The Legion of Honor was opened on November 11th, 1924. I didn’t visit it until October 26th, 2019. The museum was a lot of fun; I attended with Xareni Merino and my family. It only took us about 25 minutes until we were scolded. We tried to enter an area that we didn’t know wasn’t open to the public. The Legion of Honor is on top of a gorgeous hill well known as Land’s End. You can also see the famous Golden Gate Bridge from the 25¢ telescopes. This museum is home to the Joan of Arc at the Palace, Laocoön and His Sons, a bronze statue of El Cid Campeador, and a replica of the famous The Thinker.
Something that interested me was the Laocoön and His Sons, outside the museum. Although it was really hard to get to, it was an amazing piece when I was able to get up close. Except if you don’t know much about art, and I don’t, it was really hard to identify this piece because it doesn’t have a plaque or something that identifies it. It was also a little hard to get to. People who don’t know where it is located will see it first outside two doors downstairs to the left. You cannot access the statue through those doors. You have to go all the way around the museum and onto a small gravel path to get to it. The Laocoön and His Sons is a statue of three men with maybe one or two snakes coiled around the three men.
The largest man is Laocoön and the smaller two are his sons. There are so many textures to this statue. With the cloth, their hair, the skin, and the snake’s body. You can also see that there is a triangular shape to the entire sculpture (picture 1) and a circular shape to it too (picture 2). The triangular shape is more obvious with the head at the peak, and the elbows of the two sons at the left and right angles. On the other hand, the circular shape is a little less obvious. There are no longer snakes coiled around the three men, but it’s clear that there once was. These snakes would have led our eyes clockwise around the statue. Even though the sons are younger and smaller than their father, they still have muscular bodies because they are still perfect. You can also see the cloth at the bottom of one of the son’s feet. You would think this is just meant to be decoration, but it’s holding that figure up. This particular statue was probably the original first copy of the Roman copy. This copy was also found during the Renaissance during Michelangelo’s time. It was found in 1506 on Esquiline Hill in Rome. The Laocoön and His Sons were very influential in Renaissance art. Unlike the art of its time, the entire story is mostly in the front. It’s not like the Farnese Hercules where you need to walk around the entire sculpture to see the whole story.