The Raft of the Medusa

Prompt: How does The Raft of the Medusa explain its Interpretation and legacy?

In its insistence on portraying an unpleasant truth, The Raft of the Medusa was a landmark in the emerging Romantic movement in French painting, and "laid the foundations of an aesthetic revolution" against the prevailing Neoclassical style.  Géricault's compositional structure and depiction of the figures are classical, but the contrasting turbulence of the subject represents a significant change in artistic direction and creates an important bridge between Neoclassical and Romantic styles. By 1815, Jacques-Louis David, then in exile in Brussels, was both the leading proponent of the popular history painting genre, which he had perfected, and a master of the Neoclassical style. In France, both history painting and the Neoclassical style continued through the work of Antoine-Jean Gros, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, François Gérard, Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, Pierre-Narcisse Guérin—teacher of both Géricault and Delacroix—and other artists who remained committed to the artistic traditions of David and Nicolas Poussin.In his introduction to The Journal of Eugène Delacroix, Hubert Wellington wrote about Delacroix's opinion of the state of French painting just prior to the Salon of 1819. According to Wellington, "The curious blend of classic with realistic outlook which had been imposed by the discipline of David was now losing both animation and interest. The master himself was nearing his end, and exiled in Belgium. His most docile pupil, Girodet, a refined and cultivated classicist, was producing pictures of astonishing frigidity. Gérard, immensely successful painter of portraits under the Empire—some of them admirable—fell in with the new vogue for large pictures of history, but without enthusiasm."The Raft of the Medusa contains the gestures and grand scale of traditional history painting; however, it presents ordinary people, rather than heroes, reacting to the unfolding drama. Géricault's raft pointedly lacks a hero, and his painting presents no cause beyond sheer survival. The work represents, in the words of Christine Riding, "the fallacy of hope and pointless suffering, and at worst, the basic human instinct to survive, which had superseded all moral considerations and plunged civilised man into barbarism".The artist's abolitionist views are said to have been expressed in his decision to prominently feature at least two Black individuals, particularly the dominant figure seen waving a dark red handkerchief. According to scholars Klaus Berger and Diane Chalmers Johnson, Géricault made "him the focal point of the drama, the strongest and most perceptive of the survivors, in a sense, the 'hero of the scene.'" They argue that the artist's choice to do so was not a "last-minute" decision as evidenced by early sketches for the work, including a portrait study of the Haitian model Joseph, and point to Géricault's concerns regarding the "extreme cruelties" of illegal slave trade in the French colonies. Depicting a Black figure as a hero to convey an abolitionist message was uncommon at the time, as the official symbol of the French abolitionist group, the Société des amis des Noirs, was an emblem, originally created by Josiah Wedgewood, titled “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” (or “Ne suis-je pas ton frere?”) that depicts a Black man begging on one knee for liberation. Scholar Susan Libby highlights how this trope of a helpless, subservient slave became commonplace in European art. Gericault’s choice to place the Black man as the active “hero” deviated from popular ideas about enslaved people. The subject of marine tragedy was undertaken by J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851), who, like many English artists, probably saw Géricault's painting when it was exhibited in London in 1820. His A Disaster at Sea (c. 1835) chronicled a similar incident, this time a British catastrophe, with a swamped vessel and dying figures also placed in the foreground. Placing a person of color in the centre of the drama was revisited by Turner, with similar abolitionist overtones, in his The Slave Ship (1840).The unblemished musculature of the central figure waving to the rescue ship is reminiscent of the Neoclassical, however the naturalism of light and shadow, the authenticity of the desperation shown by the survivors and the emotional character of the composition differentiate it from Neoclassical austerity. It was a further departure from the religious or classical themes of earlier works because it depicted contemporary events with ordinary and unheroic figures. Both the choice of subject matter and the heightened manner in which the dramatic moment is depicted are typical of Romantic painting—strong indications of the extent to which Géricault had moved from the prevalent Neoclassical movement.Hubert Wellington said that while Delacroix was a lifelong admirer of Gros, the dominating enthusiasm of his youth was for Géricault. The dramatic composition of Géricault, with its strong contrasts of tone and unconventional gestures, stimulated Delacroix to trust his own creative impulses on a large work. Delacroix said, "Géricault allowed me to see his Raft of Medusa while he was still working on it." The painting's influence is seen in Delacroix's The Barque of Dante (1822) and reappears as inspiration in Delacroix's later works, such as The Shipwreck of Don Juan (1840).According to Wellington, Delacroix's masterpiece of 1830, Liberty Leading the People, springs directly from Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa and Delacroix's own Massacre at Chios. Wellington wrote that "While Géricault carried his interest in actual detail to the point of searching for more survivors from the wreck as models, Delacroix felt his composition more vividly as a whole, thought of his figures and crowds as types, and dominated them by the symbolic figure of Republican Liberty which is one of his finest plastic inventions."The art historian Albert Elsen believed that The Raft of the Medusa and Delacroix's  Massacre at Chios provided the inspiration for the grandiose sweep of Auguste Rodin's monumental sculpture The Gates of Hell. He wrote that "Delacroix's Massacre at Chios and Géricault's Raft of the Medusa confronted Rodin on a heroic scale with the innocent nameless victims of political tragedies ... If Rodin was inspired to rival Michelangelo's Last Judgment, he had Géricault's Raft of the Medusa in front of him for encouragement."While Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) could be described as an anti-Romantic painter, his major works like A Burial at Ornans (1849–50) and The Artist's Studio (1855) owe a debt to The Raft of the Medusa. The influence is not only in Courbet's enormous scale, but in his willingness to portray ordinary people and current political events, and to record people, places and events in real, everyday surroundings. The 2004 exhibition at the Clark Art Institute,  Bonjour Monsieur Courbet: The Bruyas Collection from the Musee Fabre, Montpellier, sought to compare the 19th-century Realist painters Courbet, Honoré Daumier (1808–1879), and early Édouard Manet (1832–1883) with artists associated with Romanticism, including Géricault and Delacroix. Citing The Raft of the Medusa as an instrumental influence on Realism, the exhibition drew comparisons between all of the artists. The critic Michael Fried sees Manet directly borrowing the figure of the man cradling his son for the composition of Angels at the Tomb of Christ.The influence of The Raft of the Medusa was felt by artists beyond France. Francis Danby, a British painter born in Ireland, probably was inspired by Géricault's picture when he painted Sunset at Sea after a Storm in 1824, and wrote in 1829 that The Raft of the Medusa was "the finest and grandest historical picture I have ever seen".The Gulf Stream (1899), by the American artist Winslow Homer (1836–1910), replicates the composition of The Raft of the Medusa with a damaged vessel, ominously surrounded by sharks and threatened by a waterspout. Like Géricault, Homer makes a black man the pivotal figure in the scene, though here he is the vessel's sole occupant. A ship in the distance mirrors the Argus from Géricault's painting. The move from the drama of Romanticism to the new Realism is exemplified by the stoic resignation of Homer's figure. The man's condition, which in earlier works might have been characterised by hope or helplessness, has turned to "sullen rage".In the early 1990s, the American sculptor John Connell, in his Raft Project, a collaborative project with painter Eugene Newmann, recreated The Raft of the Medusa by making life-sized sculptures out of wood, paper and tar and placing them on a large wooden raft.Remarking on the contrast between the dying figures in the foreground and the figures in the mid-ground waving towards the approaching rescue ship, the French art historian Georges-Antoine Borias wrote that Géricault's painting represents, "on the one hand, desolation and death. On the other, hope and life."For Kenneth Clark, The Raft of the Medusa "remains the chief example of romantic pathos expressed through the nude; and that obsession with death, which drove Géricault to frequent mortuary chambers and places of public execution, gives truth to his figures of the dead and the dying. Their outlines may be taken from the classics, but they have been seen again with a craving for violent experience."Today, a bronze bas-relief of The Raft of the Medusa by Antoine Étex adorns Géricault's grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

File:The Medusa shown at the Louvre, in color.jpg

Detail of the crew member waving his handkerchief to draw the ship's attention

Géricault's ''Study for "The Raft of the Medusa"'', pen and brown ink, 17.6 cm × 24.5 cm, [[Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

1818-19}}, Getty Center. Joseph served as model for at least two Black individuals in the final version of the artist's representation of Medusa's raft.

