Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry.
Lessing, of course, did most to keep Laocoon in the foreground of esthetic speculation; but Goethe also gave to a description and in- terpretation of the statue ( Uber Laokoon) the first place in a magazine by means of which he hoped to convert his fellow- countrymen to the worship of the Greek ideal, the FropyUien of 1798.
It was this work of art that German dramatist and critic Gotthold Lessing used as a point of reference for his essay Laocoon. Originally published in 1766, Lessing's inspired meditation on the distinguishing characteristics of painting and poetry became a turning point in the study of Western art.
The volume shows how the Laocoon exploits Greek and Roman models to sketch the proper spatial and temporal 'limits' (Grenzen) of what Lessing called 'poetry' and 'painting'; at the same time it demonstrates how Lessing's essay is embedded within Enlightenment theories of art, perception, and historical interpretation, as well as within nascent eighteenth-century ideas about the 'scientific.
Now back in print, and with the addition of two supplementary essays, Henry E. Allison’s book argues that, despite appearances, Lessing was not merely an eclectic thinker or intellectual provocateur, but a serious philosopher of religion, who combined a basically Spinozistic conception of God with a sophisticated pluralistic conception of religious truth inspired by Leibniz.
JH 2013 Laocoon: An Essay upon the Limits of Painting and Poetry, with remarks illustrative of various points in the history of ancient art, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, translated by Ellen Frothingham (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1877). Source: openlibrary.org.
The most influential contribution to the debate, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's essay Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, examines the differences between visual and literary art by comparing the sculpture with Virgil's verse. He argues that the artists could not realistically depict the physical suffering of the victims, as this would be too painful.
Nathan the Wise Laocoon. An essay upon the limits of painting and poetry. With remarks illustrative of various points in the history of ancient art Pope: A Metaphysician! (co-written with Moses Mendelsohn) Education of the Human Race.