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Leonardo da Vinci
Completion Date: c.1492
Place of Creation: Italy




FREUD AND LEONARDO
THE COMPLETION OF A DEBATE

Nayden Nikolov




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Yearbook of Burgas Free University
Jubilee issue 10 years from the founding of the Burgas Free University
Volume Six, 2001

FREUD AND LEONARDO THE COMPLETION OF A DEBATE
Nayden Nikolov

Freud Thesis

In the light of the essence of the current paper I will mainly focus my attention on
Sigmund Freuds Leonardo Da Vinci, and A Memory of His Childhood (1991), no matter the
existence of many other, now classic expressions, regarding the aesthetic discourse of
artists such as Jensens Gradiva, Goethes Poetry and Truth and Dostoevskys
bibliography. This literature piece by Freud is in the center of a never ending debate, either
because of Freuds scandalous hypothesis for the suppressed psychological existence of
passive homosexuality in Leonardo da Vinci, or because of the comic situation in which the
translation of the original material is mistaken.
In this paper, I will try to answer two main questions:
First of all, how can we reconstruct the content of Freuds main thesis for Leonardos
personality and art, following their logical order in which they shocked the general public with
their psychoanalytic outcomes? Second of all, what is the main methodological problem that
stands out in the process of describing the main stands in the debate on the theme what
are the possible interpretations of the debate after it is critically reviewed from a modern
viewpoint?
The first thesis in Freuds research is focused on the specific, emotionally ambivalent
relationship of the genius with his work. Edmund Solmi, a student of Leonardo, has said that
the maestro had such a sublime view of the art, that he found mistakes where others
found miracles (Freud, 1991). There is a number of artefacts of Leonardo that he has left
unfinished even after a numerous years of work on them. On this topic Freud (1991) says:as
if some foreign, alien interest, the interest of the experimentation at the beginning comes to
strengthen the artistic idea and then to bully the art. The achievement of the artistic aim is
submerged, delayed in time and replaced by the need for knowing the object in a full detail.
This overpowering passion of the inventor is what pushes Leonardo way further from love and
hate, good and evil, further from his own artistic interests, and makes him an inventor, a
pioneer in science, an engine to any future civilized changes.
The second thesis is in relation to the psychoanalytic explanation of the first observed
phenomenon the overgrowth of Leonardos instinct to explore results from his actions during
his early childhood under the development of the effect of sexuality. According to Freud,
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during the geniuss childhood, the need for exploration was under the control of his sexual
aims the so called infantile sexual exploration, and later on with the assistance of the
mechanisms for repression and sublimation, the sexual interest replaces its primal aims with
other more highly praised non-sexual aims in the field of aesthetics and science. Leonardos
libido is highly successful in its sublimation both in his aesthetic and scientific interests, during
which Leonardos sexual life suffers (Freud, 1991).
The third thesis summarizes the main result of Freuds study using a psychoanalytic
reconstruction of the empirical material, we can observe an unconscious, repressed
psychological content a passive, subline homosexuality in Leonardos personality. The
evidence that Freud gave on this matter are of diverse nature. The main attention falls on the
memory or even the fantasy of Leonardo over his own younger years. In his personal notes,
Leonardo shares how when he was an infant, a vulture was descending over his crib trying to
open his mouth with its tail splashing Leonardos lips. It is not a coincidence that Freud uses
exactly this key moment of Leonardos diary the presence of the vulture is associated with
the mother figure in the ancient Egyptian religion. The goddess Mutt was painted as a half-
person who had the head of a vulture. It is possible that in his fascination with science and
nature Leonardo received information about the ancient Egyptian belief that the vulture is a
female creature that can conceive from the wind.
On the other hand, the illegitimate birth of Leonardo and the absence of a father figure
during his early childhood both coordinate with the vulture in his dream. Freud reads this
image as a substitute for his strong libido commitment to his mother, as a fixation on his
previous experiences in his youth in relation to his sucking reflex. Freud regards Leonardos
fantasy of treatment of the mouth as a hint towards his felacio, which in terms can lead to
the theory of Leonardos passive homosexuality (Freud, 1991).
