Laocoon : $b An essay upon the limits of painting and poetry. With remarks illustrative of various points in the history of ancient art.Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim
Philosophy
Laocoon : $b An essay upon the limits of painting and poetry. With remarks illustrative of various points in the history of ancient art.
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim
Aesthetics -- Early works to 1800; Agesander. Laocoön group
Metamorph. vi. 387. “The skin is torn from the upper limbs of the
shrieking Marsyas, till he is nought but one great wound: thick blood
oozes on every side; the bared sinews are visible; and the palpitating
veins quiver, stripped of the covering of skin; you can count the
protruding entrails, and the muscles shining in the breast.
Footnote 165:
Metamorph. lib. viii. 809. “Seeing Famine afar off, she delivers the
message of the goddess. And after a little while, although she was yet
at a distance and was but approaching, yet the mere sight produced
hunger.”
Footnote 166:
Hym. in Cererem, 111–116.
Footnote 167:
Argonaut. lib. ii. 228–233. “Scarcely have they left us any food that
smells not mouldy, and the stench is unendurable. No one for a time
could bear the foul food, though his stomach were beaten of adamant.
But bitter necessity compels me to bethink me of the meal, and, so
remembering, put it into my wretched belly.”
Footnote 168:
See Appendix, note 52.
Footnote 169:
Richardson de la Peinture, vol. i. p. 74.
Footnote 170:
Geschichte der Kunst, p. 347.
Footnote 171:
Not Apollodorus, but Polydorus. Pliny is the only one who mentions
these artists, and I am not aware that the manuscripts differ in the
writing of the name. Had such been the case, Hardouin would certainly
have noticed it. All the older editions also read Polydorus.
Winkelmann must therefore have merely made a slight error in
transcribing.
Footnote 172:
Ἀθηνόδωρος δὲ καὶ Δαμέας ... οὗτοι δὲ Ἀρκάδες εἰσὶν ἐκ Κλείτορος.
Phoc. cap. ix. p. 819 (edit. Kuhn).
Footnote 173:
Plinius, lib. xxxiv. sect. 19.
Footnote 174:
Lib. xxxvi. sect. 4. “Nor are there many of great repute the number of
artists engaged on celebrated works preventing the distinction of
individuals; since no one could have all the credit, nor could the
names of many be rehearsed at once: as in the Laocoon, which is in the
palace of the emperor Titus, a work surpassing all the results of
painting or statuary. From one stone he and his sons and the wondrous
coils of the serpents were sculptured by consummate artists, working
in concert: Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, all of Rhodes. In
like manner Craterus with Pythodorus, Polydectes with Hermolaus,
another Pythodorus with Artemon, and Aphrodisius of Tralles by
himself, filled the palaces of the Cæsars on the Palatine with
admirable statuary. Diogenes, the Athenian, decorated the Pantheon of
Agrippa, and the Caryatides on the columns of that temple rank among
the choicest works, as do also the statues on the pediment, though
these, from the height of their position, are less celebrated.”
Footnote 175:
Bœotic. cap. xxxiv. p. 778 (edit. Kuhn).
Footnote 176:
Plinius, lib. xxxvi. sect. 4, p. 730.
Footnote 177:
Geschichte der Kunst, part ii. p. 331.
Footnote 178:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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