|
Tintorettos, Titians, and Canovas.102 He visited Assisi; in Milan he went to see the Last Supper, and spoke favorably of it.103 At another time he spoke of “comparing memories, the view from the fortress reminded us of Florence, the Fortrezza itself of S. Pietro in Verona.”104 I find it hard to imagine someone more devoted to Italy and Rome than Freud; it must also be said that Freud hardly attempted to avoid Christian art in Italy (if he had, it would have been hard to succeed). In any case, his frequent expressions of appreciation for Christian art would indicate a tolerance for Christianity, if not outright admiration for it.
But Freud’s ambivalence remained. One particular example bears this out in an intriguing manner. Gregory Zilboorg, whose succinct analysis I quote, has identified and commented on this detail: Freud in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life reports how he remembers relating to a fellow train passenger his profound impression of the frescoes in the Duomo [cathedral] of Orvieto. To his amazement, Freud was unable to tell at the moment either the subject matter of the frescoes or the name of the artist. By way of a series of free associations, he finally recalled the name of the master painter, Signorelli. By way of careful self-analysis, he concluded that he had repressed the name because of its first half, Signor, to which he arrived via a number of associations, one of them being the German word Herr. It was a remarkable piece of self-analysis on the part of Freud. Yet what appears not less remarkable is that that piece of psychoanalysis done in 1898…lacked the recognition of what now appears so obvious: Signor is the Italian equivalent of Lord in Church language, as is the German word Herr. Freud saw mainly the formal connections in his associations; he failed to see some of the deeper content of the repressed. It is, for instance, of particular interest that the subject matter of Signorelli’s frescoes in the Orvieto Duomo is The Last Judgment.105 In short, Freud repressed God but admired His paintings. It should also be mentioned that God, who was denied access to Freud’s conscious mind in this incident, occurred here in the very Christian context of a painting of the Last judgment by a Christian artist in Italy, and that Freud was deeply moved by this fresco. Another instance of Freud’s “slipping” with respect to God, again in a decidedly Christian context, has been cited rather often. In a letter to Fliess in February 1899 (a letter in which he immediately afterward spoke of wanting to be in Rome for Easter), Freud wrote: The art of deceiving patients is certainly not very desirable. What has the individual come to, how slight must be the influence of the science of religion, which is supposed to have replaced the old religion, if one no longer dare disclose that it is this man’s or that man’s turn to die.… The Christian at least has the last sacraments administered a few hours in advance. Shakespeare says: “Thou owest Nature a death.”106 |