Freud - Complete Works (477 page)

The Moses Of Michelangelo

2860

   I have procured from the hand of
an artist three drawings to illustrate my meaning. Fig. 3
reproduces the statue as it actually is; Figs. 1 and 2 represent
the preceding stages according to my hypothesis - the first that of
calm, the second that of highest tension, in which the figure is
preparing to spring up and has abandoned its hold of the Tables, so
that these are beginning to slip down. Now it is remarkable how the
two postures in the imaginary drawings vindicate the incorrect
descriptions of earlier writers. Gondivi, a contemporary of
Michelangelo’s, says: ‘Moses, the captain and leader of
the Hebrews, is seated in the attitude of a contemplative sage,
holding the Tables of the Law under his right arm, and leaning his
chin on his left hand(!), as one who is weary and full of
care.’ No such attitude is to be seen in Michelangelo’s
statue, but it describes almost exactly the view on which the first
drawing is based. Lübke writes, together with other critics:
‘Profoundly shaken, he grasps with his right hand his
magnificent, flowing beard.’ This is incorrect if we look at
the reproduction of the actual statue, but it is true of the second
sketch (Fig. 2). Justi and Knapp have observed, as we have seen,
that the Tables are about to slip down and are in danger of being
broken. Thode set them right and showed that the Tables were
securely held by the right hand; yet they would have been correct
if they had been describing not the statue itself but the middle
stage of our reconstructed action. It almost seems as if they had
emancipated themselves from the visual image of the statue and had
unconsciously begun an analysis of the motive forces behind it, and
that that analysis had led them to make the same claim as we have
done more consciously and more explicitly.

The Moses Of Michelangelo

2861

III

   We may now, I believe, permit
ourselves to reap the fruits of our endeavours. We have seen how
many of those who have felt the influence of this statue have been
impelled to interpret it as representing Moses agitated by the
spectacle of his people fallen from grace and dancing round an
idol. But this interpretation had to be given up, for it made us
expect to see him spring up in the next moment, break the Tables
and accomplish the work of vengeance. Such a conception, however,
would fail to harmonize with the design of making this figure,
together with three (or five) more seated figures, a part of the
tomb of Julius II. We may now take up again the abandoned
interpretation, for the Moses we have reconstructed will neither
leap up nor cast the Tables from him. What we see before us is not
the inception of a violent action but the remains of a movement
that has already taken place. In his first transport of fury, Moses
desired to act, to spring up and take vengeance and forget the
Tables; but he has overcome the temptation, and he will now remain
seated and still, in his frozen wrath and in his pain mingled with
contempt. Nor will he throw away the Tables so that they will break
on the stones, for it is on their especial account that he has
controlled his anger; it was to preserve them that he kept his
passion in check. In giving way to his rage and indignation, he had
to neglect the Tables, and the hand which upheld them was
withdrawn. They began to slide down and were in danger of being
broken. This brought him to himself. He remembered his mission and
for its sake renounced an indulgence of his feelings. His hand
returned and saved the unsupported Tables before they had actually
fallen to the ground. In this attitude he remained immobilized, and
in this attitude Michelangelo has portrayed him as the guardian of
the tomb.

   As our eyes travel down it the
figure exhibits three distinct emotional strata. The lines of the
face reflect the feelings which have won the ascendancy; the middle
of the figure shows the traces of suppressed movement; and the foot
still retains the attitude of the projected action. It is as though
the controlling influence had proceeded downwards from above. No
mention has been made so far of the left arm, and it seems to claim
a share in our interpretation. The hand is laid in the lap in a
mild gesture and holds as though in a caress the end of the flowing
beard. It seems as if it is meant to counteract the violence with
which the other hand had misused the beard a few moments ago.

   But here it will be objected that
after all this is not the Moses of the Bible. For that Moses did
actually fall into a fit of rage and did throw away the Tables and
break them. This Moses must be a quite different man, a new Moses
of the artist’s conception; so that Michelangelo must have
had the presumption to emend the sacred text and to falsify the
character of that holy man. Can we think him capable of a boldness
which might almost be said to approach an act of blasphemy?

The Moses Of Michelangelo

2862

   The passage in the Holy
Scriptures which describes Moses’ action at the scene of the
Golden Calf is as follows: (Exodus xxxii. 7) ‘And the Lord
said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou
broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: (8)
They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded
them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it,
and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O
Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (9) And the
Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a
stiff-necked people: (10) Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath
may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will
make of thee a great nation. (11) And Moses besought the Lord his
God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people,
which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great
power, and with a mighty hand? . . .

   ‘(14) And the Lord repented
of the evil which he thought to do unto his people. (15) And Moses
turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the
testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their
sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. (16) And
the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of
God, graven upon the tables. (17) And when Joshua heard the noise
of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise
of war in the camp. (18) And he said, It is not the voice of them
that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry
for being overcome; but the noise of them that sing do I hear. (19)
And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he
saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot,
and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the
mount. (20) And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it
in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the
water, and made the children of Israel drink of
it. . . .

