ABSTRACT
Reading Freud’s books led me to see his work on Leonardo da Vinci (1910c), where he put forward an analysis of what he considered to be a disguised image of a bird that could be detected in a classical painting of Leonardo’s. Clearly, this would constitute an expression of an idea of which the artist was unconscious. However, I had also seen other works of art where this enclosed image could be found. If, in some cases, this final image rendered elements from the artist’s unconscious, I also found pictures where the artist displayed these “enclosed images” as an artistic artifice. Salvador Dali has produced several pieces with this ingenious artefact (see, for example, “Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire”, 1940, Plate 1, used by permission of The Salvador Dali Museum, St Petersburg, Florida, USA). It is possible that it was my familiarity with these works that enabled me to spot an example of the use of this particular “language” when seeing the picture made by a young patient during a consultation.
