DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0559
THE LAO COO X.
523
that of Pallas Athene, who sent two huge serpents from the sea to
destroy the violator of her treacherous gift. Having first enveloped
the two youths and ' fed on their tender limbs,' the terrible monsters
attack the miserable father, who hurries up too late to defend his
sons.
The difference between the foregoing relation and the motif of
the group appears greater than can be accounted for by the natural
divergence of a plastic and a poetic rendering of the same theme.
In the poem the sons are both killed, and killed before the father; in
the group they are all three alive and united before the altar. Here
it is the father who is the first victim, and it is not at all certain that
the elder son will be killed at all. However much therefore wc may
be, and ought to be, inclined to take the warning of Gervinus, ' not
lightly to gainsay Lessing,' we must look to some other poem as the
guide of the sculptors. This, in the opinion of very high authorities,
may be found in the Iliupcrsis (Sack of Troy) of the old Cyclic
poet Arctinus of Miletus.1 Sophocles, who dramatised the Laocoon
myth in one of his lost tragedies, differs from Arctinus in making
the serpents kill both the sons ; yet no doubt he may have facilitated
the task of the sculptor by giving more definite and dramatic form
to the relation of the epic poet.-
Contrary to the practice of earlier and purer Greek art, the
sculptors of the Laocoon have seized the moment when the action is
in its crisis, and there is no higher point to which the imagination can
rise. The strength and vigour of the father are still unimpaired, and
afford a welcome subject for the display of the artist's anatomical
knowledge and technical skill; but the result is no longer doubtful.
The main interest, of course, lies in the central figure, and it is con-
sonant with the principle of Greek art that the sons are made out of
all proportion too small, both in order to bring them into due sub-
ordination, and to give the whole group, which was intended for a
niche, a harmonious pyramidal form. The powerful frame of Laocoon
is at the same time convulsed with pain from the bite of one
1 The substance of this poem is preserved 2 Tsetzes alone {Lycophr. 344, Post/10111.
in the Exccrpta of Proclus. Vid. O. Jahn, 714, and Etuiokui, p. 31) of later writers
Grieck. llihlcrchromlicn, p. 112. follows Arctinus.
523
that of Pallas Athene, who sent two huge serpents from the sea to
destroy the violator of her treacherous gift. Having first enveloped
the two youths and ' fed on their tender limbs,' the terrible monsters
attack the miserable father, who hurries up too late to defend his
sons.
The difference between the foregoing relation and the motif of
the group appears greater than can be accounted for by the natural
divergence of a plastic and a poetic rendering of the same theme.
In the poem the sons are both killed, and killed before the father; in
the group they are all three alive and united before the altar. Here
it is the father who is the first victim, and it is not at all certain that
the elder son will be killed at all. However much therefore wc may
be, and ought to be, inclined to take the warning of Gervinus, ' not
lightly to gainsay Lessing,' we must look to some other poem as the
guide of the sculptors. This, in the opinion of very high authorities,
may be found in the Iliupcrsis (Sack of Troy) of the old Cyclic
poet Arctinus of Miletus.1 Sophocles, who dramatised the Laocoon
myth in one of his lost tragedies, differs from Arctinus in making
the serpents kill both the sons ; yet no doubt he may have facilitated
the task of the sculptor by giving more definite and dramatic form
to the relation of the epic poet.-
Contrary to the practice of earlier and purer Greek art, the
sculptors of the Laocoon have seized the moment when the action is
in its crisis, and there is no higher point to which the imagination can
rise. The strength and vigour of the father are still unimpaired, and
afford a welcome subject for the display of the artist's anatomical
knowledge and technical skill; but the result is no longer doubtful.
The main interest, of course, lies in the central figure, and it is con-
sonant with the principle of Greek art that the sons are made out of
all proportion too small, both in order to bring them into due sub-
ordination, and to give the whole group, which was intended for a
niche, a harmonious pyramidal form. The powerful frame of Laocoon
is at the same time convulsed with pain from the bite of one
1 The substance of this poem is preserved 2 Tsetzes alone {Lycophr. 344, Post/10111.
in the Exccrpta of Proclus. Vid. O. Jahn, 714, and Etuiokui, p. 31) of later writers
Grieck. llihlcrchromlicn, p. 112. follows Arctinus.