DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0561
GOTHE'S CRITICISM OF THE LAOCOON.
525
On closer examination, however, we shall find some mitigation
of the first purely painful effect of this group in the bearing of the
two sons. Gothe, who made the Laocoon a subject of careful study,
remarks that the condition of the three figures is represented in
regular gradation. ' The elder son is only lightly entangled at the
extremities ; the younger is tightly bound by many coils ; the father
tries to free himself and his children, squeezes the serpent, and it
bites him.'1 We have here, he says in another place,2 representations
by which the three emotions of horror, pity, and fear are all roused ;
horror at the terrible sufferings and impending fate of the father, pity
for the poor weak younger son, and fear, which implies hope, for the
cider, who may yet free himself. This suggestion of Gothe respect-
ing the last was taken up by the late eminent archaeologist Stark, who
justified it by a passage from Arctinus unknown to Gothe and
Lessing,3 in which the latter says that 1 tlic serpents destroyed
Laocoon and one of tlic sons' The genuine unselfish grief of the
elder son for his afflicted father brings a soothing element of pathos
into the scene ; and the hope that one of the three at least may escape
throws a ray of light across the dark picture of mere physical suf-
fering.
The celebrity of this extraordinary work of art has been greatly
increased by its being made the foundation of Lessing's beautiful
treatise on the limits of the different arts. Few writers have done so
much towards defining the nature of true art as Lessing, but he had not
the advantages which we possess of seeing the principles which he
laid down carried into effect in the noble works which have been dis-
covered since his day. Unless we bear this fact in mind we shall
often read with astonishment some parts of his analysis of the
Laocoon. He gives, for instance, the face of Laocoon as an instance of
the moderation of Greek art. The artist, he says, ' softens the cry into
a sigh,' and he gives elaborate reasons why ' Laocoon docs not cry aloud!
1 Vol. xxx. p. 310 (cel. in 40 vols. 1855),
quoted by Brann in an interesting paper in
Anh. Zcit. 1879, 4. Heft.
2 Vol. xxii. p. 65.
* See Hrunn's account of his conversation
■w ith Stall; on this point in the ]>a]x.r referred
to above. In the Excerpt of Proclus (]ahn,
Gr. BiUtrthrmiktn, p. 112), we read:__
t*s t6v t< AaoKouvTa Kai rt)v inpovrwv
xai'Su'v ?iia<p8tipovffiv.
525
On closer examination, however, we shall find some mitigation
of the first purely painful effect of this group in the bearing of the
two sons. Gothe, who made the Laocoon a subject of careful study,
remarks that the condition of the three figures is represented in
regular gradation. ' The elder son is only lightly entangled at the
extremities ; the younger is tightly bound by many coils ; the father
tries to free himself and his children, squeezes the serpent, and it
bites him.'1 We have here, he says in another place,2 representations
by which the three emotions of horror, pity, and fear are all roused ;
horror at the terrible sufferings and impending fate of the father, pity
for the poor weak younger son, and fear, which implies hope, for the
cider, who may yet free himself. This suggestion of Gothe respect-
ing the last was taken up by the late eminent archaeologist Stark, who
justified it by a passage from Arctinus unknown to Gothe and
Lessing,3 in which the latter says that 1 tlic serpents destroyed
Laocoon and one of tlic sons' The genuine unselfish grief of the
elder son for his afflicted father brings a soothing element of pathos
into the scene ; and the hope that one of the three at least may escape
throws a ray of light across the dark picture of mere physical suf-
fering.
The celebrity of this extraordinary work of art has been greatly
increased by its being made the foundation of Lessing's beautiful
treatise on the limits of the different arts. Few writers have done so
much towards defining the nature of true art as Lessing, but he had not
the advantages which we possess of seeing the principles which he
laid down carried into effect in the noble works which have been dis-
covered since his day. Unless we bear this fact in mind we shall
often read with astonishment some parts of his analysis of the
Laocoon. He gives, for instance, the face of Laocoon as an instance of
the moderation of Greek art. The artist, he says, ' softens the cry into
a sigh,' and he gives elaborate reasons why ' Laocoon docs not cry aloud!
1 Vol. xxx. p. 310 (cel. in 40 vols. 1855),
quoted by Brann in an interesting paper in
Anh. Zcit. 1879, 4. Heft.
2 Vol. xxii. p. 65.
* See Hrunn's account of his conversation
■w ith Stall; on this point in the ]>a]x.r referred
to above. In the Excerpt of Proclus (]ahn,
Gr. BiUtrthrmiktn, p. 112), we read:__
t*s t6v t< AaoKouvTa Kai rt)v inpovrwv
xai'Su'v ?iia<p8tipovffiv.