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PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY.
VOLUME I.
jfjwtetj.
To a Canary Bird.
Each morn as the brightsun peeps over the trees,
Thy sweet songisheard as it floats on thebreezc;
And long as he tarries to brighten the day,
So long may bo heard thy melodious lay.
If darkness or gloom in my spirit should dwell,
Thy lay in its sweetness would sever the spell;
0! who could be sad, when thy silvery note
Is flung to the zephyrs that over us float.
Then sing, sweet canary! not only forme,
I know of another that listens to thee; _
Another, whose voice is so much like thine own,
Little fellow, I know where you learned that tone.
Then sing, pretty bird, carol forth thy sweet lay!
Let it float through the air, and gladden the day;
And oft as I hear it, in innocent glee,
I’ll think of anothei that listens to thee.
_Columbia (Mo.) Stciteiman.
CLIMBINC THE HEICHTS.
ATHENS, CIA., MARCH 5,1870.
girt IJepttwimt
LAOCOON.
BY PROP. F. A. LIPSCOMB.
1 The following extract is taken from
the German of “ Lessing's Laocoon.”
This work is so widely known to
students of German Literature, that
a lengthy analysis—even if our space
permitted—would bo gratituous.
But, as all students are not Ger
man students, and as the Laocoon,
though regarded by Germans as the
basis of their modern Schools of Art,
has been rarely introduced into
America, perhaps a few remarks con
cerning the nature and object of the
jVork will not be unappreciated by
the readers of the Collegian.
The Laocoon in its broadest scope,
Itreats of the relative boundaries of
the Plastic Arts; discusses the points
which they possess in common, and
those which are peculiar to individu
al arts, It is not, as its name would
imply, simply a criticism on the
Group of the Laocoon, though this
llutter is taken as the subject of the
*
Every one is familiar with the stof
ry as told by Virgil, of that unfortu
nate Prince and Priest of Troy, Le.o
coon, who, together with his sons,
fell a victim to the unrelenting anger
of Minerva, and was destroyed by
sea-serpents for pleading with priest
ly earnestness against the introduc
duction of the wooden-horse within
the walls of Troy. But this story,
beautiful as it is, is not the only tri
bute that commemorates the myth.
In the Cortile of the Vatican, side by
side, in worthy companionship with
that marvel of art, the Apollo Belvi
dere, stands a no less wonderful tri
umph of Grecian genius, the Group
of Laocoon —consisting of the father
and two sons, writhing in the fatal
coils of the serpents.
The authors were Agesander, Po
lydorus and Athenodurus, natives of
Ehodes, as appears from the inscrip
tions. The date of its execution has
been a disputed point. Winkelman
places it at the time of Alexander the
Great, when Grecian art was in the
noon of its splendor. Others, among
whom is Lessing, attribute it to a
much later date, and maintain that
the Group was finished by these mas
ters during the reign of Titus. Facts
that give ferce to this last supposi
tion are, first, that the Group was
found in the palace of Titus; and se
condly, that each of the early Empe
rors vied with others in affecting or
encouraging a taste for arts, and
struggled to surpass his predecessor
by bringing artists from Greece and
employing them to fit up and embel
lish their palaces and gardens. An
other bone of contention among cri
tics has been, whether the Poet serv
ed as a model for the Sculptors, or
tho Sculptors for the Poet, or wheth
er each, independent of the other,
drew from some common source.—
There have been advocates for each
theory, and objections against all.
The variations in the treatment are
so striking, that critics could not ea
sily decide which was copy, and
which was model. Virgil’s Laocoon
is clad in priestly robes; the Sculp
tors’naked, and undistinguished
The Poet’s Priest shrieks out in his
agony j the Sculptor’s Prince utters
no cry, and disfigures himself by no
contortions. The former is a mo
tionless sufferer, whose hands are fast
bound by the serpents’ folds, and
over whose head their hissing fangs
project; th<N|ft?tbr, with hessr and
.hands unfettered, "wrestlesliHifa god
with his fate ; every netve ana mus
cleehiQnent in their agony, yet silent
W*: • -IY t
is different in the two arts, the sub
ject treated c is the same in all of its
particulars; for both Poet and Sculp
tor represent father and two sons as
being strangled together and at the
same time, by the serpents. This is
manifestly different from all of the
old Greek legends, which state that
the sons alone were destroyed, and
the father struck with blindness.
Whence comes then, this agreement
of Grecian Sculptor with Roman Po
et? Whence this departure of both
from the old established myths ?
While critics were wrangling over
such points as these, Lessing enters
the field, and with one stroke cuts the
knot, and establishes the fundamen
tal principle, that Imitative Arts,
though alike in the effects they pro
duce, are not, and cannot be alike in
the means by which their ends are
reached. He explains, not only in
what respects the Poet's description
differs from the Sculptors’ group, but
why they were'compelled to differ.
Thence be passes on to a full and mi
nute discussion of tho philosophy of
Art, and sends it out to the world
as the third immortal wreath around
the name of Laocoon.
“LESSING’S LAOCOON.”
ii.
Whether it bo fable or history that
Love made the first attempt in the
plastic arts, so much is certain, it nev-
TERMS--$2.50 PER ANNUM.
NUMBER 2.
or grew weary of guiding the hands
of the grand old masters. For, tho’
painting is now defined in its broad
est compasß as “the art which imi
tates bodies upon surface,” yet the
wise Greek prescribed to it much
narrower boundaries, and confined it
exclusively to the imitation of beau
tiful objects.
His artists painted nothing bat
beauty; even common beauty, the
beauty of lower orders was only his
incidental subject, his exercise, his
relaxation. In his work, the perfec
tion of the object alone must consti
tute its charm ; he was too great to
ask his spectators to content them
selves merely with that cold pleasure
which arises from striking resem
blance, or from consideration of the
artist’s ability.. In his art nothing
appeared nobler to him than its final
aim.
“ Who would be willing to paint
you when nobody will look at you,”
said an old Epigrammatist to an ex
ceedingly deformed person. Many
modern artists would say: “ You
may be deformed as you please, I’ll
paint even if no
will they look with pleasure on my
picture, not because it is your like
ness, but because it is proof of my
art, which knows how to represent
so faithfully such a monster.”
It is true, this propensity to exces
sive boasting, united to abilities of a
second rate order, but unennobled by
the dignity of their subject, is too
natural for even the Greeks not to
have had their Pauson and their Py*
reicus. They had them; but they
meted out to them strict justice.—
Pauson who confined himself to an
order of beauty even below that of
common nature, whose vulgar taste
delighted to portray only what was
most ugly and most defective in the
human forra,-lived in the most abject
poverty. And Pyreicus, who paints
ed, with all the industry of a Ncth
erland artist, barber-shops, dirty
work shops, asses and pot herbs—as
if such things possessed so many
charms in nature, and were so rarely
to be seen—received the surname of
Rhyparographen) the “ Filth paint
er”—although the voluptuous rich
man paid for his works with their
weight in gold, in order by this ima
ginative value to redeem their utter
worthlessness. The State itself did
not consider it unworthy of its atten
tion to confine the artist within his
true sphere by the exercise of autho
rity. That law of the Thebans which
enjoined upon him the use of lmita**
