Freud - Complete Works (475 page)

   One or two writers, without
actually accepting the Golden Calf theory, do nevertheless agree on
its main point, namely, that Moses is just about to spring to his
feet and take action.

   According to Grimm, ‘The
form’ (of Moses) ‘is filled with a majesty, a
self-assurance, a feeling that all the thunders of heaven are at
his command, and that yet he is holding himself in check before
loosing them, waiting to see whether the foes whom he means to
annihilate will dare to attack him. He sits there as if on the
point of starting to his feet, his proud head carried high on his
shoulders; the hand under whose arm the Tables rest grasps his
beard, which falls in heavy waves over his breast, his nostrils
distended and his lips shaped as though words were trembling upon
them.’

   Heath Wilson declares that
Moses’ attention has been excited, and he is about to leap to
his feet, but is still hesitating; and that his glance of mingled
scorn and indignation is still capable of changing into one of
compassion.

   Wölfflin speaks of
‘inhibited movement’. The cause of this inhibition, he
says, lies in the will of the man himself; it is the last moment of
self-control before he lets himself go and leaps to his feet.

   Justi has gone the furthest of
all in his interpretation of the statue as Moses in the act of
perceiving the Golden Calf, and he has pointed out details hitherto
unobserved in it and worked them into his hypothesis. He directs
our attention to the position of the two Tables - an unusual one,
for they are about to slip down on to the stone seat.
‘He’ (Moses) ‘might therefore be looking in the
direction from which the clamour was coming with an expression of
evil foreboding, or it might be the actual sight of the abomination
which has dealt him a stunning blow. Quivering with horror and pain
he has sunk down.¹ He has sojourned on the mountain forty days
and nights and he is weary. A horror, a great turn of fortune, a
crime, even happiness itself, can be perceived in a single moment,
but not grasped in its essence, its depths or its consequences. For
an instant it seems to Moses that his work is destroyed and he
despairs utterly of his people. In such moments the inner emotions
betray themselves involuntarily in small movements. He lets the
Tables slip from his right hand on to the stone seat; they have
come to rest on their corner there and are pressed by his forearm
against the side of his body. His hand, however, comes in contact
with his breast and beard and thus, by the turning of the head to
the spectator’s right, it draws the beard to the left and
breaks the symmetry of that masculine adornment. It looks as though
his fingers were playing with his beard as an agitated man nowadays
might play with his watch-chain. His left hand is buried in his
garment over the lower part of his body - in the Old Testament the
viscera are the seat of the emotions - but the left leg is already
drawn back and the right put forward; in the next instant he will
leap up, his mental energy will be transposed from feeling into
action, his right arm will move, the Tables will fall to the
ground, and the shameful trespass will be expiated in torrents of
blood. . . .’ ‘This is not yet the
moment of tension of an act. Pain of mind still dominates him and
almost paralyses him.’

  
¹
It should be remarked that the careful
arrangement of the mantle over the knees of the sitting figure
invalidates this first part of Justi’s view. On the contrary,
this would lead us to suppose that Moses is represented as sitting
there in calm repose until he is startled by some sudden
perception.

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   Knapp takes the same view, except
that he does not introduce the doubtful point at the beginning of
the description, and carries the idea of the slipping Tables
further. ‘He who just now was alone with his God is
distracted by earthly sounds. He hears a noise; the noise of
singing and dancing wakes him from his dream; he turns his eyes and
his head in the direction of the clamour. In one instant fear, rage
and unbridled passion traverse his huge frame. The Tables begin to
slip down, and will fall to the ground and break when he leaps to
his feet and hurls the angry thunder of his words into the midst of
his backsliding people. . . . This is the moment of
highest tension which is chosen. . . .’ Knapp,
therefore, emphasizes the element of preparation for action, and
disagrees with the view that what is being represented is an
initial inhibition due to an overmastering agitation.

   It cannot be denied that there is
something extraordinarily attractive about attempts at an
interpretation of the kind made by Justi and Knapp. This is because
they do not stop short at the general effect of the figure, but are
based on separate features in it; these we usually fail to notice,
being overcome by the total impression of the statue and as it were
paralysed by it. The marked turn of the head and eyes to the left,
whereas the body faces forwards, supports the view that the resting
Moses has suddenly seen something on that side to rivet his
attention. His lifted foot can hardly mean anything else but that
he is preparing to spring up;¹ and the very unusual way in
which the Tables are held (for they are most sacred objects and are
not to be brought into the composition like any ordinary accessory)
is fully accounted for if we suppose they have slipped down as a
result of the agitation of their bearer and will fall to the
ground. According to this view we should believe that the statue
represents a special and important moment in the life of Moses, and
we should be left in no doubt of what that moment is.

   But two remarks of Thode’s
deprive us of the knowledge we thought to have gained. This critic
says that to his eye the Tables are not slipping down but are
‘firmly lodged’. He notes the ‘calm, firm pose of
the right hand upon the resting Tables’. If we look for
ourselves we cannot but admit unreservedly that Thode is right. The
Tables are firmly placed and in no danger of slipping. Moses’
right hand supports them or is supported by them. This does not
explain the position in which they are held, it is true, but that
position cannot be used in favour of the interpretation of Justi
and others.

   The second observation is still
more final. Thode reminds us that ‘this statue was planned as
one of six, and is intended to be seated. Both facts contradict the
view that Michelangelo meant to record a particular historical
moment. For, as regards the first consideration, the plan of
representing a row of seated figures as types of human beings - as
the
vita activa
and the
vita contemplativa
- excluded
a representation of a particular historic episode. And, as regards
the second, the representation of a seated posture - a posture
necessitated by the artistic conception of the whole monument -
contradicts the nature of that episode, namely, the descent of
Moses from Mount Sinai into the camp.’

