An Ancient Masterpiece or a Master's Forgery? (Did by Michelangelo Sculpt the Laocoön?)

New York Times ^ | April 18, 2005 | KATHRYN SHATTUCK

[Republicanprofessor]

Do add me to the art ping list.

I think this is an intriguing idea, and the muscular twists are much like those of Michelangelo. The thing that bothers me are the sons: they are much smaller and seem inauthentic to me. They don't have that muscular tension and their size has always bugged me.

[Sam Cree]

I have you on both lists, thanks.

[SunkenCiv]

"Americans never walked on the Moon" ping. Good lord. Michelangelo sketched the work in order to learn more about sculpting.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!

But what was Michelangelo's motive? How did he gain by having it attributed to the ancients? Is the contention that he was in cahoots with the finder and the value of a "Greek" Laocoön would have been far greater than a contemporary? The resulting value would have made it worth the risk and effort?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

The Gods favored the Greeks. They sent the serpents to destroy Laocoön and his sons so that their destruction would be viewed by the Trojans as evidence that the Gods wanted them to accept the horse.

Those whom the Gods would destroy...

[finnigan2]

"The sculpture is fake but accurate."

- Lynn has discovered the way to make a name for yourself in liberal circles is that it's not whether the charges are true, it's the seriousness of the charge that is important.
She will be invited to be guest speaker at every art history related conference for the next decade; there will be academic bun fights to keep her name before the public; offers' of advancement from major universities are sure to follow; her future has been assured. No wonder she looks so smug.

[gobucks]

please add me...

[gobucks]

In modern usage the word "Nazi" describes a conservative winning an argument with a liberal.


I loved that from your home page; and thanks for the added clarification to the story.

It is true that was the original intent of the message regarding the deaths of he and his two sons. But, in the March of Folly, many actual examples of messengers being killed off by the very people who needed the warning, but succumb to destruction anyway are given. It was eye opening...

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I love Barbara Tuchman, but have not read "The March of Folly". Do read "The Zimmerman Telegraph", her first essay as an historiographer. (She was a professor of English at Vassar by profession.)

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

In modern usage the word "Nazi" describes a conservative winning an argument with a liberal.

Have you ever played "Is it Gephardt or Mein Kampf?" It's like the "Is it Al Gore or the Unibomber?" game, where someone reads a passage and the listeners try to decide if it's from the Unibomber's "Manifesto" or "Earth in the Balance".

You can open to almost any page in Mein Kampf, replace "Jews" with "the rich", "German" with "American" and "workers" with "working families" and you would have a statement that plausibly could have been uttered by Herr Gephart von Missouristadt.

I am not a big fan of the opus of Herr Hitler, but I took the Oxford annotated Mein Kampf out of the library during the "Hitler Quote" festuch at Dartmouth. Since I knew that Hitler was an atheist, it seemed odd at best that he would invoke the name of the Almighty in his crusade against His chosen people. I also doubted that he would have stated his intentions quite so bluntly in 1925. I forget the exact quote and it’s hard to find it on the internet, which make me more suspicious than ever that it actually was from Mein Kampf. In the days before the internet was popular all sorts of balderdash got into the public consciousness and I am still not convinced the infamous Hitler quote, however translated, was ever uttered by Hitler, especially in Mein Kampf.

The experience of perusing Mein Kampf for the first time since high school was unsettling, but not for the reasons you might think. The thing that struck me was how similar to the rhetoric of Democratic politicians it all sounded. (This was during the endgame of the Cold War, remember.) The whininess, the inane childishness, the presumptiveness all had the hallmarks of a speech by Ted Kennedy or Joe Moakley. Clinton's genius was in saying the same old things but with a certain Elvis-like aw-shucks appeal, instead of sounding like the tired hacks he represented.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

They all show a wide separation between big toe and second toe. That's typical of Antique sculpture, because people wore sandals with a thong between the toes, which shaped the gap, and the sculptors copied the feature they saw in real life.

Doncha think Michaelangelo himself would have picked up on this?

[CobaltBlue]

The Laocoön does strikingly resemble Michaelangelo's known works. It's certainly possible.

[CobaltBlue]

Maybe it was a paid commission, and the motive to be examined would be that of the person who paid him.

[finnman69]

The Laocoön sculpture is a very important piece of artwork. It's a big deal, maybe not to those of the Elvis velvet painting and cedar paneled trailer park connoisseurs.

[SunkenCiv]

Lynn has discovered the way to make a name for yourself in liberal circles is that it's not whether the charges are true, it's the seriousness of the charge that is important. [finnigan2]

Well said.

But what was Michelangelo's motive? How did he gain by having it attributed to the ancients? Is the contention that he was in cahoots with the finder and the value of a "Greek" Laocoön would have been far greater than a contemporary? The resulting value would have made it worth the risk and effort? [Lonesome in Massachussets]

Doesn't seem too likely, does it? Some years ago another alleged scholar (also female) claimed that a well-known painting by da Vinci wasn't actually by him, that "it couldn't have been". Rung by rung.

[AntiBurr]

I do not intend this to be a personal attack, but I have noticed this attitude on Free Republic several times. I happen to live in a trailer park, and have visited the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and quite a number of other art expos of various sorts.
People live in trailer parks for numerous reasons and I had not thought that where one chose to live was a viable definition of a conservative.
I consider this attitude on a par with W.J.B. Clinton's refrence to "big haired trailer park bimbos."

[Renfield]

This sure looks like Michaelangelo to me.

[gobucks]

I think Laocoon wished he lived in a Trailer Park when all was said and done. :)

[x]

Now that they've brought it up, it does look a little too busy to be classical Greek.

They'd get more of a hearing if they alleged that works that had been credited to Michelangelo were actually by Praxiteles or some other ancient Greek sculptor, though.

[Polybius]

But what was Michelangelo's motive? How did he gain by having it attributed to the ancients? Is the contention that he was in cahoots with the finder and the value of a "Greek" Laocoön would have been far greater than a contemporary?

I'm not saying that the Laocoön is a Michaelangelo work passed of as a fake ancient. However, if it were, the motive would have been that an ancient Greek statue would indeed have been far more valuable to a collector than a statue from a contemporary artisan with a reputation for bad personal hygeine and a personality to match named Michaelangelo.

Would you have paid $200,000 to buy stock in this kid's company back in 1979?

Today, with 20/20 hindsight, we would know that a major work by Michaelangelo would be priceless. However, back in 1501, Michaelangelo was getting paid 400 Florentine Florins to produce his masterpiece David. Each Florin contained 3.54 grams of gold. The amount of gold in 400 Florins would be worth about $21,000 today.

For a contemporary comparison, surviving records of the Medici accounts show them paying 100 Florins for a sword and dagger set, 2000 Florins for a very fancy sword and dagger set for Cosimo I and 43 Florins for 80 pikes.

Florin