Sailors of the ''Méduse'' detained by the British after the sinking. They were returned to France afterwards.{{sfn

File:Portrait Study by Théodore Géricault, c. 1818-19, Getty Center.JPG

File:Pierre-Paul Prud'hon - Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime.JPG

File:Raft-of-the-Medusa-copy par Pierre-Désiré Guillemet et Étienne Antoine Eugène Ronjat.jpg

Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste de Forbin

The main 16 colours used for the painting<ref name=christiansen/>

Bonaparte Visiting the Plague-Victims of Jaffa

Nicolas Sebastien Maillot's ''Raft of the Medusa shown in Salon Carré of the Louvre'', 1831, [[Louvre

Plan of the ''Medusa'''s raft at the moment of its crew's rescue<ref>Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo. ''Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France''. [[Yale University Press

Diagram showing the outline of the two pyramidal structures that form the basis of the work. The position of the Argus rescue vessel is indicated by the yellow dot.

In 1820, Géricault successfully exhibited the painting in the [[Egyptian Hall

École nationale supérieure d'arts et métiers

alt=darkly shaded painting of two winged angels chasing man who runs away from a fallen, naked body

File:Théodore Géricault - Le Radeau de la Méduse esquisse (salon de 1819).jpg

The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782

Copy of the work by [[Pierre-Désiré Guillemet

File:Raft of Méduse-Alexandre Corréard-IMG 4788-cropped.JPG

''Portrait Study of Joseph'', oil on canvas painting by Théodore Géricault, {{Circa

Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa

Category:Paintings in the Louvre by French artists

File:Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly 1815 edited.jpg

Detail from the lower left corner of the canvas showing two dying figures

''Cannibalism on the Raft of the Medusa'', crayon, ink wash, and gouache on paper, 28 cm × 38 cm, [[Louvre

Category:Paintings by Théodore Géricault

File:Théodore Géricault "The raft of the Medusa".jpg

:File:Ugolino and his Sons Starving to Death in the Tower 1806 1a.jpg


The Raft of the Medusa

Prompt: In The Raft of the Medusa, how is the Interpretation and legacy discussed?

In its insistence on portraying an unpleasant truth, The Raft of the Medusa was a landmark in the emerging Romantic movement in French painting, and "laid the foundations of an aesthetic revolution" against the prevailing Neoclassical style.  Géricault's compositional structure and depiction of the figures are classical, but the contrasting turbulence of the subject represents a significant change in artistic direction and creates an important bridge between Neoclassical and Romantic styles. By 1815, Jacques-Louis David, then in exile in Brussels, was both the leading proponent of the popular history painting genre, which he had perfected, and a master of the Neoclassical style. In France, both history painting and the Neoclassical style continued through the work of Antoine-Jean Gros, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, François Gérard, Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, Pierre-Narcisse Guérin—teacher of both Géricault and Delacroix—and other artists who remained committed to the artistic traditions of David and Nicolas Poussin.In his introduction to The Journal of Eugène Delacroix, Hubert Wellington wrote about Delacroix's opinion of the state of French painting just prior to the Salon of 1819. According to Wellington, "The curious blend of classic with realistic outlook which had been imposed by the discipline of David was now losing both animation and interest. The master himself was nearing his end, and exiled in Belgium. His most docile pupil, Girodet, a refined and cultivated classicist, was producing pictures of astonishing frigidity. Gérard, immensely successful painter of portraits under the Empire—some of them admirable—fell in with the new vogue for large pictures of history, but without enthusiasm."The Raft of the Medusa contains the gestures and grand scale of traditional history painting; however, it presents ordinary people, rather than heroes, reacting to the unfolding drama. Géricault's raft pointedly lacks a hero, and his painting presents no cause beyond sheer survival. The work represents, in the words of Christine Riding, "the fallacy of hope and pointless suffering, and at worst, the basic human instinct to survive, which had superseded all moral considerations and plunged civilised man into barbarism".The artist's abolitionist views are said to have been expressed in his decision to prominently feature at least two Black individuals, particularly the dominant figure seen waving a dark red handkerchief. According to scholars Klaus Berger and Diane Chalmers Johnson, Géricault made "him the focal point of the drama, the strongest and most perceptive of the survivors, in a sense, the 'hero of the scene.'" They argue that the artist's choice to do so was not a "last-minute" decision as evidenced by early sketches for the work, including a portrait study of the Haitian model Joseph, and point to Géricault's concerns regarding the "extreme cruelties" of illegal slave trade in the French colonies. Depicting a Black figure as a hero to convey an abolitionist message was uncommon at the time, as the official symbol of the French abolitionist group, the Société des amis des Noirs, was an emblem, originally created by Josiah Wedgewood, titled “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” (or “Ne suis-je pas ton frere?”) that depicts a Black man begging on one knee for liberation. Scholar Susan Libby highlights how this trope of a helpless, subservient slave became commonplace in European art. Gericault’s choice to place the Black man as the active “hero” deviated from popular ideas about enslaved people. The subject of marine tragedy was undertaken by J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851), who, like many English artists, probably saw Géricault's painting when it was exhibited in London in 1820. His A Disaster at Sea (c. 1835) chronicled a similar incident, this time a British catastrophe, with a swamped vessel and dying figures also placed in the foreground. Placing a person of color in the centre of the drama was revisited by Turner, with similar abolitionist overtones, in his The Slave Ship (1840).The unblemished musculature of the central figure waving to the rescue ship is reminiscent of the Neoclassical, however the naturalism of light and shadow, the authenticity of the desperation shown by the survivors and the emotional character of the composition differentiate it from Neoclassical austerity. It was a further departure from the religious or classical themes of earlier works because it depicted contemporary events with ordinary and unheroic figures. Both the choice of subject matter and the heightened manner in which the dramatic moment is depicted are typical of Romantic painting—strong indications of the extent to which Géricault had moved from the prevalent Neoclassical movement.Hubert Wellington said that while Delacroix was a lifelong admirer of Gros, the dominating enthusiasm of his youth was for Géricault. The dramatic composition of Géricault, with its strong contrasts of tone and unconventional gestures, stimulated Delacroix to trust his own creative impulses on a large work. Delacroix said, "Géricault allowed me to see his Raft of Medusa while he was still working on it." The painting's influence is seen in Delacroix's The Barque of Dante (1822) and reappears as inspiration in Delacroix's later works, such as The Shipwreck of Don Juan (1840).According to Wellington, Delacroix's masterpiece of 1830, Liberty Leading the People, springs directly from Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa and Delacroix's own Massacre at Chios. Wellington wrote that "While Géricault carried his interest in actual detail to the point of searching for more survivors from the wreck as models, Delacroix felt his composition more vividly as a whole, thought of his figures and crowds as types, and dominated them by the symbolic figure of Republican Liberty which is one of his finest plastic inventions."The art historian Albert Elsen believed that The Raft of the Medusa and Delacroix's  Massacre at Chios provided the inspiration for the grandiose sweep of Auguste Rodin's monumental sculpture The Gates of Hell. He wrote that "Delacroix's Massacre at Chios and Géricault's Raft of the Medusa confronted Rodin on a heroic scale with the innocent nameless victims of political tragedies ... If Rodin was inspired to rival Michelangelo's Last Judgment, he had Géricault's Raft of the Medusa in front of him for encouragement."While Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) could be described as an anti-Romantic painter, his major works like A Burial at Ornans (1849–50) and The Artist's Studio (1855) owe a debt to The Raft of the Medusa. The influence is not only in Courbet's enormous scale, but in his willingness to portray ordinary people and current political events, and to record people, places and events in real, everyday surroundings. The 2004 exhibition at the Clark Art Institute,  Bonjour Monsieur Courbet: The Bruyas Collection from the Musee Fabre, Montpellier, sought to compare the 19th-century Realist painters Courbet, Honoré Daumier (1808–1879), and early Édouard Manet (1832–1883) with artists associated with Romanticism, including Géricault and Delacroix. Citing The Raft of the Medusa as an instrumental influence on Realism, the exhibition drew comparisons between all of the artists. The critic Michael Fried sees Manet directly borrowing the figure of the man cradling his son for the composition of Angels at the Tomb of Christ.The influence of The Raft of the Medusa was felt by artists beyond France. Francis Danby, a British painter born in Ireland, probably was inspired by Géricault's picture when he painted Sunset at Sea after a Storm in 1824, and wrote in 1829 that The Raft of the Medusa was "the finest and grandest historical picture I have ever seen".The Gulf Stream (1899), by the American artist Winslow Homer (1836–1910), replicates the composition of The Raft of the Medusa with a damaged vessel, ominously surrounded by sharks and threatened by a waterspout. Like Géricault, Homer makes a black man the pivotal figure in the scene, though here he is the vessel's sole occupant. A ship in the distance mirrors the Argus from Géricault's painting. The move from the drama of Romanticism to the new Realism is exemplified by the stoic resignation of Homer's figure. The man's condition, which in earlier works might have been characterised by hope or helplessness, has turned to "sullen rage".In the early 1990s, the American sculptor John Connell, in his Raft Project, a collaborative project with painter Eugene Newmann, recreated The Raft of the Medusa by making life-sized sculptures out of wood, paper and tar and placing them on a large wooden raft.Remarking on the contrast between the dying figures in the foreground and the figures in the mid-ground waving towards the approaching rescue ship, the French art historian Georges-Antoine Borias wrote that Géricault's painting represents, "on the one hand, desolation and death. On the other, hope and life."For Kenneth Clark, The Raft of the Medusa "remains the chief example of romantic pathos expressed through the nude; and that obsession with death, which drove Géricault to frequent mortuary chambers and places of public execution, gives truth to his figures of the dead and the dying. Their outlines may be taken from the classics, but they have been seen again with a craving for violent experience."Today, a bronze bas-relief of The Raft of the Medusa by Antoine Étex adorns Géricault's grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

