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Audio Stop 212

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Close to us, six people, all nude with light skin, stand or lie intertwined with snakes on a bank of rocks in this horizonal painting. Beyond them, the deep, distant landscape has a brown horse, tiny in scale, headed for a city of stone buildings beneath a vivid blue sky filled with twisting white clouds. The people’s bodies are sinewy and elongated, and their skin is painted in tones of ivory white, warmed with peach highlights and streaked with deep gray shadows. At the center, a man with a white beard and white, curly hair lies back on the charcoal-gray rock with his knees bent and his shins splayed out. With his body angled away from us to our right, he holds the body of a long, silvery-gray snake in his left fist, on our right, down by his hip. The snake curves behind the man’s body and he grips the snake behind its head. The man has high cheekbones and sunken cheeks, and rolls his eyes up and back to look at the snake, whose wide-open mouth nearly touches his hair. To our left, a cleanshaven young man stands with his body facing us but he arches back, holding an arcing snake in his hands. The young man’s right hand, on our left, bends at the elbow so he can grasp the snake’s tail and his other arm stretches straight back, holding the snake’s body as it curls around so its fangs nearly reach the young man’s side. To our right, next to the older man, a second, dark-haired young man lies on the rocks with his head toward us. His feet are on the ground, so we look onto the tops of his thighs. He lies with one hand resting on the ground, overhead. Three people seem to float, feet dangling, alongside the right edge of the painting. The person closest to us looks onto the writhing people in profile, back to us. A second person just beyond also looks to our left. A third head turns the opposite direction and looks off to our right. In the distance, the golden-brown horse is angled away from us, one front leg raised, on a path that moves from behind the rocky outcropping to the far-off town. Nestled in a shallow valley, buildings in the town are mostly painted with rose pink and red walls and smoke-gray roofs. The land dips to a deeper, green valley to our right, lining the horizon that comes two-thirds of the way up the composition. The standing people are outlined against the sapphire-blue sky and knotted, gray and white clouds.

El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos)

Laocoön, c. 1610/1614

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 28

著名诗人Teri Cross Davis和意大利和西班牙绘画策展人Gretchen Hirschauer讨论El Greco对拉奥孔传说的描绘所揭示的人性和情感。

Read full audio transcript

讲解员:
艺术家格列柯于1614年前后在西班牙创作了这幅画。画中描绘了拉奥孔之死。中心位置一脸络腮胡的男性就是拉奥孔。画中景象的时代背景是古希腊人与特洛伊人战争期间。

格蕾琴·希尔施霍伊泽:
拉奥孔是特洛伊祭司,由于向特洛伊木马投掷长矛而陷入灾祸。你可以在背景里看到画得很小的特洛伊木马。

我是格蕾琴·希尔施霍伊泽。我在意大利与西班牙绘画部担任策展人。

讲解员:
罗马作家维吉尔曾有记载,希腊人将精锐部队藏进巨大的木马之中,将木马留在特洛伊城墙外。然后希腊人假装要走水路逃跑。特洛伊人志得意满地把马拉进城墙内。希腊士兵趁着天黑爬出木马,为战友打开特洛伊城门。

根据维吉尔的记载,拉奥孔试图警告特洛伊同胞小心那匹马,甚至对着一侧的木质马身投掷了长矛,可惜无人相信。女神雅典娜是希腊人的守护神。拉奥孔的行为激怒了雅典娜,导致他与儿子们都成为报复的对象。

格蕾琴·希尔施霍伊泽:
雅典娜为了报复惩罚了拉奥孔全家,用巨蛇杀死他和两个儿子。  

我看到这幅画时首先注意到拉奥孔的脸。他脸上呈现出某种极度的痛苦。他知道他将要面临的命运,而他的儿子们也将遭受同样的不幸。

泰里·克罗斯·戴维斯:
在那一刻我非常能够共情身为人父的拉奥孔。他知道自己的命运已经无可挽回,一切只因为他希望做正确的事情。   

我叫泰里·埃伦·克罗斯·戴维斯。我是一名诗人,也是O·B·哈迪森诗歌系列的艺术策展人,还是福尔杰·莎士比亚图书馆的诗歌项目经理。  

有一个办法可以走进任何艺术。对我来说,打开艺术之门的钥匙就是我们各自的人生经历。我可以看着这幅画说:我知道这位父亲的悲伤与痛苦。我是生活在美国的黑人女性,我每天都会担心自家孩子的安全。诗歌触动我的点在于它揭示出的人性。这幅画触动我的点也是它揭示出的人性。
 

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