   ‘(30) And it came to pass
on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a
great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall
make an atonement for your sin. (31) And Moses returned unto the
Lord, and said, Oh! this people have sinned a great sin, and have
made them gods of gold! (32) Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their
sin-; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou
hast written. (33) And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath
sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. (34) Therefore
now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto
thee. Behold, mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless, in the
day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them. (35) And the
Lord plagued the people, because they made the calf which Aaron
made.’

The Moses Of Michelangelo

2863

   It is impossible to read the
above passage in the light of modern criticism of the Bible without
finding evidence that it has been clumsily put together from
various sources. In verse 8 the Lord Himself tells Moses that his
people have fallen away and made themselves an idol; and Moses
intercedes for the wrongdoers. And yet he speaks to Joshua as
though he knew nothing of this (18), and is suddenly aroused to
wrath as he sees the scene of the worshipping of the Golden Calf
(19). In verse 14 he has already gained a pardon from God for his
erring people, yet in verse 31 he returns into the mountains to
implore this forgiveness, tells God about his people’s sin
and is assured of the postponement of the punishment. Verse 35
speaks of a visitation of his people by the Lord about which
nothing more is told us; whereas the verses 20-30 describe the
punishment which Moses himself dealt out. It is well known that the
historical parts of the Bible, dealing with the Exodus, are crowded
with still more glaring incongruities and contradictions.

   The age of the Renaissance had
naturally no such critical attitude towards the text of the Bible,
but had to accept it as a consistent whole, with the result that
the passage in question was not a very good subject for
representation. According to the Scriptures Moses was already
instructed about the idolatry of his people and had ranged himself
on the side of mildness and forgiveness; nevertheless, when he saw
the Golden Calf and the dancing crowd, he was overcome by a sudden
frenzy of rage. It would therefore not surprise us to find that the
artist, in depicting the reaction of his hero to that painful
surprise, had deviated from the text from inner motives. Moreover,
such deviations from the scriptural text on a much slighter pretext
were by no means unusual or disallowed to artists. A celebrated
picture by Parmigiano possessed by his native town depicts Moses
sitting on the top of a mountain and dashing the Tables to the
ground, although the Bible expressly says that he broke them
‘beneath the mount’. Even the representation of a
seated Moses finds no support in the text and seems rather to bear
out those critics who maintain that Michelangelo’s statue is
not meant to record any particular moment in the prophet’s
life.

The Moses Of Michelangelo

2864

   More important than his
infidelity to the text of the Scriptures is the alteration which
Michelangelo has, in our supposition, made in the character of
Moses. The Moses of legend and tradition had a hasty temper and was
subject to fits of passion. It was in a transport of divine wrath
of this kind that he slew an Egyptian who was maltreating an
Israelite, and had to flee out of the land into the wilderness; and
it was in a similar passion that he broke the Tables of the Law,
inscribed by God Himself. Tradition, in recording such a
characteristic, is unbiased, and preserves the impression of a
great personality who once lived. But Michelangelo has placed a
different Moses on the tomb of the Pope, one superior to the
historical or traditional Moses. He has modified the theme of the
broken Tables; he does not let Moses break them in his wrath, but
makes him be influenced by the danger that they will be broken and
makes him calm that wrath, or at any rate prevent it from becoming
an act. In this way he has added something new and more than human
to the figure of Moses; so that the giant frame with its tremendous
physical power becomes only a concrete expression of the highest
mental achievement that is possible in a man, that of struggling
successfully against an inward passion for the sake of a cause to
which he has devoted himself.

   We have now completed our
interpretation of Michelangelo’s statue, though it can still
be asked what motives prompted the sculptor to select the figure of
Moses, and a so greatly altered Moses, as an adornment for the tomb
of Julius II. In the opinion of many these motives are to be found
in the character of the Pope and in Michelangelo’s relations
with him. Julius II was akin to Michelangelo in this, that he
attempted to realize great and mighty ends, and especially designs
on a grand scale. He was a man of action and he had a definite
purpose, which was to unite Italy under the Papal supremacy. He
desired to bring about single-handed what was not to happen for
several centuries, and then only through the conjunction of many
alien forces; and he worked alone, with impatience, in the short
span of sovereignty allowed him, and used violent means. He could
appreciate Michelangelo as a man of his own kind, but he often made
him smart under his sudden anger and his utter lack of
consideration for others. The artist felt the same violent force of
will in himself, and, as the more introspective thinker, may have
had a premonition of the failure to which they were both doomed.
And so he carved his Moses on the Pope’s tomb, not without a
reproach against the dead pontiff, as a warning to himself, thus,
in self-criticism, rising superior to his own nature.

The Moses Of Michelangelo

2865

IV

   In 1863 an Englishman, Watkiss
Lloyd, devoted a little book to the Moses of Michelangelo. I
succeeded in getting hold of this short essay of forty-six pages,
and read it with mixed feelings. I once more had an opportunity of
experiencing in myself what unworthy and puerile motives enter into
our thoughts and acts even in a serious cause. My first feeling was
one of regret that the author should have anticipated so much of my
thought, which seemed precious to me because it was the result of
my own efforts; and it was only in the second instance that I was
able to get pleasure from its unexpected confirmation of my
opinion. Our views, however, diverge on one very important
point.