Freud explains that suggestion of his with a number of androgen facts known from the
psychoanalytical reconstructions of ones experiences in their childhood and from the ancient
history of various cultures. These are suggested by the infantile sexual theories of the little boy
concerning the existence of male sex features in the mother which in archaic cultures are
projected in cosmological aspect under the form of androgynous deities. The ancient
Egyptians often painted the goddess Mutt- the mother deity, as a vulture of hermaphrodite
nature: in her upper body she had female features; in the lower part of her body she had a
phallus. According to Freud, the sexual embiverty, that found its way into Leonardos fantasy
with the vulture, clears up some facts from the biography and artistic facts of Leonardos life.
The strong sexual connection of the little Leonardo with his mother Catherine, in combination
with his missing father all sum up in the inversion of Leonardos psychosexual development.
The love towards his mother is forced into the unconscious and labelled as wrong and
unacceptable in the further development of the boy. Leonardo identifies with this strong love
towards his mother and uses this feeling to view his personality as a result from a choice one
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makes during ones sexual maturation. Freud suggests that the teenagers Leonardo loves
later on in his life are only a mere substitutes of his own childish personality the choice of
who to love was made by following the path of a the secondary regress leading to
autoerotism and narcissism (Freud, 1991).
Freud finds another proof for his main thesis in the analysis of Leonardos biographical
data, other written sources, some of Leonardos own memories and artistic works or by
quoting others who have researched the geniuss life. In any case we have to bear in mind
that Freud thought that Leonardos unconscious need leaves scars which are barely visible in
his day to day behavior. In one of Leonardos biographies there is a single accusation of a
homosexual contact during his time as an apprentice in Verokios atelier a charge he was
later on found innocent of. Another biographic accent in these field is Leonardos artistic
choice to be a mentor of young and beautiful boys who were not very talented and none of
them left behind a significant artistic heritage (Freud, 1991).
The fourth Freudian thesis is in support of the rest of his theories which characterize the
peculiarities of Leonardos artistic activity and his psychosexual development. This thesis is
focused on the psychoanalytic interest towards the specifics of Leonardos relationship with
his father. The biographic data, concerning Leonardos childhood, which Freud cites are very
time constricted: Leonardo was born in 1452 in the town of Vinci, near to Florence as the
illegitimate child of the poor peasant girl Catherine and the local notary Piero da Vinci.
Leonardo was raised in his fathers home by his fathers first wife Donna Albiery who had no
children of her own. The time Leonardo left his fathers home and went on to be apprentice
in the atelier of Andrea Del Verokio is unknown. Later on his father married three more times
and had ten more sons and three more daughters. It is speculated that Leonardos mother
was married to another man from the town of Vinci.
According to Freud the negative influence that the absence of Leonardos father in his
early years was later on substituted by a normal relationship of competition between the
two men, which was a result from the Oedipus situation that occurred when Leonardo was
taken care of by Donna Albiery. These events and their influence on Leonardo correspond
with some of his psychological characteristics later on in his life. Leonardo leaves his works
(towards which Freud claims Leonardo felt like a father to) the same way he was abandoned
by his father in his early childhood. On the contrary, Leonardos need to imitate and beat his
father regarding his social prestige, nobility, attitude toward luxury and beauty was immense,
no matter that, as Vazari says, Leonardo did not have the resources to compete with his
father. In Freuds (1991) view, his rebellion towards his father was the infantile condition for
his impressive work as a scientist.
The fact that Leonardos father did not challenge in any way his sons infantile sexual
scouting gave Leonardo the freedom to realize his later scientific explorations. According to
Freud, Leonardos overcoming of the dogmatic belief in a god, can be analyzed as a
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symbolic dethroning of his fathers influence; and the possibility that in the essence of nature
is hidden the source of every truth can be analyzed as the result of the influence of the
kind and caring mother who nurses him (Freud, 1991). This anti dogmatic attitude motivates
Leonardo for a revision of the dogmatic and scholastic understandings; furthermore, it turns
him into the first experimental scientists of the Frontier.

