Sigmund Freud, Sublimation, and the Russian Silver Age Ana Siljak
Sigmund Freud, Sublimation, and the Russian Silver Age Ana Siljak Freud’s lengthiest and most exhaustive exposition of sublimation and its particular relationship to knowledge and creativity is acknowledged to be his Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood, published in 1910. It has been called “fundamental to psychoanalytical thought,” and the “foundational” text on sublimation.1 Freud had already discussed the idea of sublimation – the redirection of sexual impulses away from their original objects and toward “higher” pursuits – in numerous theoretical texts prior to his work on Leonardo. Curiously, however, Freud chose to develop his theory most fully through an idiosyncratic psychological biography of Leonardo Da Vinci. A few explanations have been advanced for Freud’s interest in Leonardo. Leonardo had already been canonized by the nineteenth century as a particular kind of modern genius: a man with a rare combination of dispassionate analysis, an urge to experiment, a daring imagination, and an incredible artistic talent. He inspired Goethe, Kant, and Stendahl to see him as a misunderstood prophet of the Enlightenment. His art was similarly perceived as enigmatic: the Mona Lisa, most probably painted between 1503 and 1506 was, in the nineteenth century, already the iconic painting it is to this day. Writers as diverse as Theophile Gautier, Jules Michelet, and George Sand mused upon its beauty, and, in particular, the “mystery” of the Mona 1 Rossella Valdre, On Sublimation: A Path to the Destiny of Desire, Theory, and Treatment (London: Karnac Books, 2014), 20-22. Bradley Collins notes that dozens of books and articles have been written on this single work.
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