File:The Medusa shown at the Louvre, in color.jpg

Detail of the crew member waving his handkerchief to draw the ship's attention

Géricault's ''Study for "The Raft of the Medusa"'', pen and brown ink, 17.6 cm × 24.5 cm, [[Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

1818-19}}, Getty Center. Joseph served as model for at least two Black individuals in the final version of the artist's representation of Medusa's raft.

Sailors of the ''Méduse'' detained by the British after the sinking. They were returned to France afterwards.{{sfn

File:Portrait Study by Théodore Géricault, c. 1818-19, Getty Center.JPG

File:Pierre-Paul Prud'hon - Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime.JPG

File:Raft-of-the-Medusa-copy par Pierre-Désiré Guillemet et Étienne Antoine Eugène Ronjat.jpg

Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste de Forbin

The main 16 colours used for the painting<ref name=christiansen/>

Bonaparte Visiting the Plague-Victims of Jaffa

Nicolas Sebastien Maillot's ''Raft of the Medusa shown in Salon Carré of the Louvre'', 1831, [[Louvre

Plan of the ''Medusa'''s raft at the moment of its crew's rescue<ref>Grigsby, Darcy Grimaldo. ''Extremities: Painting Empire in Post-Revolutionary France''. [[Yale University Press

Diagram showing the outline of the two pyramidal structures that form the basis of the work. The position of the Argus rescue vessel is indicated by the yellow dot.

In 1820, Géricault successfully exhibited the painting in the [[Egyptian Hall

École nationale supérieure d'arts et métiers

alt=darkly shaded painting of two winged angels chasing man who runs away from a fallen, naked body

File:Théodore Géricault - Le Radeau de la Méduse esquisse (salon de 1819).jpg

The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782

Copy of the work by [[Pierre-Désiré Guillemet

File:Raft of Méduse-Alexandre Corréard-IMG 4788-cropped.JPG

''Portrait Study of Joseph'', oil on canvas painting by Théodore Géricault, {{Circa

Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa

Category:Paintings in the Louvre by French artists

File:Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly 1815 edited.jpg

Detail from the lower left corner of the canvas showing two dying figures

''Cannibalism on the Raft of the Medusa'', crayon, ink wash, and gouache on paper, 28 cm × 38 cm, [[Louvre

Category:Paintings by Théodore Géricault

File:Théodore Géricault "The raft of the Medusa".jpg

:File:Ugolino and his Sons Starving to Death in the Tower 1806 1a.jpg


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: Focus on Laocoön and His Sons and explain the abstract.

The statue of Laocoön and His Sons, also called the Laocoön Group (Italian: Gruppo del Laocoonte), has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and put on public display in the Vatican Museums, where it remains today. The statue is very likely the same one that was praised in the highest terms by Pliny the Elder, the main Roman writer on art, who attributed it to Greek sculptors but did not say when it was created. The figures in the statue are nearly life-sized, with the entire group measuring just over 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in height. The sculpture depicts the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents.The Laocoön Group has been called "the prototypical icon of human agony" in Western art. Unlike the agony often portrayed in Christian art depicting the Passion of Jesus and martyrs, the suffering shown in this statue offers no redemptive power or reward. The agony is conveyed through the contorted expressions on the faces, particularly Laocoön's bulging eyebrows, which were noted by Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne as physiologically impossible. These expressions are mirrored in the struggling bodies, especially Laocoön's, with every part of his body shown straining.Pliny attributed the work, then in the palace of Emperor Titus, to three Greek sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros, and Polydorus, but he did not mention the date or patron. In style it is considered "one of the finest examples of the Hellenistic baroque" and certainly in the Greek tradition. However, its origin is uncertain, as it is not known if it is an original work or a copy of an earlier bronze sculpture. Some believe it to be a copy of a work from the early Imperial period, while others think it to be an original work from the later period, continuing the Pergamene style of some two centuries earlier. Regardless, it was probably commissioned for a wealthy Roman's home, possibly from the Imperial family. The dates suggested for the statue range from 200 BC to the 70s AD, with a Julio-Claudian date (27 BC to 68 AD) now being the preferred option.Despite being in mostly excellent condition for an excavated sculpture, the group is missing several parts and underwent several ancient modifications, as well as restorations since its excavation. The statue is currently on display in the Museo Pio-Clementino, which is part of the Vatican Museums.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: Explain the abstract of this artwork, Laocoön and His Sons.

The statue of Laocoön and His Sons, also called the Laocoön Group (Italian: Gruppo del Laocoonte), has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and put on public display in the Vatican Museums, where it remains today. The statue is very likely the same one that was praised in the highest terms by Pliny the Elder, the main Roman writer on art, who attributed it to Greek sculptors but did not say when it was created. The figures in the statue are nearly life-sized, with the entire group measuring just over 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in height. The sculpture depicts the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents.The Laocoön Group has been called "the prototypical icon of human agony" in Western art. Unlike the agony often portrayed in Christian art depicting the Passion of Jesus and martyrs, the suffering shown in this statue offers no redemptive power or reward. The agony is conveyed through the contorted expressions on the faces, particularly Laocoön's bulging eyebrows, which were noted by Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne as physiologically impossible. These expressions are mirrored in the struggling bodies, especially Laocoön's, with every part of his body shown straining.Pliny attributed the work, then in the palace of Emperor Titus, to three Greek sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros, and Polydorus, but he did not mention the date or patron. In style it is considered "one of the finest examples of the Hellenistic baroque" and certainly in the Greek tradition. However, its origin is uncertain, as it is not known if it is an original work or a copy of an earlier bronze sculpture. Some believe it to be a copy of a work from the early Imperial period, while others think it to be an original work from the later period, continuing the Pergamene style of some two centuries earlier. Regardless, it was probably commissioned for a wealthy Roman's home, possibly from the Imperial family. The dates suggested for the statue range from 200 BC to the 70s AD, with a Julio-Claudian date (27 BC to 68 AD) now being the preferred option.Despite being in mostly excellent condition for an excavated sculpture, the group is missing several parts and underwent several ancient modifications, as well as restorations since its excavation. The statue is currently on display in the Museo Pio-Clementino, which is part of the Vatican Museums.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: How does Laocoön and His Sons explain its abstract?

