Freud’s Italian Renaissance

15 May-22 May 2024

Freud Museum London

London NW3 5SX

Overview

Explore the roots and repurcussions of Freud’s fascination with the Italian Renaissance in an online course over two weeks with the Freud Museum's Research Manager, Tom DeRose.

This course is taking place online only. The course will take place on Wednesdays, 16:00 – 18:00 GMT. All registrants will receive a Zoom Link in their confirmation email from Eventbrite after booking. All registrants will also receive access to the recording after each course. This event is held as a Zoom Webinar and participants will not be visible.

Whilst Freud surrounded himself with antiquities from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, when it came to more recent examples of the visual arts, it was the Italian Renaissance that most captured his imagination. From his absorption in the Signorelli Frescos in Orvieto, which became the subject for the first chapter of The Psychology of Everyday Life, to the hours spent in contemplation of Michelangelo’s sculpture of Moses in Rome, Freud was fascinated with the puzzles and enigmas that he saw in Renaissance art.

This course will examine Freud’s fascination for the Italian Renaissance, focussing primarily two key texts: Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood and ‘The Moses of Michelangelo’. We will contextualise Freud’s readings of Renaissance figures by exploring the sources he drew on, analyse his arguments with close readings of the texts, and discuss his findings in the light of thinkers such as Aby Warburg and Gilles Deleuze and artists such as Francis Bacon.

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Week 1 (15/05/24) – Freud and Leonardo: Memories, Sexuality and Sublimation
Week 2 (22/05/24) – Freud and ‘The Moses of Michelangelo’: Figures, Conflicts and Ambivalence

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The course will be delivered online by the Freud Museum’s Research Manager Tom DeRose and will focus on Freud’s two most significant engagements with Renaissance art, Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood, and ‘The Moses of Michelangelo’.

Readings will be circulated in advance of each session.

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