In 1910, Sigmund Freud published a rather extensive study on Leonardo da Vinci, his childhood, and the symbols present in his art. The essay did not merely interpret the personality of Leonardo da Vinci but gave a rather clear illustration of what psychoanalysis was and how it was supposed to work. Read on to learn more about Sigmund Freud’s understanding of da Vinci’s oeuvre.
Leonardo da Vinci According to Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud, the legendary psychoanalyst and prolific writer, devoted much of his work to the studies of art and artists. Among his most prominent yet controversial creations was the 1910 essay on Leonardo da Vinci. Titled Leonardo da Vinci: A Memory of His Childhood, the essay studied the nuances of the artist’s early biography and their role in his future work. From the beginning, Freud stated that his intention was not to downplay da Vinci’s genius by uncovering the darkest corners of his mind but to indicate how the same laws of the human mind apply equally to those who are extremely gifted as to regular people.
Freud states that da Vinci was a recognized, respected, and admired painter in his lifetime, yet his scientific research was appreciated only centuries after his death. Freud claims that there was something odd that stood in the way of da Vinci’s contemporaries, something that prevented them from understanding his personality and the wide scope of his interests. Socially and intellectually, da Vinci was no outcast—he was good-looking and socially stable, with a love for good clothes, status symbols, and intellectual pastimes. His combination of talents in arts and engineering was far from unusual in the Renaissance era, which welcomed diverse knowledge.
According to Freud, Leonardo da Vinci deepened the focus on his scientific research after his patron, the Duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza, was imprisoned. Forced to flee Milan, da Vinci almost abandoned art and focused on chemistry (then closely associated with alchemy), studies of anatomy through dissection (a practice still frowned upon in his time), and experiments with plants and poisons. His neglect of art probably led to the loss of some of his painted works.
Leonardo da Vinci generally had a tendency to work slowly and abandon many of his works halfway through. According to Giorgio Vasari, da Vinci needed four years to finish the iconic Mona Lisa. Moreover, he never managed to deliver the portrait to its commissioner, leaving it in his studio.
Leonardo worked his way through, making dozens of preparatory sketches for each element. Sometimes, he could spend days painting, and sometimes, he could abandon the work for months without concern for a commissioner’s demands. Such a pace did not allow him to work with traditional fresco painting, which required applying pigment to a layer of wet plaster on a wall. For that reason, he painted The Last Supper with oil paint.
Freud noted the calm indifference and gentleness in da Vinci’s personality, which sometimes contradicted his actions (for instance, he condemned war and killing but nonetheless worked as a military advisor who designed weapons).
Of particular interest to Freud was the artist’s proclaimed indifference, if not repulsion, to sexuality. Indeed, his many anatomical drawings contained errors that could only be explained by deliberately ignoring reality and avoiding close observation. For him, personal relationships with women were non-existent. As for Leonardo’s alleged homosexuality, Freud noted that the rumors of it could have been spread by da Vinci’s enemies, yet nonetheless addressed it in his later paragraphs.
According to Freud, da Vinci’s indifference to personal relationships could be explained by his insatiable need for knowledge. He rejected anything impulsive, looking for weighted rationalization of things. The external world occupied his mind much more than the internal one of feeling and emotion. Freud claimed that da Vinci sublimated all his sexual desires and impulses into research.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Family
Freud believed that all peculiarities in da Vinci’s life and art could be explained by his childhood experiences and family structure. Born an illegitimate child to a peasant woman, he spent the first three years of his life with his mother. Later on, his biological father, a prominent notary, officially adopted the boy after learning his wife could not have children. Thus, Leonardo da Vinci grew up with two mothers.
His father was rather indifferent and had no role in the boy’s upbringing, giving the boy away to his own father and his young wife. Here, Freud draws a parallel between Da Vinci’s relationship with his father and his way of working. Just like the father, obsessed with wealth and status, who essentially abandoned his son despite formally adopting him, da Vinci abandoned his artworks halfway finished.
The motif of two mothers was present in one of da Vinci’s most prominent works: the painting The Virgin with Child with Saint Anne. A rare painting that featured both the Virgin Mary and her mother Anne, according to Freud, provided insights into da Vinci’s psychology. Despite being a generation apart, Mary and Anne look the same age. This might be a hint to the two most important mother figures in the artist’s life – his biological mother and the young wife of his grandfather. Moreover, in the drapes of Anne’s clothing, Freud recognized a silhouette of a vulture, which allegedly had particular significance for the artist.
The Vulture Memory
Da Vinci almost never mentioned his childhood, except for an unexpected brief note in one of his scientific notebooks that Freud paid extra attention to. While describing a flight of vultures, he suddenly interrupted himself to recall what he believed to be one of his earliest memories. When he was an infant lying in a cradle, a vulture approached him, opened his mouth with its tail, and struck the boy on the lips several times.
Freud believed that the inherent strangeness of this memory indicates that it was, in fact, a fantasy and re-interpretation of some other events. He noted that early childhood memories had a tendency to remain unstable—augmented and distorted by later life experiences. Still, these false memories were vital to psychoanalysis, as they allowed us to reconstruct the person’s way of thinking and the key points of their development.
Freud interpreted the vulture’s tail as both a phallic symbol and a distant memory of da Vinci being breastfed by his mother as the first act of achieving pleasure in someone’s life. These distinctive memories showed da Vinci as a homosexual man, if not in action, then at least in his inclination.
While analyzing the vulture as a symbol, Freud goes on to mention that in Egyptian culture, vultures symbolize motherhood. For centuries, it was believed that male vultures did not exist, with female birds being impregnated by wind. Thus, da Vinci allegedly compared himself to a vulture child growing up without a father. According to Freud, the first five years da Vinci spent with his biological mother had a formative influence on him. The vulture symbol could also relate to Leonardo da Vinci’s sexuality. Once again discussing Egyptian symbols, Freud mentioned that the vulture-headed goddess Mut was usually depicted as a woman with a penis.
Due to da Vinci’s family situation, Freud assigned his opposition to a father figure as the main moving force in the artist’s life. In his later years, he found a father figure in the Duke of Milan, for whom he created outstanding works. Despite the lack of funds, da Vinci was known to lead a luxurious life. This Freud also explains by the idea of competing and overpowering his affluent indifferent power. Still, the permanent pressure and the need for competition later in da Vinci’s life resulted in a sort of intellectual regression. From the proactive and creative position of an artist, according to Freud, da Vinci transformed himself into a passive and detached figure of a researcher.
Was Sigmund Freud Actually Right?
Freud’s account looked quite convincing to his contemporaries. However, as years went by, experts on da Vinci and Renaissance Italy started to notice inconsistencies and misinterpretations. The simplest and the most obvious mistake was mentioned to Freud by one of his friends, and greatly upset the author who understood that the entire theory was falling apart.
As it turned out, Freud fell victim to the correct translation of da Vinci’s notes. Instead of a vulture, the artist mentioned a kite—another bird of prey, smaller and lighter, frequent to the area where da Vinci lived. Thus, the theory of Egyptian symbols and the Goddess Mut became entirely absurd. Moreover, most experts on da Vinci do not agree that the young artist stayed with his biological mother until the age of five. There is enough documentary evidence to suggest that he was adopted during the first year of his life, once again dissolving Freud’s theory of a vulture child.
