Sublimation and Creativity

The sublimation of sexual instinct is a concept that traverses psyche, civilisation, love, religion, work, art and audience. The aim here is to trace Freud’s development of the concept, its role in civilisation and its psychical origins in man, one man in particular, Leonardo da Vinci, whom, according to Freud, had a great capacity for sublimation. It was through his work with hysterics that Freud first discovered the role sexual impulses play in the causation of neuroses.…