Leonardo da Vinci: A Psychosexual Study of an Infantile ReminiscenceFreud, Sigmund
Science
Leonardo da Vinci: A Psychosexual Study of an Infantile Reminiscence
Freud, Sigmund
Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939 -- Views on art; Leonardo, da Vinci, 1452-1519; Painters -- Italy -- Biography; Psychoanalysis -- Case studies
It is not venturing far to transfer the interpretation obtained from the
funeral expenses to the accounts dealing with his pupils. Accordingly we
would say that here also we deal with a case in which Leonardo's meager
remnants of libidinous feelings compulsively obtained a distorted
expression. The mother and the pupils, the very images of his own boyish
beauty, would be his sexual objects--as far as his sexual repression
dominating his nature would allow such manifestations--and the
compulsion to note with painful circumstantiality his expenses on their
behalf, would designate the strange betrayal of his rudimentary
conflicts. From this we would conclude that Leonardo's love-life really
belonged to that type of homosexuality, the psychic development of which
we were able to disclose, and the appearance of the homosexual situation
in his vulture-phantasy would become comprehensible to us, for it states
nothing more or less than what we have asserted before concerning that
type. It requires the following interpretation: Through the erotic
relations to my mother I became a homosexual.[49]
IV
The vulture phantasy of Leonardo still absorbs our interest. In words
which only too plainly recall a sexual act ("and has many times struck
against my lips with his tail"), Leonardo emphasizes the intensity of
the erotic relations between the mother and the child. A second memory
content of the phantasy can readily be conjectured from the association
of the activity of the mother (of the vulture) with the accentuation of
the mouth zone. We can translate it as follows: My mother has pressed on
my mouth innumerable passionate kisses. The phantasy is composed of the
memories of being nursed and of being kissed by the mother.
[Illustration: MONA LISA]
A kindly nature has bestowed upon the artist the capacity to express in
artistic productions his most secret psychic feelings hidden even to
himself, which powerfully affect outsiders who are strangers to the
artist without their being able to state whence this emotivity comes.
Should there be no evidence in Leonardo's work of that which his memory
retained as the strongest impression of his childhood? One would have to
expect it. However, when one considers what profound transformations an
impression of an artist has to experience before it can add its
contribution to the work of art, one is obliged to moderate considerably
his expectation of demonstrating something definite. This is especially
true in the case of Leonardo.
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