not only in the plastic arts he left his influence. The sculptural group Laocoon and his sons it became a recurring subject of the most interesting physiological and aesthetic discussions of the centuries to come. So much so that the writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing wrote a treatise called Laocoon or on the limits of painting and poetry.

Laocoon and his sons it remains today an everlasting reference.

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