ON MY SECOND TRIP TO ORVIETO, some fifteen years after the first trip, I found that my focus on Freud made me think constantly about my own psychoanalysis with a traditional Freudian. (My doctor, Albert J. Solnit, worked closely with Anna Freud, as my mother claimed of Richard Karpe. At one time, I assumed that the collaboration that was a certainty in Dr. Solnit’s case was my mother’s mythologizing in Richard’s, although I have since discovered it was true, in spades.) This is why, once I had progressed from my initial reaction to all the naked flesh, I became transfixed by the scene that is the focal point of the complex composition in which Signorelli’s portraits of himself and Fra Angelico occupy the lower left-hand corner. [plate 15] What attracted my attention was an image I took to be of Christ and the devil. It is slightly to the right of the center, at eye level—which is to say toward the bottom—of this fresco, which occupies the large space that has the shape of a horizontal rectangle topped by a half sphere created by the curved vault above it. The fresco has as much going on in it as a Cecil B. DeMille epic, with these two men as the stars of the scene. [plate 16] The mauve and gold of the Christ character’s clothing, and the position of both figures on a pedestal and fairly near the picture plane, contribute to the pair’s preeminence, the way they attract our attention more than any of the other well-articulated figures (I count some 160 in all) in the fresco. But what makes us notice them above all is the sinisterness of their encounter.
Plate 15. Deeds of the Antichrist
AT THIS POINT, I SHOULD EXPLAIN THE WAY I LOOK AT ART. I began loving painting at age ten, when I was at an opening of an exhibition at the Wadsworth Atheneum, the museum in downtown Hartford. My mother, who was a capable painter, had a large watercolor—of the corpse of a pheasant my father had shot—that had won an honorable mention in the show, so it was a major event for our family. But after half an hour, the crustless tea sandwiches and chattering grown-ups made me feel like an alien, and I asked permission to go up the curved staircase, which looked as if it might lead somewhere interesting.
The magical stairs led me to the museum’s permanent collection. I soon happened upon a spectacular late Mondrian—his Composition (No. IV) Blanc-Bleu—a rhythmic interplay of horizontal and vertical black lines of differing widths and precise but offbeat spacing, with a single blue panel on its left-hand side. The painting sent me into the stratosphere. It filled me with joy, and I ran downstairs to get my father, to whom I said I had just found something I loved the way I loved skiing and mountaintops. Dad accompanied me back to the third floor. He commended my taste, saying that he agreed that the painting was beautiful, and said, “Nicky, the artist’s name is Mondrian. We have a book on him at home, if you want to see more of his work in reproductions.” At the moment, life seemed perfect.
Plate 16. Detail of Deeds of the Antichrist
Going to see the paintings that bowled over Freud, I was still the same person, starting with little or no knowledge of what I was looking at and simply responding with the impulses brought on by what I was seeing.
IGNORANT OF THE ACTUAL SUBJECT MATTER OF THE SCENE before me in the Cappella Nova, I took the central figure of the Christ-like figure on a pedestal to be Jesus Himself. Here is the Holy Son, I thought. His bejeweled tunic (the source of the lustrous gold), and his billowing robe (the mauve with a hint of cassis), wrapped over one shoulder, suggested his stature, while his sandals conferred his essential humility. His beard and haunted look made me think the portrait was of Jesus at the end of his earthly life, or possibly in the next stage; his stance on a stone base conveyed the sense of arrival one often sees in the Resurrected Jesus. I was riveted by the way this character I assumed to be Jesus is neck-to-neck with the devil.
I know that part of what got my attention is also that, except for his nasty red horns, the devil resembles me. Like me, he is fair-skinned and bald, with an angular face, full lips, and popping veins visible in his neck. [plate 17]
Even the small bit we see of the devil’s torso, fairly developed and muscular but not of the standards of the guys in some of Signorelli’s other frescoes, is similar to my own. And he looks possessed by thought, with an eagerness and intensity, and bulging eyes, that further my notion that, without those horns, you have a pretty good facsimile of Nick Weber here.
Writing my own name, I am feeling the way Freud did. The visual disappears. For some reason, the confluence of letters that is a name has an odd emotional effect. What happened just now when I put together the letters that constitute, in language, who I am increased my ability to fathom how Freud, after being unable to conjure the name Signorelli for at least two days while he saw the work in his mind’s eye, discovered that, once he remembered it, he could no longer mentally see the painter’s self-portrait.
Plate 17. Detail of Deeds of the Antichrist
When the combination of letters that identifies someone is foremost in our thoughts, the particular personality of the character so identified does not easily coexist with it. I have always had this problem with the name Susie. It has something of my Susie’s grace and femininity, but then, there are many other Susies in the world, so to identify the Susie with their name is a compromise.
Nabokov, of course, made Lolita the exception by taking Humbert Humbert’s inamorata’s name and the music of its sound into new territory. There is only one “Lo.” Perhaps it takes another obsessive to appreciate the brilliance with which that great writer turned his irrationality into art, but I consider it sheer genius: that making of three syllables—low-lee-tuh—so mellifluous as to be intoxicating.
