Praha, p. Wallenstein, garden, Laocoon

Title:

Praha, p. Wallenstein, garden, Laocoon

Publisher:

von Wallenstein, Albrecht

Identifier:

olympos_cz:PB9845200000158788

Subject:

snake and Laocoon

Type:

socha

Description:

Bronz statue: Laocoon (naked, beard) stands with legs apart and with his left hand pushes away from his face a snake's head, maw wide open. With his left he holds the snake's body behind his back. By Laocoon's legs there are his two sons with the snake coiled around their limbs. In Wallenstein's time an elaborate Neptun fountain stood in front of Sala Terrena, which was complemented by four bronze sculptural groups on marble bases which stood between the fountain and Sala Terrena. Laocoon and the Wrestlers were probably standing side by side, the former symbolizing punished impiety and the latter defeated revolt. To the left of the group with Laocoon, in which resistance was condemned, the group with Venus and Adonis could have stood, in which the advantages of forethoughtful submission were celebrated. The group of Venus and Adonis would form a couple with the group of Bacchus and the little Satyr celebrating the blessings of the epoch of peace. The playful fight of Bachus and Satyr would form a contrasting pair with the deadly fight of Wrestlers at the opposite end of the row. All statues were made between 1623 and 1627 in the Prague studio of Adrien de Vries, former Court Sculptor to Emperor Rudolf II., Michalski 2004#, Fučíková, Čepička 2007#, 443-444 (Eliška Fučíková), and In 1625 Adrien de Vries made a statue of Laocoon for the fountain in front of Sala Terrena, but at Wallenstein's request, to which sculptor alludes in his letter of February 1626, it was replaced by Neptune. Since its discovery in 1506 the famous ancient statue had been identified with that which was mentioned by Pliny, who wrote that it decorated the palace of the emperor Titus (Natural History 36, 37). This explicit imperial connection was as important as the theme of the statue. Laocoon was the Trojan priest who revolted against the gods' decision that his city must be captured by Greeks and he was immediately cruelly punished. Laocoon had to die because Troy had to be burned to allow Aeneas to arrive to Italy, this sequence of events later leading to the birth of Rome and its empire. Laocoon, as a token of God's plan, thus legitimised the imperial rule on earth. When the theme of Laocoon appears in 16th century art, it is always in a negative context, as an example of justly punished transgression. Sergiusz Michalski (Michalski 2004) was the first who argued that Adrian de Vries' Laocoon alluded to the defeat of the Bohemian estates in the Battle of White Mountain in 1620.

Rights:

autorská práva www.olympos.cz

Harvested from:

Pamatky

Metadata only:

false

Date:

1623