It is obvious that, in the famous group, Laocoön is not crying out, and the universal and ever-recurring surprise at this must be attributable to the fact that we should all cry out in his place. Nature also demands this; for in the case of the most acute physical pain and the sudden appearance of the greatest bodily fear, all reflection that might induce silent endurance is entirely expelled from consciousness, and nature relieves itself by crying out, thus expressing pain and fear at the same time, summoning the deliverer and terrifying the assailant. Therefore Winckelmann regretted the absence of the expression of crying out; but as he tried to justify the artist, he really made Laocoön into a Stoic who considered it beneath his dignity to cry out secundum naturam,110 but added to his pain the useless constraint of stifling its expression. Winckelmann therefore sees in him “the tried spirit of a great man writhing in agony, and trying to suppress the expression of feeling and to lock it up in himself. He does not break out into a loud shriek, as in Virgil, but only anxious sighs escape him,” and so on. (Werke, Vol. vii, p. 98; the same in more detail in Vol. vi, pp. 104 seq.) This opinion of Winckelmann was criticized by Lessing in his Laocoön, and improved by him in the way mentioned above. In place of the psychological reason, he gave the purely aesthetic one that beauty, the principle of ancient art, does not admit the expression of crying out. Another argument he gives is that a wholly fleeting state, incapable of any duration, should not be depicted in a motionless work of art. This has against it a hundred examples of excellent figures that are fixed in wholly fleeting movements, dancing, wrestling, catching, and so on. Indeed, Goethe, in the essay on the Laocoön which opens the Propyläen (p. 8) considers the choice of such a wholly fleeting moment to be absolutely necessary. In our day, Hirt (Horae, 1797, tenth St.), reducing everything to the highest truth of the expression, decided the matter by saying that Laocoön does not cry out because he is no longer able to, as he is on the point of dying from suffocation. Finally, Fernow (Römische Studien, Vol. I, pp. 426 seq.) weighed and discussed all these three opinions; he did not, however, add a new one of his own, but reconciled and amalgamated all three.
I cannot help being surprised that such thoughtful and acute men laboriously bring in far-fetched and inadequate reasons, and resort to psychological and even physiological arguments, in order to explain a matter the reason of which is quite near at hand, and to the unprejudiced is immediately obvious. I am particularly surprised that Lessing, who came so near to the correct explanation, completely missed the point.
Before all psychological and physiological investigation as to whether Laocoön in his position would cry out or not (and I affirm that he certainly would), it has to be decided as regards the group that crying out ought not to be expressed in it, for the simple reason that the presentation of this lies entirely outside the province of sculpture. A shrieking Laocoön could not be produced in marble, but only one with the mouth wide open fruitlessly endeavouring to shriek, a Laocoön whose voice was stuck in his throat, vox faucibus haesit.111 The essence of shrieking, and consequently its effect on the onlooker, lies entirely in the sound, not in the gaping mouth. This latter phenomenon that necessarily accompanies the shriek must be motivated and justified first through the sound produced by it; it is then permissible and indeed necessary, as characteristic of the action, although it is detrimental to beauty. But in plastic art, to which the presentation of shrieking is quite foreign and impossible, it would be really foolish to exhibit the violent medium of shrieking, namely the gaping mouth, which disturbs all the features and the rest of the expression, since we should then have before us the means, which moreover demands many sacrifices, whilst its end, the shrieking itself together with its effect on our feelings, would fail to appear. Moreover there would be produced each time the ridiculous spectacle of a permanent exertion without effect. This could actually be compared to the wag who, for a joke, stopped up with wax the horn of the sleeping night watchman, and then woke him up with the cry of fire, and amused himself watching the man’s fruitless efforts to blow. On the other hand, where the expression of shrieking lies in the province of dramatic art, it is quite admissible, because it serves truth, in other words, the complete expression of the Idea. So in poetry, which claims for perceptive presentation the imagination of the reader. Therefore in Virgil Laocoön cries out like an ox that has broken loose after being struck by an axe. Homer (Iliad, xx, 48-53) represents Ares and Athene as shrieking horribly without detracting from their divine dignity or beauty. In just the same way with acting; on the stage Laocoön would certainly have to cry out. Sophocles also represents Philoctetes as shrieking, and on the ancient stage he would certainly have done so. In quite a similar case, I remember having seen in London the famous actor Kemble in a piece called Pizarro, translated from the German. He played the part of the American, a half-savage, but of very noble character. Yet when he was wounded, he cried out loudly and violently, and this was of great and admirable effect, since it was highly characteristic and contributed a great deal to the truth. On the other hand, a painted or voiceless shrieker in stone would be much more ridiculous than the painted music that is censured in Goethe’s Propyläen. For shrieking is much more detrimental to the rest of the expression and to beauty than music is; for at most this concerns only hands and arms, and is to be looked upon as an action characterizing the person. Indeed, to this extent it can be quite rightly painted, so long as it does not require any violent movement of the body or distortion of the mouth; thus for example, St. Cecilia at the organ, Raphael’s violinist in the Sciarra Gallery in Rome, and many others. Now since, on account of the limitations of the art, the pain of Laocoön could not be expressed by shrieking, the artist had to set in motion every other expression of pain. This he achieved to perfection, as is ably described by Winckelmann (Werke, Vol. vi, pp. 104 seq.), whose admirable account therefore retains its full value and truth as soon as we abstract from the stoical sentiment underlying it.112