Laocoön and His Sons: A Hellenistic Sculpture
Laocoön and His Sons
Background: The birth of culture and the flourishing of Greek art took place in the 8th and 9th centuries BC, when the Hellenic world recovered from the deep crisis provoked by the collapse of the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization, after the Doric invasion of the Peloponnese around 1200 BC. This initial period was characterized by the recovery of trade and the colonization of territories in the Western Mediterranean.
In the 7th century BC, contact with Egyptian and Mesopotamian culture led to the rise of Greek architecture and sculpture, which laid the foundations of Hellenic art. Centuries later, victory in the wars against the Persians (499-479 BC) was used to initiate a prosperous period under the leadership of Pericles, the city where Greek art achieved its maximum splendor.
The Hellenistic period (323-31 BC) was a time when Greece exported its cultural refinement to the various Macedonian kingdoms, until it was absorbed by the Roman Empire. The most important concepts in Greek art were man, nature, reason, harmony, and beauty. The original materials used were bronze, and the Roman copies were made of marble.
The sculpture is situated in a context distant from the spectator. The volume has very rigid forms and sudden, forced movements, with violent gestures.
Formal Analysis
Laocoön and His Sons is presented frontally. The group rotates around the main figure of the priest, who struggles to free himself from the attack of two serpents, while his two sons seem to have no strength to throw them off.
The work strives to be one of the best examples of Hellenistic sculpture of the period, and dynamism and expressiveness are the two main characteristics of these sculptures. The figures of the work are organized in a pyramid, drawn by the three heads of the characters. Laocoön’s head would be the highest vertex. The movement is reinforced by the intense dynamism of the two serpents that serve as a nexus of union between the figures and the feeling of great tension in the bodies.
This idealism is combined with the great formal capacity for the representation of human emotions, something inherent to the Hellenistic period, and breaks with the canons of serenity and balance. Therefore, sculptors rely on a perfect capture of people’s suffering, reflected in their faces, highlighting the priest Laocoön’s suffering, with a wrinkled face and open mouth.
Content and Meaning
The subject is treated according to the myth of the Trojan War. The Trojan priest Laocoön warned his fellow citizens not to trust a wooden horse, which was full of Greek soldiers, offered by the Greeks due to an alleged withdrawal by Poseidon. Two snakes soon emerged from the sea and killed Laocoön along with his two sons. The Trojans interpreted it as divine punishment and brought the horse into the city, as a Greek spy had suggested, saying it was a gift from the goddess Athena and that if the Trojans did not accept or destroyed it, they would be punished.
There are two versions of the myth. One, from Greek mythology, says that Laocoön was a priest of Apollo, and his punishment had no connection with the war, but happened because he married against Apollo’s orders. The other version is told in the Aeneid by the Roman poet Virgil, in which the snakes were sent by Athena to convince the Trojans of the truth of the story.