Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Short summary

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A treatise on the problem of defining the boundaries between poetry and painting. Lessing refutes the ideas of the aesthetic program of classicism and proves the fundamental difference between these arts.

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A treatise on the problem of defining the boundaries between poetry and painting. The basis for theorizing about the specificity of poetry and the fine arts was the ancient sculpture «Laocoon and His Sons».

The author opposes the dominant for a long time aesthetic program of classicism. According to its principles, all types of art were recognized as comparable, originating from ancient times. Lessing proves the fundamental difference between the arts, referring to the experience of classical antiquity.

In the aesthetic program of classicism it was believed that poetry could be correlated with the visual arts. Poetry should describe the natural variety as accurately as possible. Painting, on the other hand, was used to express various abstract abstractions.

Lessing points out that even in antiquity both of these arts had a clear distinction, and the ideas of classicism created a false idea of the specificity and tasks of the arts described above.