When I learned that Freud had only lived in the Freud House for the last year of his life, I felt I had been fooled. It seemed like a pattern was emerging. London has been the home and stopping point for many genuises. There is not a street that does not have grand intellectual significance tied to it many times over. Dickens lived on Doughty Street for about the same amount of time Freud lived in Maresfield Gardens. Unfair comparisons twitched through my mind. It's as if I became a big and important person and after my death they started doing tours of Stamford Street!
Of course, the house a man dies in is significant. Freud fled Vienna in 1938 when paying off the Nazis no longer offered security to his family and home. As Freud quoted in "Civilization and its Discontents": homo homini lupus. He was able to take all his belongings with him, including a large selection from his library. His personal collection of over 1600 titles requires a catalogue. Most prominently displayed in his study is a set of the complete works of Goethe. He also had a taste for Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Poe, and Twain. There are numerous book on science and psychology, some even dedicated to him. Many are still sitting on his shelves with the pages uncut.
A salient portion of Freud's library is devoted to books on archaeology, one of his most passionate interests. He surrounded himself with an always growing collection of artifacts. The rich rugs, the fertility figures, the Ancient Egyptian mummy bandages, and more were almost all from his main home in Vienna. They came with him to London and remain in the Maresfield Gardens house, preserved as they were during Freud's year there. When you walk into the British Museum you expect to be surrounded by history. Museum displays can become tedious. Keys to our past are locked away behind glass. The Freud House is not like that. There is a path that visitors are permitted to walk through before the velvet rope indicates not to get one step closer to Freud's couch and buddha figure. Freud lived in a museum of his own making only without the protective glass. That has more impact for me than any museum exhibit, no matter how beautiful, exciting, or intellectually stimulating. Freud's house is a window into his psyche. The experience of being there is visceral. He considered himself an archaeologist of the mind.
In keeping with the no photopraphy policy of the Museum, I took pictures in the bathroom. I wish I had a better shot of the reading material:
Of course, the house a man dies in is significant. Freud fled Vienna in 1938 when paying off the Nazis no longer offered security to his family and home. As Freud quoted in "Civilization and its Discontents": homo homini lupus. He was able to take all his belongings with him, including a large selection from his library. His personal collection of over 1600 titles requires a catalogue. Most prominently displayed in his study is a set of the complete works of Goethe. He also had a taste for Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Poe, and Twain. There are numerous book on science and psychology, some even dedicated to him. Many are still sitting on his shelves with the pages uncut.
A salient portion of Freud's library is devoted to books on archaeology, one of his most passionate interests. He surrounded himself with an always growing collection of artifacts. The rich rugs, the fertility figures, the Ancient Egyptian mummy bandages, and more were almost all from his main home in Vienna. They came with him to London and remain in the Maresfield Gardens house, preserved as they were during Freud's year there. When you walk into the British Museum you expect to be surrounded by history. Museum displays can become tedious. Keys to our past are locked away behind glass. The Freud House is not like that. There is a path that visitors are permitted to walk through before the velvet rope indicates not to get one step closer to Freud's couch and buddha figure. Freud lived in a museum of his own making only without the protective glass. That has more impact for me than any museum exhibit, no matter how beautiful, exciting, or intellectually stimulating. Freud's house is a window into his psyche. The experience of being there is visceral. He considered himself an archaeologist of the mind.
In keeping with the no photopraphy policy of the Museum, I took pictures in the bathroom. I wish I had a better shot of the reading material:
And what better setting for a narcissistic photo shoot into a reflective surface?
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