The statue of Laocoön and His Sons, also called the Laocoön Group (Italian: Gruppo del Laocoonte), has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and put on public display in the Vatican Museums, where it remains today. The statue is very likely the same one that was praised in the highest terms by Pliny the Elder, the main Roman writer on art, who attributed it to Greek sculptors but did not say when it was created. The figures in the statue are nearly life-sized, with the entire group measuring just over 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in height. The sculpture depicts the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents.The Laocoön Group has been called "the prototypical icon of human agony" in Western art. Unlike the agony often portrayed in Christian art depicting the Passion of Jesus and martyrs, the suffering shown in this statue offers no redemptive power or reward. The agony is conveyed through the contorted expressions on the faces, particularly Laocoön's bulging eyebrows, which were noted by Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne as physiologically impossible. These expressions are mirrored in the struggling bodies, especially Laocoön's, with every part of his body shown straining.Pliny attributed the work, then in the palace of Emperor Titus, to three Greek sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros, and Polydorus, but he did not mention the date or patron. In style it is considered "one of the finest examples of the Hellenistic baroque" and certainly in the Greek tradition. However, its origin is uncertain, as it is not known if it is an original work or a copy of an earlier bronze sculpture. Some believe it to be a copy of a work from the early Imperial period, while others think it to be an original work from the later period, continuing the Pergamene style of some two centuries earlier. Regardless, it was probably commissioned for a wealthy Roman's home, possibly from the Imperial family. The dates suggested for the statue range from 200 BC to the 70s AD, with a Julio-Claudian date (27 BC to 68 AD) now being the preferred option.Despite being in mostly excellent condition for an excavated sculpture, the group is missing several parts and underwent several ancient modifications, as well as restorations since its excavation. The statue is currently on display in the Museo Pio-Clementino, which is part of the Vatican Museums.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: In Laocoön and His Sons, how is the abstract discussed?

The statue of Laocoön and His Sons, also called the Laocoön Group (Italian: Gruppo del Laocoonte), has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and put on public display in the Vatican Museums, where it remains today. The statue is very likely the same one that was praised in the highest terms by Pliny the Elder, the main Roman writer on art, who attributed it to Greek sculptors but did not say when it was created. The figures in the statue are nearly life-sized, with the entire group measuring just over 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in height. The sculpture depicts the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents.The Laocoön Group has been called "the prototypical icon of human agony" in Western art. Unlike the agony often portrayed in Christian art depicting the Passion of Jesus and martyrs, the suffering shown in this statue offers no redemptive power or reward. The agony is conveyed through the contorted expressions on the faces, particularly Laocoön's bulging eyebrows, which were noted by Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne as physiologically impossible. These expressions are mirrored in the struggling bodies, especially Laocoön's, with every part of his body shown straining.Pliny attributed the work, then in the palace of Emperor Titus, to three Greek sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros, and Polydorus, but he did not mention the date or patron. In style it is considered "one of the finest examples of the Hellenistic baroque" and certainly in the Greek tradition. However, its origin is uncertain, as it is not known if it is an original work or a copy of an earlier bronze sculpture. Some believe it to be a copy of a work from the early Imperial period, while others think it to be an original work from the later period, continuing the Pergamene style of some two centuries earlier. Regardless, it was probably commissioned for a wealthy Roman's home, possibly from the Imperial family. The dates suggested for the statue range from 200 BC to the 70s AD, with a Julio-Claudian date (27 BC to 68 AD) now being the preferred option.Despite being in mostly excellent condition for an excavated sculpture, the group is missing several parts and underwent several ancient modifications, as well as restorations since its excavation. The statue is currently on display in the Museo Pio-Clementino, which is part of the Vatican Museums.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: Focus on Laocoön and His Sons and explain the Subject.

The story of Laocoön, a Trojan priest, came from the Greek Epic Cycle on the Trojan Wars, though it is not mentioned by Homer. It had been the subject of a tragedy, now lost, by Sophocles and was mentioned by other Greek writers, though the events around the attack by the serpents vary considerably. The most famous account of these is now in Virgil's Aeneid (see the Aeneid quotation at the entry Laocoön), but this dates from between 29 and 19 BC, which is possibly later than the sculpture. However, some scholars see the group as a depiction of the scene as described by Virgil.In Virgil, Laocoön was a priest of Poseidon who was killed with both his sons after attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse by striking it with a spear. In Sophocles, on the other hand, he was a priest of Apollo, who should have been celibate but had married. The serpents killed only the two sons, leaving Laocoön himself alive to suffer.  In other versions he was killed for having had sex with his wife in the temple of Poseidon, or simply making a sacrifice in the temple with his wife present. In this second group of versions, the snakes were sent by Poseidon and in the first by Poseidon and Athena, or Apollo, and the deaths were interpreted by the Trojans as proof that the horse was a sacred object. The two versions have rather different morals: Laocoön was either punished for doing wrong, or for being right.The snakes are depicted as both biting and constricting, and are probably intended as venomous, as in Virgil. Pietro Aretino thought so, praising the group in 1537:...the two serpents, in attacking the three figures, produce the most striking semblances of fear, suffering and death. The youth embraced in the coils is fearful; the old man struck by the fangs is in torment; the child who has received the poison, dies.In at least one Greek telling of the story the older son is able to escape, and the composition seems to allow for that possibility.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: Explain the Subject of this artwork, Laocoön and His Sons.

The story of Laocoön, a Trojan priest, came from the Greek Epic Cycle on the Trojan Wars, though it is not mentioned by Homer. It had been the subject of a tragedy, now lost, by Sophocles and was mentioned by other Greek writers, though the events around the attack by the serpents vary considerably. The most famous account of these is now in Virgil's Aeneid (see the Aeneid quotation at the entry Laocoön), but this dates from between 29 and 19 BC, which is possibly later than the sculpture. However, some scholars see the group as a depiction of the scene as described by Virgil.In Virgil, Laocoön was a priest of Poseidon who was killed with both his sons after attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse by striking it with a spear. In Sophocles, on the other hand, he was a priest of Apollo, who should have been celibate but had married. The serpents killed only the two sons, leaving Laocoön himself alive to suffer.  In other versions he was killed for having had sex with his wife in the temple of Poseidon, or simply making a sacrifice in the temple with his wife present. In this second group of versions, the snakes were sent by Poseidon and in the first by Poseidon and Athena, or Apollo, and the deaths were interpreted by the Trojans as proof that the horse was a sacred object. The two versions have rather different morals: Laocoön was either punished for doing wrong, or for being right.The snakes are depicted as both biting and constricting, and are probably intended as venomous, as in Virgil. Pietro Aretino thought so, praising the group in 1537:...the two serpents, in attacking the three figures, produce the most striking semblances of fear, suffering and death. The youth embraced in the coils is fearful; the old man struck by the fangs is in torment; the child who has received the poison, dies.In at least one Greek telling of the story the older son is able to escape, and the composition seems to allow for that possibility.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: How does Laocoön and His Sons explain its Subject?

