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The action is violent, it is true, but the impression which the statue makes on him is not a violent one; for the greatness of the art sublimates the motive. It is a tragedy in marble, and Pliny, who had seen the works of Phidias and Praxiteles, placed Agesander's "Laocoon" above them all. This, however, is a Roman view. What Hawthorne wrote in his diary should not always be taken literally.
At any rate, his "Dramaturgy" is full of original ideas, and when he drew out the sphere of poetry contrasted with that of painting in his "Laocoon," all Germany resounded with his praise. "With that delight," says Goethe, "we saluted this luminous ray which a thinker of the first order caused to break forth from its clouds.
Paul's; no other "bit of color" is equal to the Transfiguration; no other heroic statue is to be compared with the Augustus; nowhere else is so sweet a girl-face as the Cenci; no other group is to be named with the Laocoon, no other fresco with the Aurora; and where is there another Moses, or Apollo Belvedere, or Antinous, or where is there vocal music so heavenly as that of the Pope's choir?
Another state which became famous in the declining days of Greek art was the republic of Rhodes. The Rhodian sculptors learned their anatomy from Lysippos, and caught their dramatic instinct from the artists of Pergamon. Two of the most famous sculpture groups in the world were produced at Rhodes, the Laocoon, now at the Vatican, and the Farnese Bull, now at Naples.
The final piece of sculpture, at the end of the gallery, is a copy of the Laocoon, considered very fine. I know not why, but it did not impress me with the sense of mighty and terrible repose a repose growing out of the infinitude of trouble that I had felt in the original.
The serpents advanced directly to the spot where Laocoon stood with his two sons. They first attacked the children, winding round their bodies and breathing their pestilential breath in their faces. The father, attempting to rescue them, is next seized and involved in the serpents' coils.
Even the Laocoon is not in the state of actual exertion: it is represented in that moment when the last effort has been made; when straining against an invincible power has given to the figure the aspect at last of momentary repose; and when despair has placed its settled mark on the expression of the countenance.
He drank a drop or two of self-pity like a poison, repelling the assaults of public pity. Clara must be given up. It must be seen by the world that, as he felt, the thing he did was right. Laocoon of his own serpents, he struggled to a certain magnificence of attitude in the muscular net of constrictions he flung around himself. Clara must be given up. Oh, bright Abominable!
Whatever remaining doubts any of them might have felt on the subject were dispelled by the occurrence of a most extraordinary phenomenon just at this stage of the affair, which was understood by all to be a divine judgment upon Laocoon for his sacriligious temerity in striking his spear into the horse's side. It had been determined to offer a sacrifice to Neptune.
She had another such flower on her breast. A young girl's graceful compliment, that is all, no doubt, no doubt. "Incipit effari, mediaque in voce resistit." A remembrance of an ancient superstition flashed through the master's mind, and he determined to try the Sortes Virgilianae. He shut the volume, and opened it again at a venture. The story of Laocoon!
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