The story of Laocoön was told
by Sophocles and others though details vary enormously. The most famous is from
Virgil’s Aeneid in which Laocoön was a priest of Poseidon (Neptune for the
Romans) who was killed with his sons by sea serpents after attempting
to expose the true nature of the Trojan Horse by striking it with a spear. (And
so we are warned to fear Greeks who bear gifts.)
The most well known image of Laocoön and His Sons is the
first century sculpture associated with Agesander, Athenodorus, and Polydorus,
made in the Hellenistic baroque manner. It is now in the Vatican. However there
are numerous other interpretations and this may in fact be a marble copy of an
earlier bronze.
In the Dadaglobe Roconstructed show at the Museum of Modern
Art there’s a small gelatin silver print of Jean Arp’s Laocoön, made about
1930. His inspiration was an illustration of the intestine of a dog, preserved
in alcohol. It resembled his own abstract drawings. (Here’s my photo of that
photo.)
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| Silver print of Jean Art's, Laocoön, 1920, original photographer unknown. |
Stanley William Hayter tackled the subject while in New York
City during World War II. One of his most admired images, Laocoön, 1943,
captures a chaotic moment in history enriched by Hayter’s technical heroics.
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| Stanley William Hayter, Laocoön, 1943, intaglio |