The story of Laocoön, a Trojan priest, came from the Greek Epic Cycle on the Trojan Wars, though it is not mentioned by Homer. It had been the subject of a tragedy, now lost, by Sophocles and was mentioned by other Greek writers, though the events around the attack by the serpents vary considerably. The most famous account of these is now in Virgil's Aeneid (see the Aeneid quotation at the entry Laocoön), but this dates from between 29 and 19 BC, which is possibly later than the sculpture. However, some scholars see the group as a depiction of the scene as described by Virgil.In Virgil, Laocoön was a priest of Poseidon who was killed with both his sons after attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse by striking it with a spear. In Sophocles, on the other hand, he was a priest of Apollo, who should have been celibate but had married. The serpents killed only the two sons, leaving Laocoön himself alive to suffer.  In other versions he was killed for having had sex with his wife in the temple of Poseidon, or simply making a sacrifice in the temple with his wife present. In this second group of versions, the snakes were sent by Poseidon and in the first by Poseidon and Athena, or Apollo, and the deaths were interpreted by the Trojans as proof that the horse was a sacred object. The two versions have rather different morals: Laocoön was either punished for doing wrong, or for being right.The snakes are depicted as both biting and constricting, and are probably intended as venomous, as in Virgil. Pietro Aretino thought so, praising the group in 1537:...the two serpents, in attacking the three figures, produce the most striking semblances of fear, suffering and death. The youth embraced in the coils is fearful; the old man struck by the fangs is in torment; the child who has received the poison, dies.In at least one Greek telling of the story the older son is able to escape, and the composition seems to allow for that possibility.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: In Laocoön and His Sons, how is the Subject discussed?

The story of Laocoön, a Trojan priest, came from the Greek Epic Cycle on the Trojan Wars, though it is not mentioned by Homer. It had been the subject of a tragedy, now lost, by Sophocles and was mentioned by other Greek writers, though the events around the attack by the serpents vary considerably. The most famous account of these is now in Virgil's Aeneid (see the Aeneid quotation at the entry Laocoön), but this dates from between 29 and 19 BC, which is possibly later than the sculpture. However, some scholars see the group as a depiction of the scene as described by Virgil.In Virgil, Laocoön was a priest of Poseidon who was killed with both his sons after attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse by striking it with a spear. In Sophocles, on the other hand, he was a priest of Apollo, who should have been celibate but had married. The serpents killed only the two sons, leaving Laocoön himself alive to suffer.  In other versions he was killed for having had sex with his wife in the temple of Poseidon, or simply making a sacrifice in the temple with his wife present. In this second group of versions, the snakes were sent by Poseidon and in the first by Poseidon and Athena, or Apollo, and the deaths were interpreted by the Trojans as proof that the horse was a sacred object. The two versions have rather different morals: Laocoön was either punished for doing wrong, or for being right.The snakes are depicted as both biting and constricting, and are probably intended as venomous, as in Virgil. Pietro Aretino thought so, praising the group in 1537:...the two serpents, in attacking the three figures, produce the most striking semblances of fear, suffering and death. The youth embraced in the coils is fearful; the old man struck by the fangs is in torment; the child who has received the poison, dies.In at least one Greek telling of the story the older son is able to escape, and the composition seems to allow for that possibility.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: In the context of Laocoön and His Sons, explain the Ancient times and the History.

The style of the work is agreed to be that of the Hellenistic "Pergamene baroque" which arose in Greek Asia Minor around 200 BC, and whose best known undoubtedly original work is the Pergamon Altar, dated c. 180–160 BC, and now in Berlin. Here the figure of Alcyoneus is shown in a pose and situation (including serpents) which is very similar to those of Laocoön, though the style is "looser and wilder in its principles" than the altar.The execution of the Laocoön is extremely fine throughout, and the composition very carefully calculated, even though it appears that the group underwent adjustments in ancient times.  The two sons are rather small in scale compared to their father, but this adds to the impact of the central figure.  The fine white marble used is often thought to be Greek, but has not been identified by analysis.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: Explain the Ancient times about the History of this artwork, Laocoön and His Sons.

The style of the work is agreed to be that of the Hellenistic "Pergamene baroque" which arose in Greek Asia Minor around 200 BC, and whose best known undoubtedly original work is the Pergamon Altar, dated c. 180–160 BC, and now in Berlin. Here the figure of Alcyoneus is shown in a pose and situation (including serpents) which is very similar to those of Laocoön, though the style is "looser and wilder in its principles" than the altar.The execution of the Laocoön is extremely fine throughout, and the composition very carefully calculated, even though it appears that the group underwent adjustments in ancient times.  The two sons are rather small in scale compared to their father, but this adds to the impact of the central figure.  The fine white marble used is often thought to be Greek, but has not been identified by analysis.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: In Laocoön and His Sons, how is the Ancient times of the History explained?

The style of the work is agreed to be that of the Hellenistic "Pergamene baroque" which arose in Greek Asia Minor around 200 BC, and whose best known undoubtedly original work is the Pergamon Altar, dated c. 180–160 BC, and now in Berlin. Here the figure of Alcyoneus is shown in a pose and situation (including serpents) which is very similar to those of Laocoön, though the style is "looser and wilder in its principles" than the altar.The execution of the Laocoön is extremely fine throughout, and the composition very carefully calculated, even though it appears that the group underwent adjustments in ancient times.  The two sons are rather small in scale compared to their father, but this adds to the impact of the central figure.  The fine white marble used is often thought to be Greek, but has not been identified by analysis.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: Describe the characteristics of the Ancient times in Laocoön and His Sons's History.

The style of the work is agreed to be that of the Hellenistic "Pergamene baroque" which arose in Greek Asia Minor around 200 BC, and whose best known undoubtedly original work is the Pergamon Altar, dated c. 180–160 BC, and now in Berlin. Here the figure of Alcyoneus is shown in a pose and situation (including serpents) which is very similar to those of Laocoön, though the style is "looser and wilder in its principles" than the altar.The execution of the Laocoön is extremely fine throughout, and the composition very carefully calculated, even though it appears that the group underwent adjustments in ancient times.  The two sons are rather small in scale compared to their father, but this adds to the impact of the central figure.  The fine white marble used is often thought to be Greek, but has not been identified by analysis.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: Focusing on the History of Laocoön and His Sons, explain the Pliny about the Ancient times.

=In Pliny's survey of Greek and Roman stone sculpture in his encyclopedic Natural History (XXXVI, 37), he says:....in the case of several works of very great excellence, the number of artists that have been engaged upon them has proved a considerable obstacle to the fame of each, no individual being able to engross the whole of the credit, and it being impossible to award it in due proportion to the names of the several artists combined. Such is the case with the Laocoön, for example, in the palace of the Emperor Titus, a work that may be looked upon as preferable to any other production of the art of painting or of [bronze] statuary. It is sculptured from a single block, both the main figure as well as the children, and the serpents with their marvellous folds. This group was made in concert by three most eminent artists, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, natives of Rhodes.It is generally accepted that this is the same work as is now in the Vatican.  It is now very often thought that the three Rhodians were copyists, perhaps of a bronze sculpture from Pergamon, created around 200 BC. It is noteworthy that Pliny does not address this issue explicitly, in a way that suggests "he regards it as an original".  Pliny states that it was located in the palace of the emperor Titus, and it is possible that it remained in the same place until 1506 (see "Findspot" section below). He also asserts that it was carved from a single piece of marble, though the Vatican work comprises at least seven interlocking pieces.  The phrase translated above as "in concert" (de consilii sententia) is regarded by some as referring to their commission rather than the artists' method of working, giving in Nigel Spivey's translation: "[the artists] at the behest of council designed a group...", which Spivey takes to mean that the commission was by Titus, possibly even advised by Pliny among other savants.The same three artists' names, though in a different order (Athenodoros, Agesander, and Polydorus), with the names of their fathers, are inscribed on one of the sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga (though they may predate his ownership), but it seems likely that not all the three masters were the same individuals.  Though broadly similar in style, many aspects of the execution of the two groups are drastically different, with the Laocoon group of much higher quality and finish.Some scholars used to think that honorific inscriptions found at Lindos in Rhodes dated Agesander and Athenodoros, recorded as priests, to a period after 42 BC, making the years 42 to 20 BC the most likely date for the Laocoön group's creation.  However the Sperlonga inscription, which also gives the fathers of the artists, makes it clear that at least Agesander is a different individual from the priest of the same name recorded at Lindos, though very possibly related.  The names may have recurred across generations, a Rhodian habit, within the context of a family workshop (which might well have included the adoption of promising young sculptors).  Altogether eight "signatures" (or labels) of an Athenodoros are found on sculptures or bases for them, five of these from Italy. Some, including that from Sperlonga, record his father as Agesander.  The whole question remains the subject of academic debate.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: Explain the Pliny about the Ancient times of the History in this work, Laocoön and His Sons.