  
¹
Although the left foot of the reposeful
seated figure of Giuliano in the Medici Chapel is similarly raised
from the ground.

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2852

   If we accept Thode’s
objection we shall find that we can add to its weight. The figure
of Moses was to have decorated the base of the tomb together with
five other statues (or according to a later sketch, with three).
Its immediate counterpart was to have been a figure of Paul. One
other pair, representing the
vita activa
and the
vita
contemplativa
in the shape of Leah and Rachel - standing, it is
true - has been executed on the tomb as it still exists in its
sadly aborted form. The Moses thus forms part of a whole and we
cannot imagine that the figure was meant to arouse an expectation
in the spectator that it was on the point of leaping up from its
seat and rushing away to create a disturbance on its own account.
If the other figures were not also represented as about to take
violent action - and it seems very improbable that they were - then
it would create a very bad impression for one of them to give us
the illusion that it was going to leave its place and its
companions, in fact to abandon its role in the general scheme. Such
an intention would have a chaotic effect and we could not charge a
great artist with it unless the facts drove us to it. A figure in
the act of instant departure would be utterly at variance with the
state of mind which the tomb is meant to induce in us.

   The figure of Moses, therefore,
cannot be supposed to be springing to his feet; he must be allowed
to remain as he is in sublime repose like the other figures and
like the proposed statue of the Pope (which was not, however,
executed by Michelangelo himself). But then the statue we see
before us cannot be that of a man filled with wrath, of Moses when
he came down from Mount Sinai and found his people faithless and
threw down the Holy Tables so that they were broken. And, indeed, I
can recollect my own disillusionment when, during my, first visits
to San Pietro in Vincoli, I used to sit down in front of the statue
in the expectation that I should now see how it would start up on
its raised foot, dash the Tables of the Law to the ground and let
fly its wrath. Nothing of the kind happened. Instead, the stone
image became more and more transfixed, an almost oppressively
solemn calm emanated from it, and I was obliged to realize that
something was represented here that could stay without change; that
this Moses would remain sitting like this in his wrath for
ever.

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2853

   But if we have to abandon our
interpretation of the statue as showing Moses just before his
outburst of wrath at the sight of the Golden Calf, we have no
alternative but to accept one of the hypotheses which regard it as
a study of character. Thode’s view seems to be the least
arbitrary and to have the closest reference to the meaning of its
movements. He says, ‘Here, as always, he is concerned with
representing a certain type of character. He creates the image of a
passionate leader of mankind who, conscious of his divine mission
as Lawgiver, meets the uncomprehending opposition of men. The only
means of representing a man of action of this kind was to
accentuate the power of his will, and this was done by a rendering
of movement pervading the whole of his apparent quiet, as we see in
the turn of his head, the tension of his muscles and the position
of his left foot. These are the same distinguishing marks that we
find again in the
vir activus
of the Medici Chapel in
Florence. This general character of the figure is further
heightened by laying stress on the conflict which is bound to arise
between such a reforming genius and the rest of mankind. Emotions
of anger, contempt and pain are typified in him. Without them it
would not have been possible to portray the nature of a superman of
this kind. Michelangelo has created, not a historical figure, but a
character-type, embodying an inexhaustible inner force which tames
the recalcitrant world; and he has given a form not only to the
Biblical narrative of Moses, but to his own inner experiences, and
to his impressions both of the individuality of Julius himself, and
also, I believe, of the underlying springs of Savonarola’s
perpetual conflicts.’

   This view may be brought into
connection with Knackfuss’s remark that the great secret of
the effect produced by the Moses lies in the artistic contrast
between the inward fire and the outward calm of his bearing.

   For myself, I see nothing to
object to in Thode’s explanation; but I feel the lack of
something in it. Perhaps it is the need to discover a closer
parallel between the state of mind of the hero as expressed in his
attitude, and the contrast above-mentioned between his
‘outward’ calm and ‘inward’ emotion.

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2854

II

   Long before I had any opportunity
of hearing about psycho-analysis, I learnt that a Russian
art-connoisseur, Ivan Lermolieff,¹ had caused a revolution in
the art galleries of Europe by questioning the authorship of many
pictures, showing how to distinguish copies from originals with
certainty, and constructing hypothetical artists for those works
whose former supposed authorship had been discredited. He achieved
this by insisting that attention should be diverted from the
general impression and main features of a picture, and by laying
stress on the significance of minor details, of things like the
drawing of the fingernails, of the lobe of an ear, of halos and
such unconsidered trifles which the copyist neglects to imitate and
yet which every artist executes in his own characteristic way. I
was then greatly interested to learn that the Russian pseudonym
concealed the identity of an Italian physician called Morelli, who
died in 1891 with the rank of Senator of the Kingdom of Italy. It
seems to me that his method of inquiry is closely related to the
technique of psycho-analysis. It, too, is accustomed to divine
secret and concealed things from despised or unnoticed features,
from the rubbish-heap, as it were, of our observations.

   Now in two places in the figure
of Moses there are certain details which have hitherto not only
escaped notice but, in fact, have not even been properly described.
These are the attitude of his right hand and the position of the
two Tables of the Law. We may say that this hand forms a very
singular, unnatural link, and one which calls for explanation,
between the Tables and the wrathful hero’s beard. He has been
described as running his fingers through his beard and playing with
its locks, while the outer edge of his hand rests on the Tables.
But this is plainly not so. It is worth while examining more
closely what those fingers of the right hand are doing, and
describing more minutely the mighty beard with which they are in
contact.²