Freud on Leonardo

St. John's androgenous image
Freud attributed the mysterious smile in that picture to having found the secret of love, which he keeps from the observer.  ..."It is possible," Freud concluded this section, "that  . . . Leonardo has denied the unhappines of his erotic life and has triumphed over it in his art., by representing the wishes of the boy, infatuated with his mother, as fulfilled in this blissful union of the male and female natures."  23

father's influence (2)
Freud also reports that once Leonardo completed a painting, he ceased to care about it--a repetition of his father's early absences.

[many arguments against Freud]
e.g. Schapiro -- " I believe this study of Freuds book points to weakness which will be found in other works by psychoanalsis in the cultural fields: the habit of building explanations of complex phenomena on a single datum and the too little attneion given to history and social situation in dealing with individuals and even with individuals and even with the origin of customs, beliefs and institutions.