=In Pliny's survey of Greek and Roman stone sculpture in his encyclopedic Natural History (XXXVI, 37), he says:....in the case of several works of very great excellence, the number of artists that have been engaged upon them has proved a considerable obstacle to the fame of each, no individual being able to engross the whole of the credit, and it being impossible to award it in due proportion to the names of the several artists combined. Such is the case with the Laocoön, for example, in the palace of the Emperor Titus, a work that may be looked upon as preferable to any other production of the art of painting or of [bronze] statuary. It is sculptured from a single block, both the main figure as well as the children, and the serpents with their marvellous folds. This group was made in concert by three most eminent artists, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, natives of Rhodes.It is generally accepted that this is the same work as is now in the Vatican.  It is now very often thought that the three Rhodians were copyists, perhaps of a bronze sculpture from Pergamon, created around 200 BC. It is noteworthy that Pliny does not address this issue explicitly, in a way that suggests "he regards it as an original".  Pliny states that it was located in the palace of the emperor Titus, and it is possible that it remained in the same place until 1506 (see "Findspot" section below). He also asserts that it was carved from a single piece of marble, though the Vatican work comprises at least seven interlocking pieces.  The phrase translated above as "in concert" (de consilii sententia) is regarded by some as referring to their commission rather than the artists' method of working, giving in Nigel Spivey's translation: "[the artists] at the behest of council designed a group...", which Spivey takes to mean that the commission was by Titus, possibly even advised by Pliny among other savants.The same three artists' names, though in a different order (Athenodoros, Agesander, and Polydorus), with the names of their fathers, are inscribed on one of the sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga (though they may predate his ownership), but it seems likely that not all the three masters were the same individuals.  Though broadly similar in style, many aspects of the execution of the two groups are drastically different, with the Laocoon group of much higher quality and finish.Some scholars used to think that honorific inscriptions found at Lindos in Rhodes dated Agesander and Athenodoros, recorded as priests, to a period after 42 BC, making the years 42 to 20 BC the most likely date for the Laocoön group's creation.  However the Sperlonga inscription, which also gives the fathers of the artists, makes it clear that at least Agesander is a different individual from the priest of the same name recorded at Lindos, though very possibly related.  The names may have recurred across generations, a Rhodian habit, within the context of a family workshop (which might well have included the adoption of promising young sculptors).  Altogether eight "signatures" (or labels) of an Athenodoros are found on sculptures or bases for them, five of these from Italy. Some, including that from Sperlonga, record his father as Agesander.  The whole question remains the subject of academic debate.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: Regarding Laocoön and His Sons, how does the History's Ancient times  incorporate the Pliny.

=In Pliny's survey of Greek and Roman stone sculpture in his encyclopedic Natural History (XXXVI, 37), he says:....in the case of several works of very great excellence, the number of artists that have been engaged upon them has proved a considerable obstacle to the fame of each, no individual being able to engross the whole of the credit, and it being impossible to award it in due proportion to the names of the several artists combined. Such is the case with the Laocoön, for example, in the palace of the Emperor Titus, a work that may be looked upon as preferable to any other production of the art of painting or of [bronze] statuary. It is sculptured from a single block, both the main figure as well as the children, and the serpents with their marvellous folds. This group was made in concert by three most eminent artists, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, natives of Rhodes.It is generally accepted that this is the same work as is now in the Vatican.  It is now very often thought that the three Rhodians were copyists, perhaps of a bronze sculpture from Pergamon, created around 200 BC. It is noteworthy that Pliny does not address this issue explicitly, in a way that suggests "he regards it as an original".  Pliny states that it was located in the palace of the emperor Titus, and it is possible that it remained in the same place until 1506 (see "Findspot" section below). He also asserts that it was carved from a single piece of marble, though the Vatican work comprises at least seven interlocking pieces.  The phrase translated above as "in concert" (de consilii sententia) is regarded by some as referring to their commission rather than the artists' method of working, giving in Nigel Spivey's translation: "[the artists] at the behest of council designed a group...", which Spivey takes to mean that the commission was by Titus, possibly even advised by Pliny among other savants.The same three artists' names, though in a different order (Athenodoros, Agesander, and Polydorus), with the names of their fathers, are inscribed on one of the sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga (though they may predate his ownership), but it seems likely that not all the three masters were the same individuals.  Though broadly similar in style, many aspects of the execution of the two groups are drastically different, with the Laocoon group of much higher quality and finish.Some scholars used to think that honorific inscriptions found at Lindos in Rhodes dated Agesander and Athenodoros, recorded as priests, to a period after 42 BC, making the years 42 to 20 BC the most likely date for the Laocoön group's creation.  However the Sperlonga inscription, which also gives the fathers of the artists, makes it clear that at least Agesander is a different individual from the priest of the same name recorded at Lindos, though very possibly related.  The names may have recurred across generations, a Rhodian habit, within the context of a family workshop (which might well have included the adoption of promising young sculptors).  Altogether eight "signatures" (or labels) of an Athenodoros are found on sculptures or bases for them, five of these from Italy. Some, including that from Sperlonga, record his father as Agesander.  The whole question remains the subject of academic debate.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: When looking at the History of Laocoön and His Sons, how do you discuss its Ancient times's Pliny?

=In Pliny's survey of Greek and Roman stone sculpture in his encyclopedic Natural History (XXXVI, 37), he says:....in the case of several works of very great excellence, the number of artists that have been engaged upon them has proved a considerable obstacle to the fame of each, no individual being able to engross the whole of the credit, and it being impossible to award it in due proportion to the names of the several artists combined. Such is the case with the Laocoön, for example, in the palace of the Emperor Titus, a work that may be looked upon as preferable to any other production of the art of painting or of [bronze] statuary. It is sculptured from a single block, both the main figure as well as the children, and the serpents with their marvellous folds. This group was made in concert by three most eminent artists, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, natives of Rhodes.It is generally accepted that this is the same work as is now in the Vatican.  It is now very often thought that the three Rhodians were copyists, perhaps of a bronze sculpture from Pergamon, created around 200 BC. It is noteworthy that Pliny does not address this issue explicitly, in a way that suggests "he regards it as an original".  Pliny states that it was located in the palace of the emperor Titus, and it is possible that it remained in the same place until 1506 (see "Findspot" section below). He also asserts that it was carved from a single piece of marble, though the Vatican work comprises at least seven interlocking pieces.  The phrase translated above as "in concert" (de consilii sententia) is regarded by some as referring to their commission rather than the artists' method of working, giving in Nigel Spivey's translation: "[the artists] at the behest of council designed a group...", which Spivey takes to mean that the commission was by Titus, possibly even advised by Pliny among other savants.The same three artists' names, though in a different order (Athenodoros, Agesander, and Polydorus), with the names of their fathers, are inscribed on one of the sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga (though they may predate his ownership), but it seems likely that not all the three masters were the same individuals.  Though broadly similar in style, many aspects of the execution of the two groups are drastically different, with the Laocoon group of much higher quality and finish.Some scholars used to think that honorific inscriptions found at Lindos in Rhodes dated Agesander and Athenodoros, recorded as priests, to a period after 42 BC, making the years 42 to 20 BC the most likely date for the Laocoön group's creation.  However the Sperlonga inscription, which also gives the fathers of the artists, makes it clear that at least Agesander is a different individual from the priest of the same name recorded at Lindos, though very possibly related.  The names may have recurred across generations, a Rhodian habit, within the context of a family workshop (which might well have included the adoption of promising young sculptors).  Altogether eight "signatures" (or labels) of an Athenodoros are found on sculptures or bases for them, five of these from Italy. Some, including that from Sperlonga, record his father as Agesander.  The whole question remains the subject of academic debate.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: In the context of Laocoön and His Sons, explain the Renaissance and the History.

