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11-1/4" H Bonded White Marble on Marble Base Imported from Italy $148 (less Internet discount of $32) = $116 (freight $12) |
| One January day in 1506 it was announced to Pope Julius II that some excellent statues had been dug up in a vineyard near San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. The Pope sent Sangallo, his principal artistic to see the statues and Sangallo invited Michelangelo, who had newly come to Rome, to go along. They had scarcely dismounted from their horses when both agreed that it was the Laocoon of which the encyclopedist Pliny had spoken. Michelangelo later declared that the discovery had a profound influence upon him. He had always wanted to make violent muscular movement expressive of something more than physical strength. In the Laocoon group he had found an example from classical art. The statue had been carved from marble by three sculptors (Agesander, Polydorus and Athenodorus of Rhodes) who put their highly developed technical skill to the service of sensational realism. The myth was retold in The Aeneid by Virgil. The priest Laocoon had warned the Trojans concerning the wooden horse. His action, attempting to interfere with the fated course of events, infuriated the gods who sent sea serpents to destroy him and his sons. The amazing naturalism displayed in the modeling is characteristic of the Hellenistic period; it contrasts the adult body with those of the adolescents and it contrasts the strained muscles of the father making almost superhuman effort to free himself with the relaxing muscles of his collapsing sons. |
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