The Angel in the Flesh

Leonardo's Angel in the Flesh went on display for the first time in the great exhibition on Leonardo's Bridges organised by Sweden in order to celebrate its entrance into the European Community in 1993 and 1994. Sigmund Freud's explanation of the bridge in 1932 justified the presence of this drawing in the context of that exhibition as the true focal point of it together with the Lady with an Ermine. As such, it was in fact given much attention by the media, making the first page of newspapers. And since it was all too easy to recognize the appearence of the demoniacal Salai - the handsome boy, object of Leonardo's presumed homosexual attentions - in this singular blasphemous image in the nude, the Swedish exhibition was to include another novelty, the counterpart of the same character in the painting of a Dressed-up Salai in the Alos Foundation, wich Janie Anderson was to relate to the one by Leonardo recorded in 1528 in the fabulous collections of Cardinal Grimani in Venice. The painting of the Alos Foundation, better than any other one, is an eloquent visual comment to Freud's perceptive and prophetic observations in his famous essay on Leonardo's childhood of 1910. He conveyed his idea on the character and appearance of the young Salai only by visualizing his glance, unaware of Leonardo's drawings portraying the favored pupil, which Emil Moller studied in 1928. Nor did he know the Angel in the Flesh, dressed-up only with a veil, which, far from concealing it, enhances the penis in turgid erection.