The group was unearthed in February 1506 in the vineyard of Felice De Fredis; informed of the fact, Pope Julius II, an enthusiastic classicist, sent for his court artists.  Michelangelo was called to the site of the unearthing of the statue immediately after its discovery, along with the Florentine architect Giuliano da Sangallo and his eleven-year-old son Francesco da Sangallo, later a sculptor, who wrote an account over sixty years later:The first time I was in Rome when I was very young, the pope was told about the discovery of some very beautiful statues in a vineyard near Santa Maria Maggiore. The pope ordered one of his officers to run and tell Giuliano da Sangallo to go and see them.  So he set off immediately. Since Michelangelo Buonarroti was always to be found at our house, my father having summoned him and having assigned him the commission of the pope's tomb, my father wanted him to come along, too. I joined up with my father and off we went. I climbed down to where the statues were when immediately my father said, "That is the Laocoön, which Pliny mentions".  Then they dug the hole wider so that they could pull the statue out. As soon as it was visible everyone started to draw (or "started to have lunch"), all the while discoursing on ancient things, chatting as well about the ones in Florence.Julius acquired the group on March 23, giving De Fredis a job as a scribe as well as the customs revenues from one of the gates of Rome.  By August the group was placed for public viewing in a niche in the wall of the brand new Belvedere Garden at the Vatican, now part of the Vatican Museums, which regard this as the start of their history. As yet it had no base, which was not added until 1511, and from various prints and drawings from the time the older son appears to have been completely detached from the rest of the group.In July 1798 the statue was taken to France in the wake of the French conquest of Italy, though the replacement parts were left in Rome. It was on display when the new Musée Central des Arts, later the Musée Napoléon, opened at the Louvre in November 1800.  A competition was announced for new parts to complete the composition, but there were no entries. Some plaster sections by François Girardon, over 150 years old, were used instead.  After Napoleon's final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 most (but certainly not all) of the artworks plundered by the French were returned, and the Laocoön reached Rome in January 1816.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: Explain the Renaissance about the History of this artwork, Laocoön and His Sons.

The group was unearthed in February 1506 in the vineyard of Felice De Fredis; informed of the fact, Pope Julius II, an enthusiastic classicist, sent for his court artists.  Michelangelo was called to the site of the unearthing of the statue immediately after its discovery, along with the Florentine architect Giuliano da Sangallo and his eleven-year-old son Francesco da Sangallo, later a sculptor, who wrote an account over sixty years later:The first time I was in Rome when I was very young, the pope was told about the discovery of some very beautiful statues in a vineyard near Santa Maria Maggiore. The pope ordered one of his officers to run and tell Giuliano da Sangallo to go and see them.  So he set off immediately. Since Michelangelo Buonarroti was always to be found at our house, my father having summoned him and having assigned him the commission of the pope's tomb, my father wanted him to come along, too. I joined up with my father and off we went. I climbed down to where the statues were when immediately my father said, "That is the Laocoön, which Pliny mentions".  Then they dug the hole wider so that they could pull the statue out. As soon as it was visible everyone started to draw (or "started to have lunch"), all the while discoursing on ancient things, chatting as well about the ones in Florence.Julius acquired the group on March 23, giving De Fredis a job as a scribe as well as the customs revenues from one of the gates of Rome.  By August the group was placed for public viewing in a niche in the wall of the brand new Belvedere Garden at the Vatican, now part of the Vatican Museums, which regard this as the start of their history. As yet it had no base, which was not added until 1511, and from various prints and drawings from the time the older son appears to have been completely detached from the rest of the group.In July 1798 the statue was taken to France in the wake of the French conquest of Italy, though the replacement parts were left in Rome. It was on display when the new Musée Central des Arts, later the Musée Napoléon, opened at the Louvre in November 1800.  A competition was announced for new parts to complete the composition, but there were no entries. Some plaster sections by François Girardon, over 150 years old, were used instead.  After Napoleon's final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 most (but certainly not all) of the artworks plundered by the French were returned, and the Laocoön reached Rome in January 1816.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: In Laocoön and His Sons, how is the Renaissance of the History explained?

The group was unearthed in February 1506 in the vineyard of Felice De Fredis; informed of the fact, Pope Julius II, an enthusiastic classicist, sent for his court artists.  Michelangelo was called to the site of the unearthing of the statue immediately after its discovery, along with the Florentine architect Giuliano da Sangallo and his eleven-year-old son Francesco da Sangallo, later a sculptor, who wrote an account over sixty years later:The first time I was in Rome when I was very young, the pope was told about the discovery of some very beautiful statues in a vineyard near Santa Maria Maggiore. The pope ordered one of his officers to run and tell Giuliano da Sangallo to go and see them.  So he set off immediately. Since Michelangelo Buonarroti was always to be found at our house, my father having summoned him and having assigned him the commission of the pope's tomb, my father wanted him to come along, too. I joined up with my father and off we went. I climbed down to where the statues were when immediately my father said, "That is the Laocoön, which Pliny mentions".  Then they dug the hole wider so that they could pull the statue out. As soon as it was visible everyone started to draw (or "started to have lunch"), all the while discoursing on ancient things, chatting as well about the ones in Florence.Julius acquired the group on March 23, giving De Fredis a job as a scribe as well as the customs revenues from one of the gates of Rome.  By August the group was placed for public viewing in a niche in the wall of the brand new Belvedere Garden at the Vatican, now part of the Vatican Museums, which regard this as the start of their history. As yet it had no base, which was not added until 1511, and from various prints and drawings from the time the older son appears to have been completely detached from the rest of the group.In July 1798 the statue was taken to France in the wake of the French conquest of Italy, though the replacement parts were left in Rome. It was on display when the new Musée Central des Arts, later the Musée Napoléon, opened at the Louvre in November 1800.  A competition was announced for new parts to complete the composition, but there were no entries. Some plaster sections by François Girardon, over 150 years old, were used instead.  After Napoleon's final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 most (but certainly not all) of the artworks plundered by the French were returned, and the Laocoön reached Rome in January 1816.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: Describe the characteristics of the Renaissance in Laocoön and His Sons's History.

