Considering El Greco’s mastery of late Renaissance techniques of painting, it is interesting how little sympathy he seems to have had for the subject matter of much of that art. This Laocoön, for example, is the only pagan theme in his entire catalogue.Laocoön was a Trojan priest of Apollo. Not only had he offended the goddess Athena by warning Troy against the famous wooden horse, but he had also outraged Apollo by lecherous impropriety in the precincts of the temple. The ensuing punishment was both swift and terrible. It has been suggested that the theme can be read as a pagan parallel to Christ’s cleansing of the temple.
Following the custom of the time, El Greco gives the story a local setting: it is not Troy in the background, but a city which resembles Toledo. As Laocoön writhes in agony, the deadly Trojan horse advances without opposition to inflict its punishment.
Compositionally, the whole picture seems to whirl outward from the head of Laocoön—a dispersed, centrifugal canvas. What helps hold it together, of course, are the figures of Apollo and Artemis buttressing one side, with the upright, struggling body of the son (and downward hook of the sky) limiting the spectacle on the other side. And the whole picture, too, is unified in terms of color, through the relationship of the pervading browns and grayish-greens.
