Lessing’s Laokoon was written as a response to Johann Winckelmann's ”Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums” (1764). Lessing challenges Winckelmann’s interpretation of the famous Laocoon statue, arguing that Winckelmann portrays the figure’s suffering as too noble and composed - an expression suitable for poetry, but not for sculpture, whose medium cannot convey inner emotion in the same way.

“Laokoon is perhaps Lessing’s best known work outside Germany, and it has had a world-wide influence. It takes its name from the famous statue discovered at Rome in the sixteenth century. It analyses the differences between the sculptor’s treatment of Laocoon wrestling with the serpents and Virgil’s treatment of the same theme, and from there goes on to discuss the limits and limitations of all the arts. It contains the first clear statement of the truth, which is now considered axiomatic, that every art is subject to limitations, and can achieve greatness only by a clear understanding of and self-restriction to its proper function. The most telling passages, and those which have borne most fruit, are those on poetry. Lessing knew more about this than about painting and sculpture, for which he was entirely dependent on Winckelmann (210). His exposition of the themes of Homer and Sophocles is especially effective, and he opened up a new prospect in the appreciation of Greek literature.
Yet perhaps Lessing is best judged by the sum of his achievement. He was one of the principal figures in the Aufklärung, the emancipation of German literature from the narrow classicism of the French school. It was he, more than any other, who laid the foundations of the intellectual primacy of German writers and thinkers in the nineteenth century, a debt which they were not slow to acknowledge. Without attaching himself to any special philosophical school, he consistently opposed error and dogmatism, and in art, in poetry, in drama and in religion he provided new stimulation. In the words of Macaulay, he was ‘beyond all dispute the first critic of Europe’.” (PMM 213)

PMM 213