Compare greco's oil painting laocoon with his sculpture laocoon.

Lessing pointed out, "Poetry and painting are both imitative arts, and all laws based on the concept of imitation are equally applicable to poetry and painting, but the media or means they use to imitate are completely different, and the differences in this respect have produced their own special laws." "Painting uses shapes and colors in space. Poetry uses a timely and clear voice. The former is a natural symbol and the latter is a man-made symbol, which are the two sources of the unique laws of poetry and painting. " He came to the conclusion that "since the media symbols used by painting to imitate are really completely different from those used by poetry, that is to say, painting uses the form and color in space, while poetry uses the sound from events;" Because symbols should be incontestably in harmony with what they represent; Then, the symbols juxtaposed in space are only suitable for those things that were originally juxtaposed in space, and the symbols that have been inherited in time are only suitable for those things that were originally inherited in time. All or some things juxtaposed in space are called "objects". Visibility of objects connecting them is a unique theme in painting. Something that lasts in whole or in part in time is generally called' action' (or translated into a plot). Therefore, action is the unique theme of poetry. " It is in this sense that he said that "the ideal of poetry must be the ideal of action (or plot)" and "the highest law of painting is beauty". Of course, he does not exclude an art form to express the objects that other arts are good at: "Painting depicts objects, and through objects, it depicts movements in a suggestive way. Poetry depicts movement, and through movement, it depicts objects in a suggestive way. "

However, he emphasized that poetry, as a time art, is suitable for describing dynamic beauty and its response to beauty, while sculpture, as a space art, is suitable for describing static beauty and rich moments, and should try to avoid describing the peak of passion. In this sense, the book is of special significance for film researchers to understand the characteristics of film art. In Lessing's view, painting is suitable for expressing objects or forms, while poetry is suitable for expressing actions or situations. This view, although China's ancients also once said. For example, in the Jin Dynasty, Lu Ji drew a line between "painting" and "ode to elegance": "Declaring things is more than words, but physically he is not good at painting". Lessing's contribution lies not only in his separation of "thing" and "feeling" from "thing" and "form", but also in his combination of them with two basic categories of philosophy, namely time and space. In other words, Lessing's theoretical discussion should be more in-depth, detailed and systematic. Lessing particularly emphasized that a "poetic painting" cannot be transformed into a "material painting" because words can describe the development of a series of activities in time, while color lines can only describe the spread of a landscape in space. Chernyshevski said; "Since Aristotle, I have never understood the essence of poetry as correctly and profoundly as Lessing." Dobro Lyubov also said: "Lessing created a new poetic theory through Lao Okun, which brought life to the poetic theory and shattered the lifeless formalistic style that dominated all aesthetics before. He proved that poetry is different from all other arts, especially painting, with extraordinary uniqueness, ideological strength and irrefutable logical persuasion, and its basic object is action. ..... Since the appearance of Old Okun, people have realized that the essential content of poetry is a changing life, not a rigid form. "