THE DEVIL IS TO OUR RIGHT OF THE FIGURE I assumed to be Christ. We see him in profile, with his lips about two inches from the left ear of Jesus, and he appears to be speaking with nonstop intensity. His proximity to his palpably troubled listener makes us imagine that he is filling Jesus’ ear with hot breath. Jesus is facing us. But his eyes, while cast slightly in the direction of the devil, look off into space. He does not engage, and he appears troubled.
One has the impression that the devil’s bare left arm is penetrating the slinglike fold of Jesus’ mauve robe, and that it is his hand that is in front of Jesus’ navel. Yet that hand is of the same construction and color as Jesus’ right hand—and must surely be His, not the devil’s. If this is so, where is the devil’s left hand? Concomitantly, where is Jesus’ left hand if this is the devil’s? It is as if the devil and Jesus share a limb.
A young Italian man named Andrea drove me from Siena to Orvieto on this second journey to see the Signorellis. Recently married, he told me, on our ride that morning, a lot about the travails of the first year of marriage. He was bright and likable, and we quickly established a rapport. We went into the Cappella Nova together, and I asked him what he thought about the arms. I wanted a reality check from someone bright and astute but untutored in the discipline of art history. He saw the connection of the limbs exactly as I did, agreeing with me that it was impossible to determine to which of the two people the arm in question belonged.
To me, the figure I perceived as Jesus was the embodiment of a psychoanalyst, and the devil the patient. There is no doubt that the patient is confessing evil thoughts, the so-called dark side of the mind. He is desperate for the psychoanalyst to know these thoughts; he is seeking to unburden himself. He is as naked emotionally as he is physically.
The psychoanalyst figure—a stand-in for Dr. Solnit, and also for Freud himself—is taking it all in. What is unclear is whether his intense look of concern is because he disapproves, or because he is intrigued. After I had studied the pair for a few minutes, I concluded that he is tempted by some of what the devil is proffering in the way of experience.
Andrea agreed with my general take on their dialogue, although I left out the psychoanalyst bit. During our conversation in the car, he had been very open about his wife’s jealousy concerning him and other women, her awareness that he apparently had had about half the women of the right age in Siena and the surrounding villages prior to meeting her. He told me repeatedly, with a commitment I found convincing, that, with his illustrious track record behind him, he was determined never to cheat on the woman who was his ultimate love.
Rather, he wanted to father children with her and be faithful and assume a traditional family role. His zeal about his domestic existence equaled the enthusiasm with which he had succumbed to every female temptation up to his engagement to his future wife.
Andrea saw Jesus as being intrigued by the realities of physical lust, listening to the devil attentively (there seemed no doubt to either of us that the devil is discussing sex), while remaining worthy of the pedestal on which he stands. How sympathetic this Jesus seemed to both of us: nonjudgmental, open to the possibilities of things, righteous but not holier-than-thou.
There the comparison between Jesus and Dr. Solnit stopped in my mind. For seven years, whatever I was discussing, I was, of course, unable to see him, since this was a traditional treatment, with me on the couch, facing away from him. In addition, I rarely had any audible response from him. If I wanted him to feel the excitement of a desire I was describing, I had no satisfaction whatsoever. Always, the ball came back to me. Only I, by being truthful to my associations, could understand the meaning of the infatuations and cravings of my youth.
Signorelli’s pair seemed a wonderful fantasy—of the devilish me managing to have my arm going through Dr. Solnit’s tunic. That I might connect with him, excite him with the secrets I was whispering, and bring out his humanness was a dream.
Standing before the fresco, I wondered if Freud, too, could have seen this image of Jesus and the whispering devil as a parable for the doctor-patient relationship.
ONE MIGHT HAVE THOUGHT THAT ANDREA, who served as a sort of tour guide and had grown up with Catholic imagery as part of his everyday life, would have been more accurate than I was concerning the identity of the figure we both discussed as if he were Jesus. I am relieved that an Italian educated in traditional iconography made the same mistake I did.
I have now learned, from my rereading of the Karpes’ text—the precise details of which were not in my mind when I was in Orvieto—and further research, that the significance of the man in the purple robes is that he is actually the Antichrist, not the Jesus Andrea and I assumed him to be. Moreover, his features are those of Luca Signorelli himself.
Freud, the Karpes suppose, knew all of this. I am not so sure. While all the books on Orvieto, even the little flyer handed out at the entrance of the Cappella Nova, make clear that this character is the Antichrist, and, the fact declared, act as if no one could possibly have thought otherwise, I cannot believe that Andrea and I are the only two people ever to have assumed that this gripping encounter is of Jesus Christ Himself embraced by the devil.
After all, having grown up in the culture where mental-health authorities have replaced the mythological and biblical figures who were the deities of previous civilizations, naturally I saw the character I equated with Dr. Solnit, listening to the devilish me exploding about my passions, as a holy man, not a heathen.