From Leonardo’s Mother to Motherwell

How to recognize what is happening and what is being realized in a work of art – in this case Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin, the Child and St Anne – such is the topic of investigation in this essay. Analysis of our relations to this masterpiece and to its structural organisation leads to discussion of the psychobiographical interpretation developed by Freud and, from this, to another perspective : that of transforming our individual debates and combats throughout the collective history of our culture.