Psychoanalytic Demystifying

First of all, Freud believed that the facts about Leonardos psychological life could
explain the birth of a numerous number of his works that have captured the audience
attention and astonishment for over 500 years. The first of this challenges is the mystique smile
of some of the personages in his paintings. The portrait of Mona Lisa Del Giocondo captures
the viewer with its magical and mystical smile. In most of the hypothesis, related to the
famous smile, the idea of a multiple meaning behind it and the idea of an emotional
ambivalence of the whole impression of the painting are most common. Mona Lisas smile
transcends both modesty and covered lust, comeliness and intention to seduce, kindness
and cruelty.
According to Mary Hercfields (1906) institution, Leonardo discovered himself in the
face of Mona Lisa. Regardless of the mentioned considerations, Freud was not satisfied at all
with any of the reasonable explanations of the genius artistic phenomenon that the painting
is. The only way to demystify the meaning behind the Mona Lisa smile is to strictly obey the
phases of psychoanalytical reconstruction. According to Freud (1991), the generous nature
has granted Leonardo with attributes that make it possible for him to express in unique way his
personal unrest through the field of artistic reality.
During his long years of work on this portrait, Leonardo had the opportunity to relive one
of his unconscious psychological attitude and identification from his childhood years. The
memory of the lost gentle kisses and warm smile of his mother Catherine surfaces in
Leonardos artistic gesture and gave birth to his peculiar emotionally ambivalent impression
of his art work. Leonardo stays true to his childish memory with the secretive smile of Mona Lisa
which gifts the viewer with a never ending kindness or threat. According to Freud, the
mothers tenderness was utterly important for Leonardos later perceptions. The poor
abandoned woman had to incorporate her own unlived need for affection into her mothers
love. She had to not only fill the absence of a loving husband in her life, but also the absence
of a caring father to her son. Her efforts in this direction led to her exaggerated kindness
followed by Leonardos premature development of erotic longings which later on sacrificed
parts of his manliness (Freud, 1991).
In the work Leonardo painted after the Giaconda, St. Ann Virgin and Child (1510),
once again Freud discovers the presence of the lovely leonardian smile covering the lips of
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the female figures in the painting. There is something else we can observe in Leonardos work
instead of following the traditional plot of the sacrifice, where St. Anna is Marys mother and
Jesuss grandmother, Leonardo, dictated by his personal experience from his child years,
gave Jesus two mothers. Even more, in his addition to the text of 1923, Freud notes the details
of an alternative of the same plot the so called London carton, in which the two figures
cannot be graphically separated from each other a fact which for a long time was thought
to be an artistic mishap or mistake. In psychological terms, the inner Leonardos need to
merge the two mothers of his childhood (Catherine and Donna Albiera) is expressed in this
painting (Freud, 1991).
In another note on the issue of 1919 Freud develops his previous analysis on the
painting St. Ann Virgin and Child on the basis of Oscar Pfisters revelation that Marys dress
actually hides another unconscious painting. In it one can clearly see the figure of the vulture
a symbol of motherhood. What is more, in the lower part of the painting Pfister (1913)
recognizes the tail of the vulture which is pointing at the childs mouth, a reenactment of
Leonardos dream as a child. According to Freud, even though this thesis brings up a lot of
skepticism, it is important to pay attention to it.
In the more recent work of Leonardo like Vakh and St. John the Baptist, Freud once
again finds the specific leonardian smile, this time gracing the feminine features of the
young boys faces. They look at you mysteriously triumphant, as if they are aware of some
big happiness which they have to keep a secret about; the well-known enchanting smile
hints that this is a secret of love. Freud claims that Vasaris data about the content of
Leonardos first artistic attempts the clay sculpted laughing heads of women and kids,
which strike us with their breath taking beauty, is similar to the previous statement. This two
kinds of objects from Leonardos early artistic years confirm the artists unconscious sexual
perceptions, which are psychoanalytically reconstructed in his fantasy of the vulture and in
his later works of art after the Mona Lisa portrait.

The Debate Continues

It comes as no surprise that the debate which Freud started has continued and
developed into many different fields such as History of Arts, Culture Studies, History and
Psychology. Some of the main critiques on the Freudian approach, conclusions and
relevance of the empirical data he used in his research, may be divided in two main
categories. In the first category one can find concrete answers to facts; in the second one -
matters of more general, problematic and psychoanalytical approach of Freud towards art
and culture as a whole or important and influential cultural and historical phenomena.
In Psychology of Art Lev Vygotsky (1987) critiques the psychoanalytical reconstruction
of Freud. According to Vygotsky (1987, p. 68): Freud tries to explain his (Leonardos) faith
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and his whole work with his experience as a young child. On the other hand, as Vygotsky has
observed, the psychoanalysis has a catalogue of sexual symbols, that remain constant and
universal and are always read the same way across different nations and cultures and always
points the interpretation of works of art in the direction of the Oedipus complex. Hence,
everyone is stuck with an Oedipus complex and even in their most heightened activity
periods they relieve over and over again their childish infantility. Lev Vygotsky believes, that
for every serious explorer of Leonardo it is absolutely and undoubtedly clear how non-
sufficient is the role of Freuds vital sexual symbol from Leonardos dream in the artists work.
Furthermore, Vygotsky (1987) regards the psycho-analytical approach towards art as
unsufficient mainly because: 1) it overestimates the unconscious psychological processes of
art and in Freuds theory it brings all the attention to sexuality and 2) it underestimates the
social and aesthetic form, through which means the artists objectively realizes the wider
social context. Nevertheless, Vygotsky finds a few helpful and positive parts of the
psychoanalytical approach. According to him, this is a valuable attempt for widening the
scientific sphere of psychology of art, by translating the problems of the unconscious and not
focusing only on the problem of the conscious as it was done before. This is how
psychoanalysis attempts to answer the question: how the unconscious in the art does
become social (Vygotsky, 1987). Following this line of thoughts, Vygotsky concludes that it is
necessary to constitute a socio-psychological interpretation of the symbolic meaning found
in art and its historical development. According to Vygotsky (1987), this analysis should also
include both the small circle of the private lives of the artists and the bigger circle of their
social lives, or more accurately put: art as a social answer to the unconscious (Vygotsky,
1987).
From the standpoint of analytical psychology, Carl Gustave Jung, critiques not only
the current analysis of Leonardos art, but also Freuds methodology of art and culture. In his
text Sigmund Freud viewed as a culturally historical phenomenon Jung shares that Freuds
approach is very similar to the approach of the scandalous gossip columns in the newspapers
because of Freuds inability to offer a positive program, his fixation on a few specific facts
from ones past, while completely demolishing other facts which in perspective may be of
significant importance (Jung, 1992). According to Jung (1992), an example of this in the
current Freuds investigation of Leonardo and the problem of his two mothers. Jung believes
that no matter the objective circumstances of Leonardos childhood in which he was raised
by a mother and a stepmother, the theme of the two mothers is rather mythological. Its
influence can be found in reality even if the facts are different. It is common for the hero of
mythological tales among many cultures to have two mothers. When we talk about Egyptian
pharaones, Jung continues, in order for them to be a part of the ancient Egyptian mythology
and social order, they had to have to mothers. Jung reads a kind of search for negativity,
abnormality, pathologically different in Freuds explanation of the two mothers problem. As if
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Freud dismissed all criteria for scientific prudence and possibility for multiple aspects of the
problem. As far as Jung is concerned, Freuds approach is truthful not to the scientific
accuracy, which does not aim at scandalizing the general public, but rather to the world
history task of reveling the secrets that hide behind the mysterious personality of Leonardo.
Jung (1992) supposes that it is not hard to represent the Leonardian St. Anna with her
three characters as a classical image of the mythological motive of the two mothers.
Nonetheless, Freud with his late Victorian psychology, and for his widest audience it is far
more compelling to use the psychoanalysis and discover how Leonardos father has created
the great artist by chance (Jung, 1992). Jung (1992) believes that the mythological motive of
the two mothers is of great interest to those who have used true scientific methods to study it,
but the general public will not be as eager to listen to their conclusions as they listen to
Freuds one way theory that looks for negativity and abnormality.
In Leonardo and Freud: a research on history of art, Maier Shapiro (1956) puts an
accent on the possible gaps regarding the validity of the research Freud could have made in
his psychoanalytical reconstruction. When Merry Hercfield translated from Italian to German
the data upon which Freud analysis is based, she made the mistake to translate the word
nibio as vulture. The correct translation is to German is Milvus. Scientists such as Earnest Jones
(1955), Irma Rihter (1952), James Strechy (1957) the translation mistake is an important fact
that must be considered when we evaluate the validity of Freuds research. In our need to be
more objective we must go back at the scientific data about the ancient Egyptian religious
system which is founded upon the Milvus bird and whether Freuds interpretation on the
vulture related to the goddess Mutt. The German researcher Kees (1956) mentions that, in
fact, there is some data pointing towards the conclusion that the ancient Egyptians (more
precisely in El Caba) did have a cult towards the Milvus bird. The goddess Milvus was
considered a protector of pharaones throughout the whole history of Egypt. Actually, in
Karnak the goddess Milvus was considered to be another face of the goddess Mutt wife to
Amon (Kees, 1956).
Erich Neumann critiques Freuds research from the viewpoint of Analytical Psychology.
In, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, Neumann (1966) stresses out not the
mistake in the translation that we mentioned earlier in this paper, but rather the double
meaning of the birds tail it can be seen either as a mothers bosom, or a phallus. The
ancient symbol depicting a serpent eating its own tail (ouroboros) symbolizes the cyclicality
and the eternal return in the Ancient Egyptian culture. It is a metaphor both for the feminine
and the masculine, a fable of The Great Mother (Neumann, 1966). In contrast to Freuds
psychopathologic interpretation that centers on the mystique and blurred memories of
Leonardos youth years, Neumanns approach sheds light on the unconscious power of
archetypes, which are stronger than ones personality. According to Neumann (1966), the
results of those are found in Leonardos art and his portrayal of the archetype of the mother
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and the feminine beginning. It is not enough to explain the fusion of masculine and feminine
elements in the symbol of the mother in Leonardos fantasy simply with the roots of a latent
homosexual predisposition or infantile boyish image of the genius organization of the mother.
Neumann believes that it is more accurate to incorporate the knowledge of natural
predispositions of Leonardos individual development and the cultural heritage he has
regarding the archaic social dogmas about the beginning of life. The author comes very
close to Jungs idea of the relationship between the individual and the societal
unconsciousness, but he concentrates on the specificity of their interplay in Leonardos
personality and in his work. Nevertheless, Neumann (1966) reconfirms many of Freuds
elements of the analysis as possible in a more personal perspective, but he criticizes the
dismissal of the importance and the influence of archetypical, culturally and socially
accepted knowledge for the beginning of life. Both Leonardos personality and work, with
their multiple facets and constant contradiction, may be considered a consequence of the
major turn point that occurs in the civilizational dynamic of the Western society. They are a
sign of the unconscious change that occurs during the era he lives in and shifts than happen
in his cultural cannon. The classical Christian archetype of the patriarchate that revolves
around God The Creator, transforms into an archetype of The Mother and the nature (her
symbol) (Neumann, 1996). Thus, Neumann believes that Leonardo is the innovator who
created the interest towards nature and the new regard of nature, people and what is divine
(Neumann, 1996).
A similar process is mentioned by Kalin Janakiev (1998) in his attempt for
contemplative theology. His impressive knowledge in the comparison of the traditional
Orthodox representation of Mary and the images of her painted by western artists, including
Leonardo, demonstrates exactly that change that occurred in the West. The image of Virgin
and Child becomes the foundation of an anthropological model of the value system that
later on becomes widely known (Janakiev, 1998). The secular tendency of the Renaissance
art undergoes a change due to the highlighted earthly and natural character of the images
of the Holly Mother and her Child portrait in the sacral compositions of numerous artists.
As far as objectivity of psycho-historical explanation goes, according to Saul
Fridlender (1993), Freuds research is under the threat of a double approximately. The main
principle that Freud described in his paper, which on one hand explains the relationship
between Leonardos over attachment to his mother and homosexuality, and on the other
explains the relationship between the lack of father figure and the development of
Leonardos scientific attention to detail, both lead to the usage of a double approximity.
Nevertheless, if there is some statistical data found in clinical researches to support the first of
those statements, which argues about the pattern of psychosexual development, the second
Freudian thesis leaves us unsure. According to Fridlender (1993), it is highly important to take
into consideration the complex psychoanalytical understanding of over determination in a
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certain psychological phenomenon. Hence, Fridlender finds a steady base of his opinion in
The Language of Psycho-Analysis co-written by Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis
(1973), the symptom carries the signature of the influence of the different meanings,
among which it makes a compromise.

Psychoanalytic discourse - between the personal and the social

After I managed to systematically describe the content reconstruction of the main
thesis of Freuds research and some other viewpoints in the never ending debate on the
theme I would like to focus the attention on the general outline of its discourse activity. One
of the main motives of this paper is to illustrate Freuds aspiration to demystify and dynamize
some of the major stereotypes and myths regarding emblematic western European cultural
phenomena and personalities. There is no place for doubt that Leonardo and his work are
enveloped in mystery and have enough of this mythological and cultural resource. Thus, in
the beginning of and in the end of his pathography Freud exaggerates with the traditional
biographic and historical studies of great figures. According to Freud (1991, p.5), nobody is
that great, for them to be ashamed to obey the laws that govern equally both the normal
and the ill actions. On the other hand, he claims that as a result of ones personal emotional
life and ones unanswered inner conflicts, an artist would often recreate their infantile images
(for instance, of their father) through the characters they create in their work and the
idealization they seem to completely fall into. After Freud publishes Leonardo da Vinci. A
Memory of His Childhood (1910), his most influential work in the field of psychoanalysis, he
continues his research on the matter with further studies such as Dostoevsky and Parricide
(1928), A Childhood Recollection From Dichtung and Wahreheit (1917) and Woodrow
Wilson: A Psychological Study (1966) co-written by William Bullit.
Another visible aim of Freud is to affirm the role of the psychoanalytical research and
the science of psychiatry, not only in the light of their mundane therapeutic forms, but also as
a critical theory and practice of significant socio-historical and cultural phenomena. This
critical attitude which demystifies the mainstream social biases motivates Freud to practice
the psychoanalytical interpretations not only towards individual patience, but also towards
socio-psychological phenomena, important issues and some of the existing dilemmas in
social ontology like psychology of the group, religion, ethnic culture and civilization. Some of
his major accomplishments in this direction are Taboo and Totem (1912), Group Psychology
and the Analyses of the Ego (1921), The Future of an Illusion (1927), Civilization and Its
Discontents (1930), Moses and Monotheism (1939).
Nowadays, we relate Freud to the psychology of the individual and a therauptetic part
of psychology is due to the fact that a major part of his followers and his general public did
not grasp the idea of the two aspects in the application and orientation of the
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psychoanalytical method. Thus, Freuds need to accomplish practical social effect on a
global scale coming from the realization of numerous unconscious historical attitudes is
eliminated. Such attitudes regard the incomprehensible and somewhat hostile bias towards
Jews and how this matter raises the question of a need for a worldwide organization, which
manages conflicts between nations.
The following division in the psychoanalytical movement was motivated not only by the
difference in basic models of personality of Adler, Jung, From, Erikson and the remaining of
the authors who have a rather psychoanalytical tendencies, but also by their inability to
capture the essence of the dual utilization of psychoanalysis. They understood the individual
application of the method, but kept their distance from the questioned social application.
This situation is somewhat dictated by Freuds own inconsistencies and contradictions evident
in his legacy. As we can see, in Leonardos analyses of personality and work, Freud focuses
mainly on the individuals determinants of his artistic development and the determinants in his
closest family.
After I shared some of the crucial notes on the psychoanalytical reconstruction of Freud
and a number of the possible reasons regarding its motivation, how can I summarize the main
methodological problem, which stands out? Without a doubt, this is a classical problem for
psychoanalyses as a whole the specific integration of factors of determination of
psychological and cultural phenomenon: the specific individual and socio-psychological,
factors that go beyond the personal factors. Sigmund Freud goes even further in his
interpretation. When he defines the border lines for the usage of psychoanalytical
reconstruction he claims that,Because the artistic productivity is closely related to the
sublimation, we have to admit that the nature of the artistic work is untouchable by
psychoanalysis (Freud, 1991). The data we receive from the psychoanalytical interpretation
of Leonardos personality and work are reduced by Freud to the understanding of the source
of the artists behavior events from his early childhood play a significant role in its
understanding. Freud claims if another person lived through what Leonardo lived, could not
under any circumstances sublimate that successfully the gathered psychological content in a
thirst for knowledge and improvement. Under the same influences, another person would be
under the threat of major distortion of their mental capacity and thought processes or would
be suffering of severe neuroses. According to Freud, Leonardo demonstrates his amazing
ability of sublimation, the roots of which can be found only in Biology (Freud, 1991). Therefore,
Freud (1991) starts a perspective for the development of neurological and psychosomatic
studies of biological determinants of the abilities and achievements of an artist.
Thus far, It can be summarized that Freuds approach towards Leonardos personality
and artistic work, is a an attempt to use the artists work, memories and individual differences
in order to reconstruct his returning crypto-traumatic personal content from the early
childhood years as a psycho-dynamic process. A similar attempt of Freud is found in the
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psychoanalytical reconstruction of the socio-psychological phenomena. In a cultural and
anthropological aspect, the phenomena of the Judeus monotheistic religious tradition
(Moses and Monotheism, 1939) is a result of the returning crypto-traumatic social content of a
psychologically dynamic social process which is also a foundation of the dynamics of the
civilization.
In both cases the psychoanalytical approach uses one main methodology which
reconstructs different psychological phenomena up to a certain key mechanism the
compromise of the returning to an actual aesthetic or social reality of the suppressed and the
hidden from the conscious, psychological content, which occurred as a result of incentive
experiences in the past in an individual or social context. This is the exact characteristic of the
psychoanalytical approach that we should bear in mind in this case. The founding of the
interpretation over the transgression of the incest and the psychosomatic aspects.
The modern critical assimilation of this problematic situation points us towards the
necessity to acquire a more differentiated diferencia specifica of the many levels of analysis
of artistic and social phenomena, which as we have already mentioned are confronting. A
foundation of these new interpretations could, on one hand, be the mentioning in the
analysis of the specific meaning of individual and socio-psychological determinants, and on
the other, the need for integration of this conflict positions through the principles of the
common complementarity and interdependence. Because every time you go to extremes,
regarding this disposition, you will either reach a individualistic or collectivistic
fundamentalism, and both of them dictate the valuable content of a certain theoretical
model in the following two directions. The first one, devaluating the personality and
diminishing any individual differences, and the second one oversimplifying the social aspect
and taking the meaning away from its levels of importance. A similar one-sided position is
generally under the threat to exaggerate the ideology instead of the content.
This problem transcends in the field of artistic work. As I have shown previously, in my
analysis of Diego Velazquez Las Meninas, the art emancipate itself from any other form of
sociality in the new European tradition. It starts to relate to another visibly individualistic model
of the value system of artistic activism (Nikolov, 1998).
A very extreme form of the dominant Western European cultural tradition in XIX-XX
century is the scientific fiction of a conflict between the genius and the majority, between
personality, viewed as a titanic appearance of the socially important and the socially
indifferent public. Exactly this attitude towards an aristocracy of the elite is both denounced
and reaffirmed in Freuds psychoanalytic reconstruction of Leonardo. Freuds need to
personalize in debt the social and aesthetic form of the artistic activity, to reach for the
boundaries not only the boundaries of the personal, but also the ones of the psychosomatic.
As Jung (1992) claims, the characteristics of this artistic activity is more of an affirmation of the
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dominant social attitude, an answer to the already formed expectations of the majority of
the people from the late Victorian era.
Freuds hypothesis for the unique biological possibilities coordinates with the previously
stated theory of Jung. Freud claims that Leonardos biologically inherited qualities give the
artist the opportunity to successfully incorporate the traumatic events of his childhood in his
artistic career. Hence, the social differentiation is revealed regarding the somatic-the other,
as in the common which does not have such biological predispositions as Leonardos,
would be left in the captivity of their traumatic events (Freud, 1991).
On the other hand, the traditional approach of historiography and biography towards
major historical figures the one of idealization which reaches mythological scales, is not
incorporated in Freud analysis. Both for the genius and for the other weak human
material from the clinical practice apply the same psychological laws in their lives.
According to him, there is nothing shameful or weak in the perspective of founding
unacceptable or even conflicting with the dominant moral factors facts, from the
