EL GRECO: LAOCOON

Abstract

In this paper, Hans Rainer Sepp studies El Greco's Laocoon, from the purely formal description (layer analysis, games between nature, city, sky and Laocoon and his sons) and symbolic analysis (anticipation of the fall of Troy) to the phenomenological analysis of the pictorial whole. Analysis that highlights not only the reality of a changing world that moves between all and nothing, but the author's presence in the picture, creating a seeming world, a Troy-Toledo, and reflecting the drama of the artist, harassed by the ethical commitment and the alternative of the escape. Perhaps Laocoon can be seen as El Greco's answer to the dilemma of art.