The group was unearthed in February 1506 in the vineyard of Felice De Fredis; informed of the fact, Pope Julius II, an enthusiastic classicist, sent for his court artists.  Michelangelo was called to the site of the unearthing of the statue immediately after its discovery, along with the Florentine architect Giuliano da Sangallo and his eleven-year-old son Francesco da Sangallo, later a sculptor, who wrote an account over sixty years later:The first time I was in Rome when I was very young, the pope was told about the discovery of some very beautiful statues in a vineyard near Santa Maria Maggiore. The pope ordered one of his officers to run and tell Giuliano da Sangallo to go and see them.  So he set off immediately. Since Michelangelo Buonarroti was always to be found at our house, my father having summoned him and having assigned him the commission of the pope's tomb, my father wanted him to come along, too. I joined up with my father and off we went. I climbed down to where the statues were when immediately my father said, "That is the Laocoön, which Pliny mentions".  Then they dug the hole wider so that they could pull the statue out. As soon as it was visible everyone started to draw (or "started to have lunch"), all the while discoursing on ancient things, chatting as well about the ones in Florence.Julius acquired the group on March 23, giving De Fredis a job as a scribe as well as the customs revenues from one of the gates of Rome.  By August the group was placed for public viewing in a niche in the wall of the brand new Belvedere Garden at the Vatican, now part of the Vatican Museums, which regard this as the start of their history. As yet it had no base, which was not added until 1511, and from various prints and drawings from the time the older son appears to have been completely detached from the rest of the group.In July 1798 the statue was taken to France in the wake of the French conquest of Italy, though the replacement parts were left in Rome. It was on display when the new Musée Central des Arts, later the Musée Napoléon, opened at the Louvre in November 1800.  A competition was announced for new parts to complete the composition, but there were no entries. Some plaster sections by François Girardon, over 150 years old, were used instead.  After Napoleon's final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 most (but certainly not all) of the artworks plundered by the French were returned, and the Laocoön reached Rome in January 1816.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: In the context of Laocoön and His Sons, explain the Restorations and the History.

When the statue was discovered, Laocoön's right arm was missing, along with part of the hand of one son and the right arm of the other, and various sections of the snake. The older son, on the right, was detached from the other two figures.  The age of the altar used as a seat by Laocoön remains uncertain.  Artists and connoisseurs debated how the missing parts should be interpreted. Michelangelo suggested that the missing right arms were originally bent back over the shoulder. Others, however, believed it was more appropriate to show the right arms extended outwards in a heroic gesture.According to Vasari, in about 1510 Bramante, the Pope's architect, held an informal contest among sculptors to make replacement right arms, which was judged by Raphael, and won by Jacopo Sansovino. The winner, in the outstretched position, was used in copies but not attached to the original group, which remained as it was until 1532, when Giovanni Antonio Montorsoli, a pupil of Michelangelo, added his even more straight version of Laocoön's outstretched arm, which remained in place until modern times.  In 1725–1727 Agostino Cornacchini added a section to the younger son's arm, and after 1816 Antonio Canova tidied up the group after their return from Paris, without being convinced by the correctness of the additions but wishing to avoid a controversy.In 1906 Ludwig Pollak, archaeologist, art dealer and director of the Museo Barracco, discovered a fragment of a marble arm in a builder's yard in Rome, close to where the group was found. Noting a stylistic similarity to the Laocoön group he presented it to the Vatican Museums: it remained in their storerooms for half a century. In 1957 the museum decided that this arm – bent, as Michelangelo had suggested – had originally belonged to this Laocoön, and replaced it. According to Paolo Liverani: "Remarkably, despite the lack of a critical section, the join between the torso and the arm was guaranteed by a drill hole on one piece which aligned perfectly with a corresponding hole on the other."In the 1980s the statue was dismantled and reassembled, again with the Pollak arm incorporated.  The restored portions of the sons' arms and hands were removed. In the course of disassembly, it was possible to observe breaks, cuttings, metal tenons, and dowel holes which suggested that in antiquity, a more compact, three-dimensional pyramidal grouping of the three figures had been used or at least contemplated. According to Seymour Howard, both the Vatican group and the Sperlonga sculptures "show a similar taste for open and flexible pictorial organization that called for pyrotechnic piercing and lent itself to changes at the site, and in new situations".The more open, planographic composition along a plane, used in the restoration of the Laocoön group, has been interpreted as "apparently the result of serial reworkings by Roman Imperial as well as Renaissance and modern craftsmen". A different reconstruction was proposed by Seymour Howard, to give "a more cohesive, baroque-looking and diagonally-set pyramidal composition", by turning the older son as much as 90°, with his back to the side of the altar, and looking towards the frontal viewer rather than at his father.  The findings Seymour Howard documented do not change his belief about the organization of the original. But dating the reworked coil ends by measuring the depth of the surface crust and comparing the metal dowels in the original and reworked portions allows one to determine the provenance of the parts and the sequence of the repairs. Other suggestions have been made.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga


Laocoön and His Sons

Prompt: Explain the Restorations about the History of this artwork, Laocoön and His Sons.

When the statue was discovered, Laocoön's right arm was missing, along with part of the hand of one son and the right arm of the other, and various sections of the snake. The older son, on the right, was detached from the other two figures.  The age of the altar used as a seat by Laocoön remains uncertain.  Artists and connoisseurs debated how the missing parts should be interpreted. Michelangelo suggested that the missing right arms were originally bent back over the shoulder. Others, however, believed it was more appropriate to show the right arms extended outwards in a heroic gesture.According to Vasari, in about 1510 Bramante, the Pope's architect, held an informal contest among sculptors to make replacement right arms, which was judged by Raphael, and won by Jacopo Sansovino. The winner, in the outstretched position, was used in copies but not attached to the original group, which remained as it was until 1532, when Giovanni Antonio Montorsoli, a pupil of Michelangelo, added his even more straight version of Laocoön's outstretched arm, which remained in place until modern times.  In 1725–1727 Agostino Cornacchini added a section to the younger son's arm, and after 1816 Antonio Canova tidied up the group after their return from Paris, without being convinced by the correctness of the additions but wishing to avoid a controversy.In 1906 Ludwig Pollak, archaeologist, art dealer and director of the Museo Barracco, discovered a fragment of a marble arm in a builder's yard in Rome, close to where the group was found. Noting a stylistic similarity to the Laocoön group he presented it to the Vatican Museums: it remained in their storerooms for half a century. In 1957 the museum decided that this arm – bent, as Michelangelo had suggested – had originally belonged to this Laocoön, and replaced it. According to Paolo Liverani: "Remarkably, despite the lack of a critical section, the join between the torso and the arm was guaranteed by a drill hole on one piece which aligned perfectly with a corresponding hole on the other."In the 1980s the statue was dismantled and reassembled, again with the Pollak arm incorporated.  The restored portions of the sons' arms and hands were removed. In the course of disassembly, it was possible to observe breaks, cuttings, metal tenons, and dowel holes which suggested that in antiquity, a more compact, three-dimensional pyramidal grouping of the three figures had been used or at least contemplated. According to Seymour Howard, both the Vatican group and the Sperlonga sculptures "show a similar taste for open and flexible pictorial organization that called for pyrotechnic piercing and lent itself to changes at the site, and in new situations".The more open, planographic composition along a plane, used in the restoration of the Laocoön group, has been interpreted as "apparently the result of serial reworkings by Roman Imperial as well as Renaissance and modern craftsmen". A different reconstruction was proposed by Seymour Howard, to give "a more cohesive, baroque-looking and diagonally-set pyramidal composition", by turning the older son as much as 90°, with his back to the side of the altar, and looking towards the frontal viewer rather than at his father.  The findings Seymour Howard documented do not change his belief about the organization of the original. But dating the reworked coil ends by measuring the depth of the surface crust and comparing the metal dowels in the original and reworked portions allows one to determine the provenance of the parts and the sequence of the repairs. Other suggestions have been made.

Category:Roman copies of Greek sculptures

File:C.sf., urbino, coppa con laocoonte, 1530-1545 circa.JPG

Category:Archaeological discoveries in Italy

Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes

Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance

:File:Giovanni Battista Nolli-Nuova Pianta di Roma (1748) 09-12.JPG

File:Caricature of the Laocoon group as apes.jpg

Titian's parody of the ''Laocoön'' as a group of apes

The Descent from the Cross (Rubens, 1612-1614)

The group as it was between c. 1540 and 1957, with Laocoön's extended arm; the sons' restored arms were removed in the 1980s.

Category:Antiquities acquired by Napoleon

Category:Sculptures in the Vatican Museums

This map shows the findspot of the sculpture{{snd}}near the R in "SERVIUS", east of the [[Sette Sale

sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga