Claire Brentnall
Within the vast body of Sigmund Freud’s work, we can venture down pathways and find doors that stand ajar, that enable us to glimpse further into his psyche. The multifaceted persona of Freud is often revealed to us, whether or not this was his intention. This is something that is notable in the remarkable text The Moses of Michelangelo, a piece of writing by Freud that I feel, provides significant spy holes onto areas of his life that, possibly, display conflicts between his artistic interests and his scientific discoveries. To consider this notion I am going to do a close reading and critique of the first section of this text: the introduction before he begins his close observation of the statue. I will however, make reference to other areas of the text, other articles by Freud, and wider reading to strengthen my argument.
One of the reasons why I describe this text as remarkable is due to the curious fact that Freud chose to write it anonymously. He opens with a sentence explaining that he is no art historian or expert, and sets about writing with the deceit of “layman” to the arts. The footnote attached to the title enforces his (somewhat unconvincing) disguise, with the explanation that the supposed editor gives as to why this article has been published in Imago. Here, Freud makes the tongue-in-cheek remark of the author moving in psychoanalytic circles, and that the text has “a certain resemblance to the methodology of psycho-analysis”. This rejection of authorship alone, attaches a sense of mystery, almost romance to the text. It raises the question of why Freud initially refused to put his name to what is a beautiful and brilliant piece of writing, until acknowledging it finally ten years later.
A number of explanations for this fact could be obtained from a close reading of the text. For instance, it is possible that, on a superficial level, he was concerned that the reader may see his analysis of the statue as absurd, or controversial enough to subsequently damage his credibility as an acclaimed scholar. This would not be a farfetched deduction, as Freud bases his examination of Michelangelo’s Moses around a complete reworking of the Bible story, something that indeed, must have been met with much trepidation.
Or, perhaps it is his intention to set up a case for psychoanalysis, impressing upon the audience that the techniques of the science can, and should, be applied to all intellectual pursuits. This notion, coming from the perspective of someone who is only loosely associated with the practice, would be seen as less biased than if coming straight from the horse’s mouth. An endorsement of psychoanalysis is noticeable later in the article, as Freud writes with admiration of the “revolution” of Ivan Hermolieff, the Russian art-connoisseur, who was able to distinguish the difference between authentic artworks and copies. Freud pushes the importance of using techniques comparable to those used in psychoanalysis, such as paying close attention to detail, even of the most seemingly minor elements, as it is these minute particulars that every “artist executes in his own characteristic way”. It would appear that Freud is giving himself a mischievous pat on the back, by acknowledging his own discovery of the necessity for analysts to practice “evenly-suspended attention”.
These reasons, and indeed many more, could have contributed towards Freud neglecting to put his name to the article, however I feel that there is one possibility that is particularly crucial if we are to look towards a deeper explanation. This is implicit in the fact that he described the piece as a “love child”, and also in his initial hesitation to write the article at all. These factors suggest that maybe to Freud, the origins of this text were wrong. The Moses of Michelangelo, I feel was born out of an inexplicable, unfathomable, love. I put this notion forward because he clearly had intense feelings towards this statue, so much so that he admits in the text that no other piece of statuary has made such a strong impression on him. It could be said that it was an obsession of his, as he was enthralled by it, visiting the Moses year after year, making endless sketches, notes, observations, and interpretations. However, is it possible that Freud was afraid of this kind of passion? Did it awaken in him some feeling that perhaps repulsed or unsettled him?
There is a noteworthy crack in the article, out of which seeps the contradictory nature of Freud in relation to this concept. In the first paragraph, he establishes a void between himself and “the artist”, by enforcing how lacking he is of the ability to appreciate the formal and effectual aspects of artworks, taking interest solely in their subject matter. He seems to be underscoring his outlook and interests as scientific, as it is the artistic types who in fact put the technical qualities of a work first. However, in the second paragraph, he admits that works of art do in fact “exercise a powerful effect on me”, despite not knowing what their effect is due to. He confesses to experiencing emotional attachment to art objects, particularly literature and sculpture, before he has understood them and explained why they have affected him in this way. But then, as if realizing what he has just revealed, Freud immediately contradicts himself by denying such an affectation, and states that his mind “rebels” against the irrational thought of being moved by something he does not understand. This is clearly at odds with his rationalistic and analytical mindset, which underpins his scientific approach.
It is in the earlier paper, Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood, that Freud expresses his appreciation of the man whom he greatly admires, describing da Vinci as one “among the greatest of the human race”. It has been said of this text that Freud identifies himself with Leonardo to the extent of it being an overtly autobiographical piece of writing. Subsequently, Freud picks up on traits that he sees and admires in Leonardo which are present, or at least which he would like to be present, in himself. A particular quality is Leonardo’s belief that one must fully understand something before having the right to love or hate it, displaying da Vinci’s ability, therefore, to subject his emotions to reflection. Freud does acknowledge that this is not a normal human condition and that people do in fact love impulsively. However, he stresses that perhaps, da Vinci endorsed this somewhat unrealistic notion as a paradigm, as something the human race could (or should?) aspire to. So, it would seem that Freud is putting this idealistic concept into practice in The Moses of Michelangelo, in the way that he stresses that he “must” (my italics) be able to interpret Michelangelo’s intended meaning, in order to allow himself to feel emotionally connected to the statue. This of course is another contradiction, as he has already admitted a strong attachment. However, Freud still feels the need to prove that he is capable of achieving what he sees as a higher, perhaps more civilized state of consciousness gained from consideration and understanding.
So, why is it that Freud holds this obvious suppression of emotion with such high regard? We are aware that he was an extremely creative man: his descriptions of dreams read like short stories, and indeed, his whole career displays his remarkable ability to produce new ideas. Nevertheless, it is possible that sometimes, this creativity was a hindrance. It has been written of Freud that two of his main drives were the quest for self-knowledge and for success. However, particularly whilst studying at university, he often became overwhelmed by his own potential, and his intellectual pursuits and passions were so broad, that they would often cause him to lose focus. As a result, he would reprimand himself for diverging down too many creative routes, believing that a professional man should really put full focus onto his own field, in order to become successful.
To write The Moses of Michelangelo, therefore, was possibly a bit of a treat for Freud, and he openly admits to this when asking for the “reader’s indulgence” in allowing him to explore one of his interests. He wants almost, to be treated like a child, just for the moment while he has his bit of fun, and his rejection of authorship will have also allowed him this kind of freedom.
In the introduction, Freud reveals that he plays at make-believe in the presence of the statue. He writes of the wilful suspension of reality that he undertakes: divulging to the reader how he occasionally creeps around the Moses, before meeting the “angry scorn of the hero’s glance”. He describes how he pretends to be one of the “mob upon whom his eye is turned”, giving way to a sense of thrill and excitement in the game that he is playing. I feel that this displays, partly, a childlike amusement in his lack of professionalism, as the reader can picture the rather comical image of Freud playing hide and seek with the marble Moses. Perhaps though, this sense of thrill also comes from the luxury that he is allowing himself: the act of enjoying the “inscrutable” artwork, which is again a confliction of his supposed initial rebellion against gaining pleasure from anything intellectually bewildering.
Freud did indeed associate art with pleasure, recognizing similar patterns of the build up, transformation and release of energy as he saw in sex, neurosis and jokes:, this being the excitation of tension coupled with the expectation of the release of pleasure. He argued that everything in the body inclines towards this cathartic offloading of pressure, and art promises this initially in the way that it seduces us. The artist flirts with the viewer by providing the origins for this excitation, giving hints as to what their initial impetus to create may have been, and encouraging the viewer to experience this emotion also. However, I do not feel that to compare the process of pleasure and release present in sex and jokes, with that present in works of art is completely accurate. There is no punch line in a work of art. Indeed, if there was a definite, scientific solution to these “unsolved riddles”; some predetermined emotion that the artwork was designed to make every person experience, then the artwork may as well not exist.
The only pleasure that Freud claims to allow himself will, supposedly, come from an interpretation and mastery of the artist’s intentions, but he has already, in the text revealed otherwise. So, he sets about suppressing his bewildering love of the Moses, that he may have unconsciously let slip to the reader, and the battle between the desire to embrace this passion, and the need to explain it, begins. He again, takes on his false persona to claim that he is “not sufficiently well-read to know whether this fact has already been remarked upon”. Freud is clearly referring to Kant, undermining the theory of “some writer on aesthetics”, who suggests “this state of intellectual bewilderment is a necessary condition when a work of art is to achieve its greatest effects”. Kant’s reorganization of teleology in art, the notion of art not necessarily having a predetermined outcome or specifically fixed purpose, is what Freud is rebelling against. Kant proposed that the feeling obtained from a work of art, “is felt along with the overall contemplation of an object in its sensuous detail rather than deduced after a study of its features taken seriatim”. This process of deducing the meaning of an artwork, a dream, a slip of the tongue step by step, to find the “correct” answer, is something that Freud has based his career on, so it is unsurprising that he neglects this philosophy. It is unsurprising too, that Freud’s dreams display a need to be the master, as in the Irma dream which is an apparent wish fulfilment of gaining patients who accept his theories, with open mouths.
However, the pleasure that he appears to be obtaining from the statue, perhaps unconsciously, seems deeper than that of solving a problem. It has been written of the pleasure gained from art, that it is “a release of tensions that take place in our soul”, a pleasure that the artist has supplied by allowing us to perhaps enjoy fantasies of our own without shame. Therefore, maybe the picture Freud paints of himself, often sneaking around the statue and pretending that he is part of the “mob”, is a revelation of his repressed desire to indulge in being naughty. This, along with the way that he also suggests he finds it difficult in his attempts to “support the angry scorn” of his hero, makes me raise the question of what, or who, does the “Law-giver” really embody to Freud?
I feel that one of Freud’s dreams and the analysis of it holds a possible key to this door. Part of the latent content of the dream in question, according to Freud, relates to an event in his childhood when at the age of eight, he had urinated into a pot in his parents’ bedroom. As a result, Freud was made to feel a great amount of shame, and his father, Jakob, made the pessimistic prediction that his son Sigmund would not amount to much. Perhaps then, to meet the angry scorn of the Moses, the “law-giver”, an embodiment of his father, raised repressed feelings of shame in Freud. In his childhood, he was his father’s favourite; therefore to be scolded by him in such a way must have deeply affected the young Freud, and he admits that it was a blow to his ambition. Essentially though, Freud does confess to being aware that there was a ban on relieving oneself in his parents’ bedroom: a ban that he had wilfully disregarded. So, maybe this feeling of defiance, this wilful rejection of authority and self-control is similar to that which he is transferring onto the statue, imagining himself as “the mob, which can hold fast no conviction”.
In the manifest content of this dream, a blind man is present with Freud at a train station. This character represents his father, as Freud recalls that Jakob Freud had glaucoma in one eye. The adult Sigmund is the carer for the blind man, and in the dream he holds a glass for his father to urinate into whilst helping him onto a train. Jakob Freud’s exposed member and decrepit state are visible sources of shame. So, the dream is partly a vengeful wish fulfilment, as the tables have now turned for the naughty Sigmund, and Freud does not have to feel humiliated by his childhood act any longer. Crucially however, the dream also displays the need Freud feels to prove himself to his father. He reveals that the fact that his father is blind in the dream is a manifestation of a reminder to Jakob that his son had aided his father’s recovery from an eye operation with the use of cocaine. This seems to depict Freud’s need to prove to his father that he had been a success within the field of medical science. Therefore, perhaps the contradictions present in The Moses of Michelangelo relate to his feelings towards father figures: the need to prove himself a success versus the wish to rebel against authority.
So, it is after Freud meets the “angry scorn” of his father that he realizes he needs to stop rebelling if he is going to become a success. He must repress this powerful affectation, which is frightening and uncontrollable. The bewildering artwork has stirred feelings in his soul, and allowed him to release tensions in acting out fantasies of putting two fingers up to authority whilst escaping from reality. However, as Freud recalls from his childhood, acts of defiance such as this can only result in blows to his ambition, so the abandonment of self-control encouraged by artists must be replaced by rational explanation. If he were to get to the bottom of what the content of Michelangelo’s work meant, then perhaps Freud would reach the higher state of being of which that Leonardo was capable. However, Freud’s ambitions are indeed so great that he wishes to overtake even the greatest artist and scientist of all. Freud admires da Vinci’s amazing ability to sublimate his sexual drive completely into intellectual pursuits; however, he states that Leonardo’s “urge for knowledge was always directed to the external world”, meaning that he failed to investigate the workings of the human mind. So now, it is up to Freud to sublimate his energy completely in order to give birth to psychoanalysis.
Freud assures bewildered art lovers that “it will not be difficult” to reveal the concealed, essential details that are needed to interpret the statue correctly. These details, apparently, have been overlooked by all other writers on art, causing readings of the Moses to be incredibly diverse and, according to Freud, “curiously inapt”. Now though, it is psychoanalysis to the rescue, just as it saved Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the “mass of differing and contradictory interpretive attempts”, and finally explained the mystery of its effect as being down to the Oedipus theme. Again, by writing this Freud is recognizing his own achievements, and goes on to strive towards a step by step analysis of the Moses, in order to prove himself, and his discovery of psychoanalysis, as a success.
So finally, his reading of the Moses statue is very telling. He completely uproots the common belief of the statue as representing the moment in the Bible story when Moses is about to release his wrath onto the sinners. Freud deduces that it was in fact Michelangelo’s intention for the statue to depict the scene when Moses conversely restrains himself from releasing this emotion, showing a far superior strength of character to that of the Bible story. So, perhaps the “law-giver” is a manifestation of Freud’s father, but also of himself. As a concrete reminder that Freud’s ambition is to achieve the “highest mental achievement that is possible in a man”, and this is to struggle and win against “inward passion”.
This is something that I feel Freud does to an extent, but to look at his entire career, he will always be something of a rebel. He unashamedly talks about sex and its relation to psychological conditions, such as hysteria. He leaves no social taboo untouched in his theories, defying his critics and sceptics, in order to help people, and provide a revolutionary outlook for his creation: psychoanalysis. So maybe it was Freud’s intention for us to notice these playful aspects of his spirit. To pick up the hints he gives to the notion that he enjoys, now and then, turning off his rationalistic side and indulging in games of fantasy and make believe, that great works of art allow us.
Gay p. 357 This means that whilst listening to and analysing patients, focus should not be placed wholly on selected, explicit points, but spread evenly. The analyst, as a result, becomes open to communication and the free associations of the patient, understanding that the unconscious expresses itself in the form of derivatives and coded messages.
Lesley Chamberlain The Secret Artist a Close Reading of Sigmund Freud (Quartet Books, London, 2000) p. 2
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (First Published in 1899, this copy, Penguin Classics, London, 2006) p. 230