psychological lives of the great historical figures, because they also have their mundane
needs (Freud, 1991). This is why the main thesis in Freuds research about the existence of a
latent homosexuality part of Leonardos personality comes as such a shock.
Therefore, the major question, according to me, is to what extend the revealed
individually specific aspects determine the socially important character of Leonardos art. The
problem here is not if the psychoanalytical results of Freud are right or wrong I am willing
to accept its effects especially in relation to some objective data gathered from history of art
and shared by Leonardo himself. The problem stems in the fact that after such a fully
conducted psychological reconstruction of Freuds main thesis we come to the conclusion
that he explained all of Leonardos work through his individual differences from the early
childhood the illegitimate birth of the artist, his abandonment from his father, the extreme
emotional and eroticized commitment to his mother, the influence of the two mothers, an
infantile sexual investigation free from a fathers eye which led to hid living through the
situation and repercussions of the Oedipus complex. When we throw into the mix Freuds
hypothesis for the unique biological characteristics of Leonardo, which gave him the ability to
successfully sublimate his traumatic childhood into his art I may say that Freuds approach
towards Leonardo was an extreme form of individualistic fundamentalism. Here, Freuds
attempt to share his idea of the socially important unity in the psychoanalytical narrative
through the terms of the incest psychosomatic during the early childhood period is rather a
regress. No matter the fact that at first he succeeds to lay the grounds of a science of the
personality and clear up the theories regarding Leonardos mystique appearance, Freud
actually does the opposite. He adds new elements to Leonardos mythical appearance with
the help of a highly sophisticated literacy.
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Regarding the main methodological problem, outlined in the psychoanalytical
interpretation, of the relation between personality and society, Sigmund Freuds major
contribution comes from his work during 1915-1917. According to me and some other
Bulgarian researchers such as Liudmil Georgiev in The double face of Psychoanalysis
(Georgiev, 1997), Freuds work from this period is an attempt to overcome the
fundamentalism of the collective via differentiation of the subject in three levels of personality
which are responsible for the function of different psychological processes the unconscious,
the preconscious and the conscious.
A deficit in Freuds methodology is his inability to overcome the individualistic
fundamentalism by differentiating certain socio-psychological levels of social ontology which
have their own content, dynamic and hierarchy. If the metapsychological model of the
dominant individuality-centered therapeutic practice was a methodological enough reason,
its enforcement, without reformulation for the specifics of social ontology conducted by
Freud, was more of an attempt of his scientific inflation.
Therefore, it is understandable why a number of scientists blame Freuds theory of
reductionism an attempt to reduce the laws under which the different levels of social
ontology operate to the personality centered psychoanalytical model, which turns out to be
unsuccessful. A great example of the application of the methodology of psychoanalysis is the
theories and analysis of Erich From, Eric Ericson, and in the borders of Bulgaria Liudmil
Georgiev.
In conclusion, the current paper did not intend to represent another model of exploring
the question in hand. Nevertheless, for the future I may offer to the public my own
interpretation of Leonardos personality and his work, which at the time was the most
affirmative and revolutionary attempt of a human to interfere in what God has created. A
man who helped to build the world.













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REFERENCES

Freud, S., (1991), Leonardo Da Vinci and the Memory of His Childhood, Sofia: Bulgarian
painter, p.5, p.7, p.9 pp 14-35, pp 41-51, p.56, pp. 60-61.
Fridlender, S., (1993), History and Psychoanalysis, Sofia: Agres, pp. 40-43.
Georgiev, L., (1997), , ,
10, pp. 16-17.
Herzfeld, M., (1906), (ed.) Leonardo da Vinci der Denker, Ferscher and Poet, Zweiti Anflage,
Iena, p. 88.
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psychoanalytische und psychopathologische Forschunger, Leipzig, p. 147.
Richter, I., (1952), (ed.) Selections from Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, p. 286.
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Vygotsky, L.S., (1987), Psychology of Art, Moscow: Pedagogics, pp. 68-83.






16

ANNEXE


1. Leonardo da Vinci (1504), Mona Lisa Del Giokondo, Muse du Louvre

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2. Leonardo Da Vinci (1510), St. Ann Virgin and Child, Muse du Louvre


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3. Leonardo Da Vinci (1515), St. John the Baptist, Muse du Louvre





Author: Nayden Nikolov 2001, All right reserved. SU St. Kliment Ohridski, Sofia, Bulgaria.
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